FOOD SAFETY
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Everyone has a direct interest in the safety and
quality of food. We are all consumers of food, and each one of
us brings our concerns to bear on it, be they to do with price;
nutritional quality; diet; and ethical and religious concerns
about methods of food production. Food is a universal requirement.
It should be nourishing and wholesome, and it is uniquely worrying
when food is positively harmful. This anxiety is accentuated because,
although no age group is exempt from the effect of unsafe food,
young children and the elderly are most vulnerable to food poisoning.
There are other complex concerns, such as the importation of food
from ever further afield, the length of the distribution chain,
the increased role of technology and processing, and the use of
techniques of genetic modification in food production.
2. The political sensitivity of the food safety issue
is illustrated in the continued ability of BSE to dominate the
political and public agenda. During the course of our inquiry
it was evident that there was polarisation between the views of
some sections of the industry and some sections of public opinion
in attitudes towards food safety and the lengths to which the
Government, industry and public should go to protect the food
chain. At one end of the spectrum, some witnesses pointed to the
statistically small chances of an individual becoming seriously
ill as a result of eating contaminated food as compared with many
other risks accepted in public policy, and also pointed to the
lack of proven causal links between some of the possible contaminants,
for example pesticides, and illnesses. At the other end of the
spectrum, other witnesses regarded the food chain as a public
asset worthy of absolute protection, even if there was no proven
causal link between potential contaminants, be they sewage sludge
on agricultural land, pesticides or genetically-modified foodstuffs,
and illness. The middle ground recognised both the validity of
public concern and the need for a sound scientific base for food
safety policy. Successive misjudgements of the scale of the food
safety problem and the depth of public concern, most notably in
the BSE disaster, have exacerbated the task now facing the Government's
proposed Food Standards Agency.
3. In the last decade the safety of food has never
been far from the forefront of political and public consciousness.
Yet the combined efforts of central and local government, and
all those involved throughout the food chain, have failed to reduce
the incidence of food poisoning or to increase public confidence
in the safety of food. Fresh legislative controls, primarily through
the Food Safety Act 1990, and the promulgation of best food hygiene
practice throughout the food production and processing industries,
appear to have done little to stem the rise in notified food poisoning
cases in England and Wales between 1987 and 1997, from 58.3 cases
per 100,000 population to a provisional figure of 179.6 cases[1].
The total rates of Salmonella food poisoning in humans
have remained fairly stable since the late 1980s[2],
but this conceals a worrying increase in outbreaks associated
with strains of Salmonella typhimurium DT104 showing resistance
to antibiotics[3]. At the
same time, two other pathogenic micro-organisms are causing increasing
numbers of food poisoning cases: Campylobacter and the
rarer, but more serious verocytotoxin- producing Escherichia
coli O157. Potentially most alarming of all is the probable
link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and new variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nv CJD). Against this background of
major food safety problems are ranged a wide variety of other
concerns about potential and actual risks. Some of these concerns,
for example about levels of pesticides in food, are durable; others
are more ephemeral, connected often with particular food products
or substances contained in food. One of many examples would be
the concerns over patulin in apple juice which arose in 1993.
4. The result has been a demand for a wholesale structural
and cultural reform of Government food safety policy to improve
the safety and quality of food and to re-establish public confidence
in food, by the creation of a powerful new Government Agency to
assume responsibility for all aspects of food safety and standards
policy. Such an Agency, it is argued, provided it has an appropriate
structure, powers and working methods, would transform the debate
about food, by resolving many of the problems which have beset
Government food policy in the past. In particular, it is claimed
that an Agency would be able to overcome the main weaknesses which
have characterised food policy:
(i) division of responsibilities:
responsibility for food safety and standards policy is split (or
shared) between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
(MAFF) and the Department of Health (DoH). Important roles are
played by the Government's expert advisory committees, the Public
Health Laboratory Service, and three of MAFF's Executive Agencies,
the Meat Hygiene Service, the Pesticides Safety Directorate and
the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, as well as the territorial
agriculture and health departments. Enforcement of most food hygiene
legislation is carried out at local authority level. The Department
of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and the Environment
Agency (EA) also have significant responsibilities bearing upon
the safety of food and water.
