VII MISCELLANEOUS
The European and International Dimension
84. The Agency will have to develop appropriate links
with central government, devolved authorities and local authorities
in order to carry out its activities effectively. It must not
however be thought that the Agency has no wider remit, or no requirement
to operate farther afield than the United Kingdom, nor that it
need not look outside the United Kingdom for advice and assistance
in some areas. Many of our witnesses—the Government included—stressed
to us the extent to which food safety is not just a national,
but an European and international matter. Labelling legislation,
for example, is still governed by an EU Directive that many consider
to be very outdated.[135]
The activities carried out by the MHS, which as we have seen is
to come under the aegis of the Agency, are set out by the EU.
The WTO is beginning to take a similar lead in international food
matters. The drawing up of the Codex Alimentarius adds
another level to this extra national dimension to food safety
and standards.[136]
If the work of the Agency is to be fully effective then the Government
must ensure that in negotiations with the WTO on food issues it
stresses that food safety and standards should be paramount.
85. The European and international dimension is touched
upon directly in the Bill only once. Clause 20 of the draft Bill
gives the Secretary of State power to direct the Agency with regard
to European and international treaty obligations. This power is
also to be exercised as appropriate by the devolved authorities.
The Agency is to be consulted, and the direction shall be published
at the directing authority considers appropriate. The notes on
this Clause stress that these are reserve powers in the—presumably—unlikely
case that the Agency has not already taken steps to fulfill the
UK's obligations in this regard.[137]
86. The White Paper contains a number of important
references to EU obligations in particular,[138]
and the explanatory notes to the draft Bill also add a little
more information to the picture. With reference to the functions
of the Agency under Clause 9, the explanatory notes point out
that the Agency "will...represent the UK at working level
in relevant EU and international fora".[139]
With reference to Clause 15 of the Bill, covering the Agency's
specific powers in its monitoring of enforcement action, the explanatory
notes to subsection (6) refer to an authorised person when entering
premises to be accompanied by another person, that person, for
example, possibly being "an official of the European Commission".[140]
87. It is only to be expected that the draft Bill
should provide for the Agency's obligatory remit with regard to
EU and international obligations—that this should be so
is made abundantly clear in the White Paper. There are however
a few areas in which the Government may wish to expand upon the
Agency's international context. Many countries—both within
and without the EU—have established agencies similar to
that proposed for the UK. It will be of enormous benefit to the
Agency—and hopefully also to its international counterparts
—to establish some formal or informal contacts, to learn
from each other administratively, but also perhaps to pool research
and information on matters relating to food safety and standards.
It is obvious that government in considering the form of the
Agency, has had some regard to other models for food safety or
standards agencies, but it is less clear that local authorities,
for example, share this knowledge of potentially instructive international
comparisons. It would be enormously beneficial if the Agency could
take a lead in establishing links not just between it and fellow
agencies but between representatives of local government enforcement
bodies in the UK and similar enforcement bodies abroad. Such contacts
could be seen as clearly advantageous in the context of the globalisation
of food safety and standards issues. It might not be appropriate
for such a matter to feature upon the face of a Bill, but it should
certainly be a matter that is made a priority for the Agency upon
its establishment, and that should feature in its annual report
and statement of general objectives and practices.
88. There is also one particular matter, first raised
by the National Food Alliance in oral evidence before us, but
also pointed out to us in some written submissions, that was not
afterwards cleared up in oral evidence with ministers to our satisfaction.[141]
It is clearly beneficial that the Agency should have its officials
representing the Government in European or appropriate international
discussions: indeed MAFF's competency with regard to participation
in such discussions will disappear on vesting day. However, the
Agency's independence, as provided for in this draft Bill, will
allow it to issue advice to the public that is perhaps not accepted
by the Government in the formulation of certain of its policies.
Those policies, contrary to Agency advice, will sometimes form
the subject of discussions in Europe or at the WTO, and at which
Agency officials will have to push the Government line rather
than the Agency's line. This appears— at least superficially—to
compromise the independence of the Agency in this one important
regard, and it also allows for the possibility of the Government's
policy being compromised by independent officials who consider
that policy to be unsound. It is important that the Government
clarify how such Agency activity will operate when there is a
clear and public difference of opinion between the Agency and
the Government on a matter which the Agency is having to pursue
on behalf of the Government in European or international fora.
Research
The role of the Agency: research in the draft
Bill
89. The role of the Agency as foremost provider of
advice and information to both Government and the public is key
to the success of the Agency in establishing confidence in itself
and in the food chain. The transparency of this role—as
already discussed—is vital. However the content of the advice
and information provided by the Agency must also be of the very
highest standard for such confidence to be maintained. The Agency
has an obligation to ensure that it receives information concerning
developments in the area of food safety and standards, and that
it keeps itself abreast of the state of the science in this area.
