Examination of witnesses (Questions 612
- 619)
THURSDAY 11 MARCH 1999
MR JEFF
ROOKER, MP
and RT HON
TESSA JOWELL,
MP
Chairman
612. Ministers, could I welcome you once
again to the Select Committee? I hope you are looking forward
to this afternoon's session, as I know all members are, since
we have taken five different evidence sessions with dozens of
witnesses since you last sat in this room. I am personally looking
forward to this afternoon's proceedings. Can I initially ask you
to introduce yourselves and then Stephen Ladyman will ask the
first question?
(Tessa Jowell) I am Tessa Jowell and I am Minister
of State for Public Health at the Department of Health.
(Mr Rooker) Jeff Rooker, Minister of State at
the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Dr Ladyman
613. The Bill as it is currently framed
is absolutely explicit about matters to do with food safety. It
is fairly clear those functions which are coming from the Ministry
of Agriculture are safety-related and I did not perceive any difference
between the two of you on issues to do with food safety, but I
did detect at least a difference of emphasis between the two of
you when we were discussing the scope of the Agency in terms of
issues like health promotion and nutrition. Before I focus in
on those subjects, perhaps you could each just briefly emphasise
again how you each see the Agency in those two areas, health promotion
and nutrition.
(Tessa Jowell) Shall I begin on that and say that
I see the Agency's function as being principally health protection
rather than health promotion. Health promotion is the job of Government
with the Department of Health as the lead department in relation
to that. I put it like that because I see health protection and
the functions that will lie with the Agency in order to protect
health as being part of a broader set of functions to do with
health promotion.
(Mr Rooker) I agree with every word that Tessa
Jowell has just said, and I am astonished at the fact that you
saw any difference. I have read the transcript from our previous
hearing, the policy was set out in the White Paper so far as nutrition
is concerned, that was a result of consultation, we have not changed,
it is as we set it out, there is no division. What I have said
is, and I hope I put this across at the last hearing, we must
not take our eye off the ball, and the ball is setting up a Food
Standards Agency whose key role is the protection of public health
in relation to food. You will have had witnesses who have said,
I am sure, and we have had discussions about this, "Add this
on, put this in the Agency", all of which creates in effect
a mini-MAFF. We are seeking to avoid that trap and to set up the
Agency in a way it can work and perform the key function which
we intend it to perform and we hope the House in due course will
also intend it to perform.
614. Let me play devil's advocate about
what the two of you have just said. You started off saying that
you agreed entirely with what Tessa has said——
(Mr Rooker) Well I do.
615. —— but what I heard Tessa
saying essentially was she regards the Department of Health as
the primary agency in terms of health promotion, that that is
very much a secondary function of this Agency, the primary function
of this Agency is food safety. Am I paraphrasing that too simplistically?
(Tessa Jowell) I think I said health protection
rather than specifically food safety, but it is clearly health
protection and food safety. The safety of food is a very important
part of health protection.
616. I think we all accept that. There was
clearly a function, as Jeff has said, in the White Paper for nutrition
being part of the Agency's role, and I think you have both accepted
that to some degree or other, yet Clauses 9 and 10 of the Bill,
which in some ways are two of the key clauses, use this term "other
interests of consumers in relation to food". It says, "Food
safety and other interests of consumers in relation to food",
it does not mention nutrition, it does not mention health promotion
and so far as I can see in the whole Bill those words "nutrition
and health promotion" are not included.
(Mr Rooker) With respect, neither is the phrase
"home authority principle" yet we will expect the Agency
to operate on that basis because that is what normally happens.
It is not necessary to write that into the primary legislation.
So in your forensic examination of the clauses, which is right
and proper, to discover things are not there does not mean to
say they will not happen.
617. Clauses 18 and 19 require the Agency
to put together a list of its objectives. Those objectives ultimately
have to be approved by the Secretary of State, in this case it
is the Secretary of State for Health. Because nutrition and health
promotion are not specifically mentioned in the Bill, it would
be entirely within the powers of the Secretary of State for Health,
or some future Secretary of State for Health, to say, "I
do not want this Agency to look after issues like nutrition or
health promotion any more". Am I not right that is a possible
power that the Secretary of State for Health would have under
this Bill as it is currently phrased?
(Tessa Jowell) I think it would be difficult to
have a Food Standards Agency with a principal function of health
protection, and improving the safety of food as a key part of
health protection, which simply turned its back on the many issues
that the Agency will have responsibility for in relation to nutrition.
You would leave a glaring hole in the Agency's competence if the
Agency did not attend to the list of issues in relation to nutrition
that were very clearly set out in the White Paper and with which
I assume that you are familiar.
618. Let me put another concern that has
been put to us. I think there is a consensus that the Bill sensibly
says that action must be proportional to risks; that must be a
principle the Agency follows. One of the other interests of consumers
in relation to food, I would put to you, is how the food tastes
and it may be argued, and it has been argued by some of our witnesses,
that certain small, independent producers of food can often produce,
using techniques which are tested by tradition and shown to be
safe, foods which taste better. Would you accept that the taste
of a food is a legitimate concern of the Agency when it is making
judgments and that it might be prepared to say on occasion they
will accept certain traditional practices because they produce
a better product and because they have this power to look at risk
in proportion?
(Tessa Jowell) With respect, I think that the
taste of food is something which is highly subjective. The way
in which taste is, if you like, dealt with in the food market
is that some people will buy highly spiced, highly flavoured foods,
some people reject foods with a high fat content. Taste is about
the most personal and potentially idiosyncratic aspect of the
enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of food. I would balk at the prospect
of anybody coming up with a definition of taste that would pass
the legislative test or would provide the Agency with a good enough
guide.
619. Let me put it a different way then.
Would you accept that the Agency ought to be allowed to consider
diversity in arriving at its judgments? Let me give you an example.
People are investigating possible techniques for pasteurizing
meat, making meat safe by treating it at very high temperatures
and killing all the bacteria which currently live in it. I suspect,
I cannot prove it of course, that would probably produce a bacteriologically
very safe meat but it probably would not taste too hot. I presume
you do not, either of you, want the Agency's remit to be so tightly
defined that they are forced to make the industry go in a direction
where everything is absolutely safe but where diversity and taste
are taken out of the market place?
(Tessa Jowell) I think that we both made clear
last time we appeared before you that nobody would ever offer
a guarantee that any food was 100 per cent safe for everybody
who ate it. The reason that we are establishing an Agency with
this very clear focus on improving the safety of food is because
of all the evidence of the risk to public health through inadequate
attention, and the structural inadequacy of attention, to maintaining
hygiene and processes which give the maximum assurance of cleanliness
at each stage of the process. It is not for the Food Standards
Agency to endorse a product, it is for the Food Standards Agency
to insist that meat treated in the way you suggest has been treated
in that way and to give an assessment of the effect of treatment
of meat in that way. This gets back to a very important point
again that we made before, it is not the Agency's job to tell
people what to eat, it is the Agency's job to improve the information
and understanding among consumers about the food that they eat,
and about some of the attendant risks that may accompany the food
that they eat and the benefits of the food that they eat.
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