Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460
- 469)
TUESDAY 9 MARCH 1999
MS SHEILA
MCKECHNIE,
MS JULIE
SHEPPARD, MS
HAZEL PHILLIPS
and MS JILL
JOHNSTONE
460. You are right, it cannot cure poverty,
but I think it was Engels (not a person we often talk about these
days) who wrote about the fact that the market will always try
and sell the shoddiest goods that the market will accept, and
what you seem to be saying to me is, "That is it. That is
all we can do about it. We can label goods and maybe people will
accept them or they will not accept them but we cannot stop them
being sold to them"?
(Ms McKechnie) Could I come back on the issue
of what is happening in schools because we do have some strong
views about that and I would have thought the Agency could perfectly
appropriately have a look at the schools policy in terms of the
food and particularly the new sponsors that are being allowed
into schools, who are trying to use branding. There are some very
responsible companies who over the years have done very good work
in putting charitable or whatever resources into schools. That
work is now being undermined by the rather more aggressive approach
of some food companies, particularly American food companies,
who are being allowed access to our children. It may well be that
we will have a real argument between the Agency and the Department
for Education in terms of the "tuck shop" syndrome,
and if sweets, etc. are not available to children, you have a
better chance of getting them to eat the things that are healthy,
but any of you who have had to try and ration young children's
sweet allocations, etc. and try to make them eat healthy things
will know that this is a dialogue that goes on generation after
generation and it is not an easy one to solve.
Audrey Wise
461. First of all, following directly on
that last thing, it has been made clear to this Committee that
the Food Standards Agency will have relationships with whichever
departments it wishes to, including the Department for Education,
and whilst I accept what you say about poverty, and I am certainly
not in the business of blaming the victim, I do think that there
are additional factors in that people now find it quite hard,
for a number of reasons, to pass on the sort of culinary expertise
that was passed on, for instance, to me, and the issue about children
seems to me to be partly one of providing them with the right
sort of experiences. You mentioned consumer education in the National
Curriculum. I am not sure what you mean by that. How would you
react to a situation where I went into a secondary school some
time ago and found that they had a healthy lunch once a week for
the first years and that sounds to make comments on the rest of
the school meals for the rest of the school, but the interesting
thing, especially in the light of what you are saying, was that
the rest of the school was passionately anxious to have this healthy
meal as well and the first years wanted it every day. So it is
perhaps a question of how it is gone about. Do you think if we
can give our children direct experience and knowledge about how
to prepare food, that would be the best sort of consumer education
in the food area?
(Ms McKechnie) Absolutely, but I think we under-estimate
the amount of knowledge that has been got through to the public
about what is healthy and unhealthy. Let me reply by a story.
I got my "come-uppance" because I once did a programme
for the Radio 4 Food Programme—this was in my previous job—and
I was asked to interview some homeless people about what they
were going to cook for their Christmas, and it was more, "How
do you cook if you are in a bed-sit?" or "How do you
cook if you are on the street? What do you eat and why do you
eat unhealthily?" I do not know if I was just unlucky but
I got three children to interview at Centre Point, one who knew
how to make a baked alaska—not necessarily the most nutritious
of food but certainly requiring a high level of culinary expertise—another
one who clearly understood about nutrition and a young woman who
again knew exactly what she was doing wrong and simply ate chocolate
and sandwiches on the street because there were no other facilities.
They have got the message; they have to be able to have the means
to get on with it, and remember, the issue of healthy children
is not just one of nutrition. It is also very much linked to exercise
and the fact that we are such sedentary human beings now and we
must not narrow the whole thing about healthy lifestyles just
down to food, however important a part it is.
462. What you are suggesting seems to me
to imply that the Agency will also have to relate to other departments,
such as the Department of Social Security and the Department for
Education and Employment, in relation to issues such as minimum
wage and benefits level because that is very much related to what
you are saying. May I turn to some very precise words in the actual
draft legislation. In your evidence you emphasise a great deal
openness, transparency and publication. Have you noticed that
in clauses 11, 13, 14 and 27—I will tell you what it is,
you need not hastily look for it—and there may be others
that I have not noticed, there is a form of words occurs which
is this: "In deciding whether to publish any information
under this section, the Agency: (a) must take account of any considerations
of confidentiality attaching to that information, and (b) may
publish the information if it appears to the Agency to be in the
public interest to do so." "Must take account of any
confidentiality". It does not say who decides what is confidential.
"Must take account of any considerations of confidentiality"
but "may publish". That occurs four times. Two of the
clauses say "shall take account" rather than "must"
but it is exactly the same. Do you have any views about whether
that is satisfactory terminology?
(Ms McKechnie) No, I do not think it is satisfactory
and we need to sort out confidentiality that is there and is really
required from confidentiality that is just actually about withholding
information, but the NCC has done some detailed work on that.