This duty is set out in Clause 12 of the draft Bill. Much of this
advice and information will of course come from its own advisory
committees and from those committees outside its structure but
which report to it. Clause 12 also allows the Agency to "seek
advice from other scientific experts as necessary".[142]
90. This same Clause provides for the Agency to develop
its own scientific understanding—outwith its advisory committees—by
undertaking or commissioning its own research. As part of this
activity, indeed as part of its carrying out of its general functions,
the draft Bill proposes to empower the Agency to carry out "observations"
by "undertaking surveillance programmes....at any point in
the food production and supply chain, and anywhere else there
might be implications for food safety and related matters".[143]
This power will of course be of great assistance in permitting
the Agency to carry out a very wide and important range of activity
to fuel its research programme.
The size of the Agency's research budget
91. Taken together, Clauses 12 and 13 go a long way
to giving the Agency a strong hand in ensuring its position at
the forefront of research into food safety and standards, and
thus likewise ensuring its position as the premier source of advice
and information on these matters, such advice and information
only properly being built on good research. However a number
of concerns have been raised over a few areas connected with research
matters. Most concern centres on the size of the Agency's own
research budget, and its capacity either to carry out its own
research or to sponsor research carries out by other bodies or
individuals. The White Paper gives a figure of £25 million
as the likely annual budget for Agency research on vesting day.[144]
This figure represents the total cost of research projects currently
undertaken by MAFF (£19 million[145])
or to a much lesser extent by DoH (£6 million[146])
which have been identified as those that would be transferred
to the Agency on its vesting day. The Minister for Food Safety
in oral evidence to us acknowledged that if anything that figure
has now fallen to closer to £23 million due to research cuts
in MAFF.[147]
92. Professional scientists and academics consider
this size of research budget insufficient for a national agency
that is intended to have national and international scientific
authority sufficient for it to hold people's confidence and to
influence debate. Moreover, with regard to much of this budget,
in the short term the Agency's hands will be tied. As the Minister
explained in oral evidence to us, most of the research to be transferred
is tied to three year contracts—some of the contracts will
end shortly after vesting but much of it will not finish until
two or three years into the Agency's life.[148]
The ability of the Agency to commission research even up to the
low limit of £23 million will be inhibited until three years
after vesting day, and in the years before that the amount of
research that the Agency will be able to commission will be derisory
indeed. Given the importance of the Agency's research capability
to its independence and influence, this is clearly unsatisfactory.
We are concerned that in the long term the Agency will no doubt
seek to use funds from the levy to augment its research programmes,
and indeed will seek to increase the levy for that very purpose;
in the short term however it is clear that the Agency's capacity
to fund research is not commensurate with its important role,
and additional money is likely to be needed.
Co-ordination of research
93. There is of course also an enormous amount of
research being carried out into matters related to food standards
and safety at universities, research institutes and other public
bodies. Indeed much of this research is resourced from private
funds, and the food industry carries out in addition a lot of
its own research. There has always been an inordinate amount of
overlap in this research, and at the same time some major areas
for potential research have gone neglected. In its White Paper
on the proposed Agency, the Government recognised that the Agency
would need to attempt co-ordination of all these various fields
and sponsors of research, perhaps by means of R & D Consultative
Committees.[149]
The Government proposed in the White Paper to look into this
matter of co-ordination and to come up with concrete proposals.[150]
Given the extent of the concern over the size of the Agency's
own budget, and its need to take advantage of properly co-ordinated
research, it is important that the Government expand upon these
proposals as soon it can. There might also be a case for putting
into the Bill, perhaps as a third element in subsection (2), a
duty on the Agency to assist co-ordination in these areas of research.
135 See para. 26. Back
136 Q.247,
Q.341, QQ.672-9. Back
137 The
Food Standards Agency: consultation on draft legislation,
Cm 4249, January 1999-note on Clause 20. Back
138 The
Food Standards Agency: a force for change,
Cm 3830, January 1998-paras 3.10-19. Back
139 The
Food Standards Agency: consultation on draft legislation,
Cm 4249, January 1999-note on Clause 9. Back
140 ibid-note
on Clause 15. Back
141 Q.247
and QQ.672-5, respectively. Back
142 The
Food Standards Agency: consultation on draft legislation,
Cm 4249, January 1999-note on Clause 12. Back
143 ibid-note
on Clause 13. Back
144 The
Food Standards Agency: a force for change,
Cm 3830, January 1998-para 3.32. Back
145 Q.638. Back
146 ibid. Back
147 Q.640. Back
148 Q.646. Back
149 The
Food Standards Agency: a force for change,
Cm 3830, January 1998-para 3.30. Back
150 ibid. Back
|
