Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 327)
MONDAY 8 MARCH 1999
PROFESSOR PHILIP
JAMES and MS
KAREN MCCOLL
320. Have you noticed that in the draft
Bill there are a number of occurrences of particular phrases?
I can absolutely mention immediately clause 11, clause 13, clause
14, talking about giving advice, talking about making observations
and talking about enforcement, and there are a couple of phrases
that the Agency "must take account of any considerations
of confidentiality attaching to the information" and then
it "may publish that information if it appears to the Agency
to be in the public interest to do so". So the public interest
seems to me in that phraseology to come rather secondary to the
"must take account of any confidentiality," and it does
not seem to indicate in the draft Bill who decides what is confidential
and who does not, and that exact phraseology is in all three of
those clauses. There is another item which struck me peculiarly
in the draft Bill: "The Secretary of State may, for the purpose
of safeguarding national security, direct the Agency that any
advice or information specified ... shall not be published, whether
permanently or for a specified period." It did make me think
about public interest immunity of ill-repute. Do you think that
there could be circumstances where it was justified to say to
the Food Standards Agency, "You will not publish information
in the interests of national security"?
(Professor James) To answer that last question,
no, I cannot, but that is probably because I have not been involved
in those issues. I noticed that phrase. I also noticed the precise
conjunction and different use of words that you spelt out. I think
that is why I keep emphasising that one has to look at the operational
opportunities in the draft Bill and then I see an entirely different
issue as to how the Agency operates. In other words, is it going
to be able to operate with that drafting, and what I have been
pressed to say on occasion is how to change the drafting. As I
have thought about it, it seemed to me that legal scholars would
unravel me immediately if I tried to devise a more flexible or
more extended opportunity for the Agency. So I think that is why
the way in which this Agency is established and how it works and
how it takes proactively the role of displaying its independence
and coping with the doubtless, in Britain at the moment, endless
barrage of "You don't understand, and this is X, Y and Z"—I
think there is a cultural change in the public domain that we
have to go through as well.
321. Finally, you mentioned that one of
the things that you would do differently perhaps now, to an extent
at any rate, is to put more emphasis on Europe-wide and international
aspects. I wonder if you have any comments to make on the possibility
of interference with the Food Standards Agency's views about food
and advice about food by, in particular, the World Trade Organisation,
which seems to have a rather different set of priorities, and
how do you think this should be coped with? Do you think that
free trade should be paramount or do think that food standards
issues should be illegitimate?
(Professor James) Thank you. That is a huge issue
that I will be discussing in about an hour's time and we have,
in fact, given a lot of thought to it. I think the World Trade
Organisation and the mechanism by which there are resolutions
and debate relating to food safety are highly complex and inadequately
coped with at the moment through the Codex system. I think the
Codex system needs to be re-organised. I have been saying that
for ten years. We put forward proposals for it and they are outraged
by the proposition. It is a completely unrepresentative organisation,
not with particular technical competence, and it actually has
a bit of an "old hat" view of public health. I actually
see that there is going to be the development of a major clash
between Europe and the United States in terms of the look at public
health. Therefore, I am proposing in a short while that Britain
should be very proactive in public health in developing new systems
for ensuring that the public interest is, indeed, seen to be of
crucial importance. That also has to operate in the context of
our current political system through the European Union. The European
Union is amazingly receptive to the extraordinary talent—I
am sorry about that but it is true—that you find here in
Britain in a whole gamut of subjects that relate to your concerns
and I think that we need to take a far more flexible, interactive
approach to the DG XXIVs, VIs and IIIs in the Commission. I think
that there is an enormous opportunity for Britain to influence
things in such a way that the second stage then comes to the Codex
Alimentarius. I think Britain ought to taking an initiative,
again with its European colleagues. At the moment Codex is not
working in practice. You only have to read the WHO recent article
on it from its own staff officers. They are hopelessly disgruntled
with the way Codex is operating and we need to see a reform of
Codex. Then we will get into, and I think we should attempt to
cope with, quite big issues that people have not thought about
in terms of the world trade implications for Food Standards. The
Agency is going to have to cope with this. That is why I said
I thought I had not coped with that subject adequately in my original
report and that is because I have just woken up to the dimensions
of this as a result of sitting in Brussels and looking at the
mind-boggling, multi-billion dollar issues that come across our
desk weekly.
Rev. Martin Smyth
322. Professor James, earlier on you suggested
that in the first three to five years the Agency would have to
look at medicine control, nutrition and others. Is there anything
in particular that you think they should be looking at in the
first three years? Should they be concentrating on the internal
affairs of the Agency, the mechanisms of its own working, or on
external targets? Where do you think they should be concentrating
first?
