British food safety and competition regulators are “struggling to recruit and retain the skills they need to regulate effectively” post-Brexit, according to a Westminster committee of MPs.

Food safety is at risk because of skilled worker shortages and loss of access to vital data bases, a report says and experts’ ability to assess threats to public is being impeded by constraints.

Brexit fears prompt more than 50 firms to move registrations away from the UK.

UK is ‘moving from a situation where we are a key player in all of this to an almost passive bystander with much less control over what goes onto the shelves’, says Prospect chief. / Harmful chemicals including bee-killing pesticides, skin irritants and hormone disruptors could be allowed into the UK following Brexit, experts have cautioned.