House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Jul 1999 (pt 33)

10.10 pm

Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): Like my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), I have real concerns about the Bill's financial implications. It is right that we should have the opportunity this evening of scrutinising what the Government have done.

We join the Government in welcoming both the Food Standards Agency in itself and the principle that lies behind it. We believe that it is right that its main objective should be protecting the public from food risks. However, the initial decision to impose a flat-rate charge to fund the agency was ridiculous. It is only right that it should have been dropped, thanks, to a large degree, to pressure from the Opposition. The thought that small shops should be penalised for the hefty annual levy was unsustainable. I am amazed that the Government came up with the notion in the first place, and I am delighted that they have been persuaded to drop it.

We were to have an agency that would be part funded by the very people on whom the agency might later pass judgment. That would have undermined its integrity. I congratulate my Front-Bench colleagues on having pointed out the difficulties. They initiated a petition, raised a popular move against that way of funding the agency, and persuaded the Government to fund it out of taxation.

Despite the removal of the fundamental problem with the way the agency was to be funded, I have three fundamental concerns about the financial aspects of the agency. There may be--I use "may" carefully--a worrying conflict when it comes to the funding of the Labour party by sectors within the food and drink industry. After all, the agency will regulate those very sectors, and the people within them may be making substantial contributions to the Government party.

When the Minister replies, I hope that she will tell us whether some sort of register of interests will be set up for the FSA, declaring who is making contributions to the Labour party among those whom it is attempting to regulate--

Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying a long way from the motion. His remarks are interesting, but I would be grateful if he would confine himself to the motion.

Mr. Gray: I shall do so, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will. I am following his remarks very carefully. I have allowed him a great deal of latitude but he must now contain himself.

Mr. Gray: I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker, for your latitude. There were important points to make, but I accept what you have said.

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The most fundamental and central worry about the financial aspects of the Bill concerns devolution. If the Scots want to run their own food policy, fine. It is up to them. However, surely it is only right that they should pay for it. Why should English taxpayers subsidise a Scottish Parliament that is able to alter the advice of the Food Standards Agency? Visitors to Scotland will potentially be eating food that has not been prepared in the same way or to the same high standard as food that they would expect to eat south of the border--I am not referring only to haggis.

We are all well aware of the Scottish Parliament's tax-raising powers. If the Government are to insist on devolution when it comes to FSA advice, and if it is right that the Scottish Parliament should be given the right to ignore and breach the principle of the agency's being a UK body, let the Scottish Parliament raise its own funds to pay for that Scottish advice.

As so often when it comes to devolution, the Government's approach is entirely inconsistent. It is extraordinary that they are proposing to set up advisory committees for Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland, but not for England. That is odd. The Linlithgow question raises its ugly head time and time again when it comes to devolution. Here we have it with the Food Standards Agency. Why should there be advisory committees for the three other nations but not one for England? If the Food Standards Agency is to be set up simply as an advisory committee for England, the Minister must say so tonight and end the pretence that there is to be a single UK body.

Why should the English taxpayer be expected to foot the bill for setting up all those committees, when none of them will be accountable to this Parliament? Why should my constituents in North Wiltshire pay for the Scottish advisory committee, when that committee will not be accountable to them through me, their representative in Parliament, or my fellow English Members of Parliament?

If we are to have an annual debate in Parliament on the annual report of the Food Standards Agency, who will answer for the Government and who will be responsible for the agency as a nationwide body? No one. The Minister will be able to answer only for the agency and its work in England. There is a substantial anomaly which I hope that the Minister will deal with when he winds up the debate.

My third concern about the agency serves as a word of warning for business in a wider sense. The Institute of Directors reported today that the Government have already cost British businesses at least £5 billion. Although I welcome the fact that the agency will be funded out of general taxation, I hope that the Chancellor will not be able to change his mind about that in future. It is important that the Minister should confirm that the method of funding the agency is now set in stone, and that at no stage in the future may the Chancellor once again introduce a levy on business. Furthermore, I hope that the Food Standards Agency will not go on to increase costs unreasonably for those involved in food production, on whom there is already a heavy burden.

The Government's natural inclination seems to be to introduce taxes by stealth. I am glad that we persuaded them to drop the stealth tax on corner shops and food retailers. None the less, the Bill has many financial implications that worry the Opposition considerably.

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10.17 pm

Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): I support the questions posed by my hon. Friends the Members for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray).

The resolution before the House is somewhat unexpected. On 21 June, the House passed a money resolution couched in the ordinary terms, which provided the necessary parliamentary cover for the expenditure incurred by the agency under the Bill, should it be enacted, and also provided cover for expenditure incurred by Ministers under the Bill, should it be enacted. Now we face a Ways and Means resolution which provides for the cover necessary to pay money into the Consolidated Fund.

Therefore, my first question to the Minister is why, at this late stage of the Bill's passage through the House, it is necessary for the House to be asked to pass a Ways and Means resolution, when apparently it was not necessary to pass a Ways and Means resolution at the time of or before the money resolution. The relationship between the money resolution and the Ways and Means resolution needs to be clarified. Why are we being asked to pass a Ways and Means resolution tonight?

I understand, because of course I had consultations before the debate, that this has something to do with new clause 8. All right. I have read new clause 8. The House will expect the Minister to tell us why new clause 8 is triggering a Ways and Means resolution. What is it about new clause 8 that triggers a Ways and Means resolution? I do not understand.

I shall be interested to know, too, why late in the day and in Committee, new clause 8 was tabled when, so far as I can see, there was a perfectly serviceable clause 39. One of the questions that we expect the Minister to answer is why new clause 8 has been tabled now, when we had a perfectly serviceable clause 39, which has been taken out of the Bill. Why?

That leads us to the question set out by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire regarding money. We have asked why; now I want to ask where the money is coming from and how much.

Where is the money coming from? I expect the Minister to tell the House in detail and in respect of each head of expenditure--to which, Madam Speaker, I shall come in a moment--whether it is additional money or existing money within programmes that is being transferred over. If the latter, am I right in supposing that there will be a public expenditure survey transfer? The House is entitled to an answer on that matter.

Critical to all that--a point that was made by my hon. Friends the Members for South-East Cambridgeshire and for North Wiltshire--is how much money is involved. A useful guide to that difficult calculation is to be found in the speech made by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 21 June. At that stage, he itemised the agency's functions and I have nothing against them. I would have skinned the cat in a slightly different way, but I am perfectly willing to accept that he has a perfectly good case in favour of the Food Standards Agency.

I have nothing against the agency, but I should like to know how much each of its functions will cost. That is pure curiosity--parliamentary control, it is called--but when I read Hansard I find no estimate of any kind of how much it will cost. That is lamentable. Indeed, the

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money resolution was taken on the nod, without Ministers vouchsafing an assessment of cost, so this is the opportunity for those on the Treasury Bench to tell us how much. I recommend the Minister to follow me as we go through the functions, because each head of expenditure deserves to be separately costed.

In the third paragraph of column 787, we find the Minister setting out the appointments, the creation of the board, the payment of board members and the necessary infrastructure. How much will that cost, pray? Is new money involved or will the money come from an existing programme? Will there be a PES transfer? At the bottom of column 787 one finds the bald statement:

"The agency's functions lie at the core of the Bill."