Someone's Telling Porkies: Defra Response to FSA Lies, and the Disappearing CBD Complaint
- Aug 8
- 9 min read
An Open Letter to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) who are either hiding, or misrepresenting, data relating to a complaint against their handling of CBD Novel Foods
Dear Defra,
On 17/06/25, your office received seven questions submitted on my behalf through Rebecca Smith MP.
These relate to an ongoing complaint process (C06) against the Food Standards Agency’s handling of CBD Novel Foods, and raise concerns about regulatory bias, anti-competitive behaviour, and the formation of a cartel market.
The questions were:
Are ministers aware of a complaint concerning the FSA’s handling of the CBD Novel Foods process (C06), which raises concerns about regulatory bias and the formation of a cartel market?
Are ministers aware that Miss Emily Miles, Director General, Food Biosecurity and Trade, was part of the process whilst CEO of the FSA in 2024?
Are ministers aware that the FSA hid the fact that an employment agency worker, Philip Randles, the former FSA Head of Resilience, was used to manage that complaint rather than to investigate it?
Are ministers aware that despite the FSA publishing yearly complaint reports, the escalation process, which was presided over and completed by Miss Miles, has not been documented appropriately in the 2024 report, specifically in Table 2: Responded to by the Chief Executive, which shows no data for that year?
Would Defra confirm whether it is standard practice for serious complaints, made in the public interest, to be managed by employment agency workers, and for departments to omit complaint escalation data from their annual reporting structures?
Can Defra confirm whether Miss Miles, during her tenure at the department prior to becoming CEO of the FSA, held any meetings or had any involvement with GW Pharmaceuticals or related stakeholders (British Sugar, The Home Office, BEIS, Reading University, Steve Moore) in relation to CBD or cannabis regulation?
Can Defra confirm whether Miss Miles continues to receive updates or hold any informal advisory influence over the CBD Novel Foods process, despite no longer serving as Chief Executive of the FSA?
Your response (MC2025/13405/FA) only seems to address question 4, which I find somewhat concerning.
Clarifying the Claim
I’d like to address the first claim in your letter.
You stated that the FSA is not part of Defra.
But, what does the “F” stand for in Defra?
The FSA is sponsored by Defra, reports to ministers via your department, and remains under your oversight and accountability mechanisms.
With respect, I ask that you clarify or correct your statement.
If the FSA operates autonomously with no government oversight, then the public deserves to know , because that would effectively make the FSA unaccountable to Parliament, and the people it’s meant to serve. The reason for that is because it would suggest that the FSA is more a business tool rather than a government agency that functions with consumer safety in mind.
And if that were the case, it would go a very long way in proving several points that were raised in my complaint against the FSA handling of CBD Novel Foods.
The Misrepresentation of the Complaint (and Its Disappearance)
The intent is to walk you through the facts behind the FSA's provable lies, and Defra's response
Before continuing, I need to raise a serious concern: there is a persistent and troubling rumour that Paul Tossell, former Head of CBD Novel Foods, was removed from his position for failing to be forthright with the FSA Board about the true status of that process.
If that’s true, then we have a deeper problem, because if he wasn’t honest with the FSA Board, was he also misleading the industry caught up in that very same process?
This isn’t just hypothetical. I have direct evidence from the FSA that Mr Tossell was involved in handling my complaint, despite being named within it.
Not only that, he was also allowed to review the final response to check it for ‘factual inaccuracies.’ That is a clear conflict of interest and a breach of basic complaint handling protocol.
But here’s where it escalates: I now fear the same pattern may have extended to Defra.
If the FSA, or Miss Miles, has misrepresented facts to your department in the same way they potentially misled their own Board and the industry, then we are no longer just talking about poor complaint management, we are talking about systemic deception.
And if senior figures within the FSA are willing to mislead internal governance structures, external stakeholders, and their own sponsoring department, then it’s not just the complaint that needs investigating, it’s the legitimacy of the regulator itself.