(ii) conflict of interests: particularly
in the case of MAFF, it has been alleged that Government food
safety policy has been compromised by the Ministry's dual role
as sponsor of food industries and guardian of food safety. Dr
Erik Millstone of the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University,
for example, argued that: "When those two policy objectives
have come into conflict MAFF has repeatedly subordinated consumer
protection to commercial and industrial sponsorship"[4].
(iii) lack of openness: there is
a widespread perception that Government decision-making processes
in relation to food safety have not been open and transparent
in the past and that, whether for commercial or political reasons,
the Government has failed to make clear to the public the true
nature and extent of a variety of food safety problems over recent
years.
5. Before the 1997 general election Rt Hon Tony Blair
MP, then Leader of the Opposition, commissioned Professor Philip
James, Director of the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, to
prepare a report setting out a blueprint for a Food Standards
Agency. The establishment of an Agency was a Labour Party manifesto
commitment, and, on taking office, the new Government published
the James Report[5] for
consultation. Within MAFF a new Food Safety and Standards Group
was established, bringing together disparate sections of the Ministry
concerned with food safety issues. At the conclusion of the consultation
on the James Report, MAFF declared that the responses indicated
"widespread public support" for a Food Standards Agency[6].
The Government continued its preparations by establishing a Joint
Food Safety and Standards Group, composed of MAFF and DoH officials,
and drawing up a White Paper, eventually published on 14 January
1998[7]. A further round
of consultation has taken place on the White Paper, and the Government
intends to publish a draft bill for scrutiny during this parliamentary
Session, with the bill itself to be introduced in the 1998-99
Session. MAFF has the lead responsibility for this process, in
close consultation with the Department of Health and the interdepartmental
Ministerial Group on Food Safety[8].
6. In our own work on food safety in this inquiry,
and in our plans for future work on the subject, we have been
constantly mindful of the need to co-ordinate our own timetable
with that of the Government, in order to be of the maximum possible
assistance to the House in the period during which pre-legislative
consultations on the proposed Food Standards Agency have been
taking place. It is important to be clear about the approach we
have adopted, so we wish to describe it in some detail.
7. We published our terms of reference on 30 July
1997, asking for evidence on:
- recent trends in the incidence of bacterial food
poisoning in the UK, and the effectiveness of the system of notifying
cases of food poisoning;
- significant gaps in current scientific understanding
of, and statistical information on, food safety issues, and measures
which could be taken to reduce these gaps;
- the level of food safety risk at all stages of
the human food chain, including
- on farm (agricultural practices, including
use of feedingstuffs, agrochemicals and veterinary medicines)
- in transit (the transportation of live animals,
meat, animal products and other agricultural produce)
- at slaughter (hygiene standards at abattoirs)
- in the food processing industry
- in the food retail sector
- in the catering industry
- in domestic households (including the adequacy
of the provision of information to the general public on food
safety matters through labelling and advice on the storage and
preparation of food)
and the appropriateness of the methods and resources
employed to minimize food safety risk at the various points of
the food chain;
- any food safety implications of the presence
of genetically-modified organisms in the human food chain, and
the desirability and feasibility of labelling foodstuffs containing
genetically-modified organisms[9].
8. We would emphasize a number of points about our
terms of reference, our subsequent conduct of the inquiry, and
the scope and purpose of this Report:
(a) our inquiry has been primarily into food
safety, not into issues of nutrition and health. This
does not reflect any underestimation, on our part, of the significance
of nutrition for long-term health. Nor should it be taken to imply
that we consider that nutritional policy and advice should be
excluded from the FSA's remit. Our views on this issue are set
out in paragraphs 87 to 89 of this Report. We have concentrated
on food safety because the relationship between nutrition and
health is a DoH, not a MAFF, responsibility, and therefore falls
to the Health Committee to consider;
(b) in relation to food safety, we have focused
on the question of microbiological hazards. In our judgement,
apart of course from BSE which is the subject of a separate judicial
inquiry, this is the issue on which there is most public concern,
and which is the main demonstrable cause of foodborne illnesses
and, indeed, deaths. In practical terms, too, we have not had
the time to examine the issues surrounding policy on the wide
range of non-microbiological food safety hazards in great detail,
although we give some consideration to pesticides and genetically-modified
organisms in paragraphs 47 to 51 below. Those seeking further
information on these and other hazards are referred to the written
evidence which we have received;
(c) in chronological terms, our oral evidence
programme was divided into two sections, before and after the
publication of the Government's White Paper. In the first part,
we would loosely define the purpose of the sessions as to obtain
information on the food safety problems which the FSA will have
to address. During the second period, we have continued to gather
such information, but we have also begun to identify the main
questions which need to be examined and resolved in order to ensure
that the FSA is as effective as possible. On publication of the
White Paper, we wrote to all those who had already submitted written
evidence to our inquiry, asking them if they wished to add to
their comments in the light of the White Papers' proposals. We
have been anxious at all times to avoid any possibility of duplicating
the Government's own consultation on the White Paper. The two
phases of evidence-gathering in this inquiry are reflected in
the structure of this Report: in Section II we examine the underlying
problems of food safety which the FSA will have to address, and
in Section III we consider the Government's proposals for an Agency.