May I make a general point, though, about the publication of scientific
evidence and the openness of committees. The history of advisory
committees in this country has been that we have had committees
of scientists, not necessarily scientific committees. That may
be a rather obscure point but it is the idea that scientists get
together and generally come out with proper advice. There are
a whole lot of stages that you now have to separate out between
scientific advice when it is available, at what point it starts,
judgement in terms of what you are saying about that scientific
advice, point of publication, because, remember, all scientific
evidence ought to be peer-reviewed and checked before it gets
sent to the public arena, and all major scientific journals require
sole publication rights and there are some very difficult issues
at the point at which you make the information public. Our committees
have always in the past, whether it is novel foods, whether it
is the food advisory committee, whether it is COMA, gone down
the route of complete secrecy, not just in terms of protecting
information that should be truly commercially confident but all
information. That is why we have written about 50 pages there
on how that needs to work because it is absolutely fundamental
to get that new culture into the Agency, but I will pass to the
NCC on the commercial issue, and if we had a Freedom of Information
Act you would not have to ask me this question.
463. But we have not.
(Ms McKechnie) But we have not, yet.
(Ms Phillips) There are a number of points about
openness and we very much welcome the fact in clause 18(2)(c)
that the Agency will have to be very open about the decisions
it makes and the background to those decisions, but it is not
clear from the Bill what kinds of decisions those will actually
be. I think we would like to see more clarification of that, whether
it would cover the advisory committees, whether it will just be
the board of Agency members or how far that will go. There is
also another general point about openness which relates to clause
11 and the giving of advice, where the legislation actually says
that the Agency may arrange for advice or information to be published.
We feel that does not go far enough because there ought to be
a presumption of openness there, rather than that they feel they
actually want to publish it, that actually there should be a presumption,
unless there is a very good reason why they should not publish
it. Then in terms of the commercial confidentiality that you were
talking about, again I think we would want to be sure that there
ought to be very good reasons for not publishing the information
and that the people providing the information should actually
prove that it will cause them substantial harm, which is in line
with the Freedom of Information White Paper, "Your Right
to Know". I would also like, in this context, to refer the
Committee to the powers of the Secretary of State, which are in
clause 21, where the Secretary of State can give directions to
the Agency if it breaches various things and it relates to clause
19 in the Bill, that if it does not fulfil its statement of objectives
and practices, or if it does not take decisions on the basis of
risks or costs and benefits and so on, the Secretary of State
will have powers to take action or issue directions to the Agency.
I think those sorts of powers and how they are used are really
quite crucial and if the Secretary of State is heavyhanded in
using those powers it could threaten the independence of the Agency.
It seems that there will be times when the Agency will say things
that the government ministers will not like and it will be uncomfortable
for them. So we want to be sure that those directions are going
to be used as a last resort maybe and we understand that the Agency
needs to have some route of accountability, but we want to be
sure that we have some sort of assurances that that power will
be used very carefully and that also the Secretary of State should
be required to publish the reasons why he uses those powers. We
think that is very important so that people understand why the
Secretary of State will come in and use those powers.
Chairman
464. Could I move you on quickly into another
area in the last few minutes. This is the issue of the levy. We
are in theory not taking evidence on the levy but feel that we
have to. I just wondered if I could ask you very briefly, do you
think it is a threat to consumers, as it is currently perceived
it will be a flat rate levy on most retail food outlets?
(Ms McKechnie) I have great sympathy for the argument,
why should a little corner shop be charged the same as a superstore
with 10,000 square feet or 20,000 square feet of space. However,
I think you need to balance that with ease of collection and,
quite frankly, I think there are other people who will have a
view on that. I have no concern about distorting the independents
or all these other slightly spurious arguments that have come
up from the industry to say we do not want to have a charge. What
I am concerned about is the fact that the opportunity was not
taken to use the licensing mechanism as a way of raising money.
It seems to me that anybody who wants to purvey food to the public,
where obviously if the hygiene standards and all kinds of other
standards are not at a sufficient level it could cause severe
illness, then there is a reasonable requirement for the premises
and the facilities or whatever to meet certain standards and we
had expected the income that was generated through licensing to
feed back into the local authorities to allow them to put more
inspectors on the ground, but I am sure you will be taking evidence
from LACOTS and the various local authority people in terms of
the problems of actually inspecting and the cost of inspection
and the limitations of their budgets.
(Ms Sheppard) Unfortunately, because of the way
the government are proposing this levy to work, it will be seen
as a tax and actually we did not want a tax. What we wanted was
a system of licensing fees which were in return for inspection
services because we thought this would be the best way to try
and raise hygiene standards across the food chain. There is an
issue about whether the levy should be graduated according to
the size and scale of the operation. That is one issue but the
other issue is, should it be loaded at one particular end of the
food chain. It seems to be loaded at catering and retailing outlets.
Of course, that is sensible to do if you think it is a tax but
if you do not want it to be a tax but want it to be a licensing
fee, then you would naturally argue that it be transferred right
across the chain.
465. Does the National Consumer Council
think the same?