Evidence
You were advised that my complaint was included in the FSA’s 2022 Annual Complaints Report.
That is incorrect.
No complaints related to CBD are listed in Q1 or Q2 2022 as being processed by the FSA’s complaints team, CEO, or through any formal structure.
The complaint was submitted in mid-July 2022 (Q2), yet is not acknowledged in that quarter’s figures.
A generic mention appears under “8 cases”: CBD, cooked beef burgers, tackling obesity, and animal welfare. So, 5 at most are related to CBD, and that's important as I have the FSA Head of Complaints stating that the FSA dealt with 6 'enquiries' at the point they initially responded to my complaint in May 2023.
That’s not a formal record, it’s a footnote, with no stats, outcomes, or context.
If my complaint is in there, one that alleged regulatory bias, cartel creation, and anti-competitive market control, it was marked BAU (Business As Usual).
But if that's the case, is that appropriate considering the gravity of the complaint?
BAU – A Shield From Transparency
The FSA began using BAU in May 2021, the same time they stopped publishing FOI responses, and just after they began processing CBD Novel Foods applications that did not meet their own 2020 guidelines.
BAU gives the FSA, or any other government department, the ability to sidestep transparency obligations.
But, if my complaint was BAU, then:
Why did it take 2 years to resolve?
Why was it handled by the CEO (Miss Miles)?
Why did it trigger GDPR breach issues and the exposure of a misrepresented third-party contractor, Mr Randles, by the FSA Head of Complaints?
Business as Usual? That would suggest 'nothing unusual'. The reality is quite the opposite, which then raises the question of whether any of those cases are attributed to C06.
And if it is in that number, why are the FSA diminishing the complaint on the false basis of it being BAU?
It clearly isn't, and that's before describing the full extent of that complaint outside that which has already been listed.
To note: The original use of “Business As Usual” was during wartime, a deliberate attempt to maintain public calm while the world collapsed around them.
So the question is this: What war, exactly, is the FSA trying to normalise?
Against transparency, perhaps?
If that is the case, it's interesting that it started at a time that is significant for CBD Novel Foods. That is provable through the 2021 FSA FOI report, which, other than a modified response on 17/06/21, shows an abrupt stop in releasing FOI responses from May of that year.
That means that the last FOI responses published were submitted in April 2021, just after the FSA had started adding CBD products onto their public list that according to their own rules, did not qualify for the CBD Novel Food process.
The Escalation Vanishes – And So Do the Records
Let’s walk through the report timeline:
2022 Report: No formal record of my complaint in Q2. One complaint shown referred to the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman (PHSO), but I only went to them this year.
The FSA does suggest that they have, or were processing up to 5 complaints regarding CBD, but no actual outcomes or context is given, and that's despite the Head of complaints indicating prior to the end of Q2 in 2023, that an investigation started on 08/12/22 had reviewed 6 'enquiries' in total.
That raises a question regarding C06, whether the 5 potential CBD related BAU cases, suggested in this report, revised to 6 definite cases in the 2023 report, also have a 'C' prefix, and whether there were specific instructions for labelling CBD related complaints as BAU.
2023 Report: One complaint is logged as responded to by the CEO, and marked as “partially upheld”.
Mine was “not upheld.”
Emily Miles Escalation Final Response - May 2024 If the CEO complaint was mine, it means the outcome was decided before I met with the FSA in March 2024.
The Wayback Machine confirms the entry referring to a CEO-level complaint was added in September 2023, long before that meeting.
6 complaints are confirmed regarding CBD, but they are not added to this report until 2024, and again, no context was given, nor any indication to the outcome.
Despite the Wayback Machine showing the 2023 report being updated in 2024 and 2025, the FSA current page only shows three updates within 7 days after it was initially published on 05/09/2023.
2024 Report: It says the CEO dealt with zero complaints that year.
But my final response was issued in May 2024.
No breakdown of outcomes in the complaint report. No description. Just a flat denial that anything happened both here and in the 2023 report.