(Professor James) I actually believe that the
Agency has to establish its reputation and the way in which the
British think now is such that it will establish its reputation
in classic food safety and food risk areas. I might think that
the dimensions of health are more important in other areas but
I think that if you fail, if that Agency fails, to cope with issues
relating to E. Coli 157 and salmonella and so on and whatever
the mood of the day is in GMOs, then in fact it is going to take
ten to 20 years to establish its reputation if it completely blows
it on these particular areas. Therefore, I would actually see
the Agency priorities as risk analysis and, of course, it has
to have a good communication unit and a media group but I think
it is a big mistake to assume that this Agency is going to gain
its reputation simply by virtue of having a clever group of media
specialists associated with it. I think you have to demonstrate
to sophisticated analytical journalists—and there are still
a few left—that there are major changes going on with a
deep and proper approach to some of the big issues that confront
us at the moment. Without that, we are not going to succeed.
323. In other words, less spinning and better
meat?
(Professor James) Yes.
324. May I, therefore, take you back to
one of your earlier suggestions. I think you thought that the
House should have a particular interest in the Food Standards
Agency. Did that mean that you still stand by your view that there
should be a select committee set up by government?
(Professor James) I actually believe that in terms
of the responsibility of the Food Standards Agency to report and
be interrogated in Parliament by a particular grouping then the
issues are broad. At one stage I thought perhaps there would be
a conjoined Committee of traditional agriculture members and traditional
medical members, but the more I look at the issues of international
trade, the issues of port authorities, the legislative approaches
to Europe and so forth, I am not sure that you will not find that
these issues are such that you might want to establish a special
Select Committee. I do not know enough about your procedures and
I feel very vulnerable in proposing any particular solution.
325. Normally select committees examine
the role of departments and how they work. This would be one especially
to deal with an Agency that covers several departments, at least
at the moment. In your opinion, bearing in mind what has been
happening in the past, how should the Agency guarantee the quality
of the information it issues to Ministers and to the general public?
Bearing in mind that we have gone through a period where Ministers
were making statements saying this was the advice they were given
and later on it was suspect advice, how do you think the Agency
should guarantee the quality of advice given to Ministers and
to the public at large?
(Professor James) Frankly, I do not think it can
guarantee the quality of its advice simply because it will make
mistakes. But the essence of the procedures must be that you have
the best possible experts involved in garnering that advice for
the public interest, and by public interest in this case I also
mean involving non-professional interest challenging that process
which should be open. Then if a mistake is made it is made, as
it were, in good faith and I think that is part of the cultural
change.
326. I understand that you cannot guarantee
but you certainly think we can improve it?
(Professor James) I think there are all sorts
of ways in which we can improve it. Having been on one of the
MAFF/Department of Health committees where we opened it up to
a scholar involved in ethics and a consumer group, the culture
of that committee changed. It was quite interesting, as a Chairman
of a committee talking with other chairs when convened by the
Chief Medical Officer of Health, to see the British academic terror
of having lay people associated with their esoteric discussions.
I am all for it. It is time that British academics learned that
they have a lot to learn from that process.
Chairman
327. Can I ask you to clarify one situation,
Professor James. In answer to David Curry earlier and his query
about who the Agency should report to you said originally that
you thought it ought to report to the Cabinet Office. Why was
that your original recommendation and does it come out of the
debate that has been around for quite a long time now that public
health should be a government departmental issue, in other words
the Minister of Public Health would sit outside the Department
of Health probably in Cabinet?
(Professor James) It was precisely that sort of
mood that had me thinking. I did not know where the Minister of
Public Health would be positioned. Logically and traditionally
everybody would assume that it is in the Department of Health.
Obviously there has got to be extra-ordinary interaction. With
the nature of public health and its development it is crucially
dependent on multi-sector multi-department activity which intrinsically—and
I spoke to David Clark, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on
this very issue—the logic would be to have this sort of
activity reporting to the centre rather than to be involved in
what is sometimes petty jostling for position between departments,
which you know about much better than I.
Chairman: We will
have to see how the evolution of this Food Standards Agency in
its other parts works out in the next few months. Professor James,
can I thank you and your colleague for coming along and giving
evidence. I think it has been extremely useful. We are on a very
tight timetable and we hope in seven days' time we will be finished
evidence taking and drawing up our report. I am sure that the
influence you have been over the years now in this area is going
to do not just good for parliamentarians but I hope eventually
to do some good for public health as well. Thank you for attending.
(Professor James) Thank you for your questions.
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