9. The purpose of this Report is to provide a bedrock
of information for the House in its continuing scrutiny of the
proposals to establish a Food Standards Agency, both in the pre-legislative
stages and when the bill itself is before Parliament next Session.
We hope to carry out "pre-legislative scrutiny" of the
draft Food Standards Agency bill when it is published later this
year, along the lines set out by the Select Committee on Modernisation
of the House of Commons[10].
We will, however, undertake such pre-legislative scrutiny only
if we are convinced that we have sufficient time to perform it
effectively. We would welcome any comments, from Members and
others, as to how we might best undertake scrutiny of the draft
Food Standards Agency bill.
10. There is broad support for the establishment
of a Food Standards Agency, and we wish to see such an Agency
working successfully and effectively. However, we would be doing
a disservice to the House, to consumers and to the agricultural
and food industries if we took it as axiomatic that the establishment
of such an Agency would solve all existing food safety and standards
problems. There are tenable arguments to the effect that many
improvements could be made without radical transformation of the
current system for handling food safety, although such an approach
would not deal with the issues of public confidence. Similarly,
the existence of an Agency will not magically resolve the complex
scientific and political judgements which characterize food safety
policy. Some would argue, returning to first principles, that
the actual extent of food safety problems in the UK is much exaggerated,
and that this results in a disproportionate allocation of resources
to dealing with food safety. This is not a view we share, but
we have not wished to get bogged down in the arguments in principle
for and against an Agency, which will be considered by the House
as a whole when the bill is introduced next Session.
11. The critical reaction from some quarters to decisions
taken by the Government to protect public health shows that there
is always a balance to be struck between the level of risk, public
perception of that risk and the proportionality of action taken.
In our view, the main challenge which the FSA will face is
in establishing its credibility with the public, as swiftly as
possible. The Agency must not only make our food safer, but be
seen to do so. It must also ensure the correct balance between
advice and enforcement. This will require it to set clear priorities
for its actions in its first years of existence. The onus on the
Government will be to ensure that the FSA will be properly financed,
well managed and effectively led.
12. In our inquiry we received around 150 memoranda,
and the majority of these are published in a separate volume to
this Report, together with the transcripts of the ten oral evidence
sessions which we held. During our inquiry we also made visits
to the Meat Hygiene Service headquarters at York, a cattle abattoir
near York, the Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association
at Chipping Campden, a broiler producer in Nottinghamshire and
a Tesco's supermarket in Lincoln. Abroad, we held discussions
with European Commission officials in Brussels and United States
Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration officials,
consumer and industry representatives in Washington, and visited
a poultry processing plant in Maryland and Zeneca's US operation
in Delaware. We are most grateful to all those who assisted us
informally and formally in the course of this inquiry.
13. Our two specialist advisers in this inquiry have
been Dr Mike Stringer, Director of the Food Science Division at
the Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association, and Professor
Ronald Walker, Professor of Food Science at the School of Biological
Sciences, University of Surrey. The expertise of our advisers
has been invaluable to us throughout this inquiry.
1
Ev p 102; Appendix 94 Back
2
Ev p 103; Appendix 94 Back
3
Ev pp 107-8 Back
4
Appendix 51 Back
5
Food Standards Agency: an interim proposal by Professor Philip
James, 30 April 1997 Back
6
MAFF News Release 224/97, 30 July 1997 Back
7
The Food Standards Agency: a force for change, Cm 3830,
January 1998 Back
8
HC Deb, 20 May 1997, col 34w Back
9
Agriculture Committee Press Notice No. 2, Session 1997-98, 30
July 1997 Back
10
First Report from the Select Committee on Modernisation of the
House of Commons, Session 1997-98, The Legislative Process,
HC 190 Back
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