Of note: The 5 complaints suggested as related to CBD in 2022, which was revised to 6 and are mentioned in the 2023 and 2024 reports, are followed by a list of subject areas relating to the BAU complaints. But again, there are no mentions of cartel market, monopoly protection, food crimes, or conflicts of interests. So the FSA can include what has been reported, but they have not with my complaint.
And, most importantly, the 2024 reports show that there were no CBD related complaints in 2023 or 2024.
This is either an administrative black hole, or a cover-up. Either way, it’s not acceptable.
The Bigger Concern: Is Miss Miles Still Managing Policy?
Your letter casually referred to “Emily Miles' office”, but she no longer serves as CEO, so what exactly does that refer to?
Was that meant to imply she has an independent office outside the FSA?
Was my complaint, during escalation, processed outside the FSA’s reporting structures?
And if so, who is accountable for her decisions?
If Miss Miles is still influencing policy, despite no longer being FSA CEO, then the public deserves to know, especially given her role in shaping CBD Policy and enabling Home Office interference that continues to damage the hemp and CBD industry to this day.
So Let Me Ask:
Would an escalation process, one that was reviewed at CEO level, ever be considered “just another BAU case”?
Because at best, that’s what the FSA are suggesting, but then, when it comes to the escalation data, it clearly is not represented in the 2023 datasets.
And if that’s the case, let’s consider what that really means:
Would a complaint that uncovered regulatory abuse, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation be considered routine?
Would the FSA routinely misrepresent a third-party worker, their former Head of Resilience, as an internal staff member, just to investigate a BAU case?
If the FSA can include topic matters for BAU complaints for 2023 and 2024, why have they not added mine in the 2023 dataset reported in the 2024 report where they say it's represented?
In Light of The Facts Behind the FSA Lies and Defra Response
I request that Defra urgently reviews this situation.
This complaint is not a personal grudge. It’s a warning sign that:
The FSA is engaged in anti-competitive behaviour
Serious complaints are being hidden behind internal classifications
There is no reliable audit trail for complaints and escalations
As an ex-Member point of Contact for the CTA where I advised hundreds of companies, a founder of an agency that represents hemp and CBD companies, and a recognised industry stakeholder, I have:
A duty of care to those I have advised, and those I represent
A duty of care to the industry as a whole
A duty to inform regulators of concerns that affect the industry
A duty to escalate those issues if there is any doubt that the regulator is not taking those concerns seriously
And, a duty to inform the public of those issues, should the need arise.
I have been in this industry since 2016, and I take those duties very seriously.
Final Word
If this is what happens to a public-interest complaint against a regulator, how can any member of the public, or industry, trust that regulator again? And, I have proof, not just that the complaint was submitted in the public interest, but also that the FSA through the Head of Complaints, and the FSA through the escalation process, tried to redefine my complaint outside of that context.
There was no such agreement: The Head of Complaints asked that the complaint was moved out of the public interest because of the potential impact it could have on FSA workers, but this was refused due to Mr Tossell initially dismissing actionable evidence of wrong-doing that led to the complaint submission.
A question was raise regarding his adherence to the Civil Service Code, but considering the management of the complaint and those involved, there is a suggestion that to Code itself has been thrown out of the window.
That's more so the case when the Head of Complaints allowed Mr Tossell the chance to check the initial complaint response for 'factual inaccuracies', and the associated GDPR breaches through the misrepresentation of Mr Randles
Furthermore, how can the public trust Defra’s oversight if the don't own the department they sponsor?
If this issue is not dealt with, and say, ends up in a situation where you have no choice but to disclose our conversations, and any happening behind closed doors with, say, the FSA and/or Miss Miles, how will that look for Defra?
That of course fails to consider the possibility of Defra knowingly dismissing an issue, or whether it's shown that a line from the FSA and/or Miss Miles has been passed on with no due diligence. I sincerely hope this is reviewed, and the issues outlined above are addressed.
Yours sincerely
The Hemp Hound Agency
Comments