(Ms Phillips) Very similar, in that we are not
so concerned about the independence issue that some organisations
have been concerned about. Basically, we know that there are other
regulators that raise money from the industry they regulate so
we do not have a particular problem with that and we do not feel
that it will necessarily affect the independence of the Agency.
Likewise, we do not feel that the amount of money that is being
collected is necessarily going to be a significant burden. If
the £50 million were spread across all the households of
the United Kingdom it is 4p per week and we do not feel that is
a huge sum. On the other hand, we would prefer that the start-up
costs were paid for by the taxpayer.
466. Thank you for that. You have settled
my family feud that I have at the moment. My younger brother runs
a traditional butcher's shop and will have to pay this levy if
it comes through in the way it is now. My elder brother runs a
plumbing and central heating business and he has to have a day
off every year at his cost and pay his man who does not go to
work and then he goes for a CORGI test, which costs him £160
plus his day off, and nobody ever asks to see his CORGI card that
he carries around and there is a real feud in the Barron family.
(Ms McKechnie) We have certain reservations about
CORGI, if you would like to have another inquiry into that.
467. Could I ask one thing which relates
to the question of enforcement that you have touched on. As I
understand the current system, enforcement is a quantitative thing
in terms of the number of visits to premises where there is a
risk and it is a table of risk, as I understand it, A to E, A
being the highest risk area of either food preparation or a retail
outlet. At the moment the situation is that the test that has
to be made as of April of this year is the number of visits within
those different categories. Do you think it would be a good idea
from the consumers' point of view if they were looking at actually
bringing different premises down the categories of risk and that
ought to be something so that we have a qualitative way of enforcement
as opposed to just a quantitative one, as I understand the thing
is at the moment?
(Ms McKechnie) I think one of the things that
this Agency ought to look at is how you set your priorities for
inspection, what are the key criteria for saying those are the
premises where there is going to be the highest risk and those
are the premises with the lowest risk. I also think that premises
that are clearly meeting very high standards can then drop down
in terms of frequency. Risk management is another whole area and
we have not been very good at it, I do not think, in terms of
using our resources. I think the Agency should look at the points
of the food chain at which there is greatest potential to do harm
and there is quite an argument about that. If you take the issue
of E. Coli, the main reason for E. Coli is dirty
animals and faeces and urine from animals getting into the food
chain. On the other hand, if you look at what happened in Mr Barr's
shop in Glasgow it was the cross-contamination. We are waiting
for this report on intestinal disease from the Department of Health.
I do not know whether it will show this but we do not actually
have a very clear picture at what point in the food chain we need
to concentrate most resources to reduce the level of poisoning,
if we look at that aspect. So there is an awful lot of work for
the Agency to do in that area and I think that it will probably
have to conduct a bit of research on which to base its risk management
strategy and setting of priorities.
Mr Brand
468. From the answers you have just given,
you are clearly happy with an enforcement role for the Agency
rather than a standard-setting and auditing role. There has been
concern expressed about the dual function, for instance, with
the Meat Hygiene Service being accountable to the Agency. It is
both setting the standards and also imposing them and then judging
on the outcomes?
(Ms McKechnie) My experience of that is primarily
with the Health and Safety Commission, and I think that in terms
of the regulatory culture and the effectiveness, i.e. pounds in
for output, you have a model there that is workable. The only
instance where there is a duality that arises is where, perhaps
in the initial investigation of something, whether it is a rail
accident or an occupational Flixborough-type accident or something
else, the inspection function may be something that needs to be
looked at. In those instances I think you go down the route of
having a public inquiry or a sideways inquiry if you think your
regulatory approach might be at the root of the problem. But I
think all the evidence we have is that the risk enforcement, risk
management, risk priority-setting, risk assessment, is part of
a whole continuous loop and is the way forward because it stops
you making what could be silly decisions.
469. So would you go as far as to make the
local government inspection services accountable to the Food Standards
Agency?
(Ms McKechnie) I go back to the point I made at
the beginning. I think the Agency agreement system works well.
In fact, there is a similar agency agreement with the Health and
Safety Executive in some areas of inspecting health and safety
at work, and it does seem to work well. What we have said is that
the Agency has to have the residual powers to go back to the minister
if it is not working for whatever reason and, therefore, I would
like to see the person in charge of the Agency doing annual reviews
in terms of the performance of certain kinds of inspectorates
and standard-setting within value-for-money in local government
and feeding into the Audit Commission. These are things that I
think anybody sensible in charge of this Agency would start to
set out, and certainly I would not only put out for consultation
my philosophy and how I am going to approach all of this but make
public my annual work programme and the criteria by which I am
going to be judged successful. We are all into managing resources
in that way, and I think the Agency should approach it in that
fashion, but I do not fear that one.
Chairman: Could I
thank you all very much indeed for coming along this morning to
give evidence. Hopefully, some of your thoughts and evidence will
be reflected in the report, which should be out by the end of
the month. Thank you.
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