Examination of witnesses (Questions 780
- 784)
THURSDAY 11 MARCH 1999
MR JEFF
ROOKER, MP
and RT HON
TESSA JOWELL,
MP
780. You have not said so in the Bill.
(Mr Rooker) We cannot because 23 is an enabling
clause. It is on public record on umpteen occasions that the Government
will not seek to raise more than £50 a year. We all know,
because the Chairman has read them out, the kinds of figures that
we think food safety costs in this country, we do not know the
final figure of what local authorities actually spend. What is
being proposed by the levy over three years is a very tiny proportion,
certainly less than a quarter, of the total of food standards
and safety expenditure, the rest being met by taxation both at
a central and local level on top of which, and I have to say this
because it is important, is what the industry itself spends. I
freely admit that big food manufacturers spend a fortune on their
laboratories and their testing and their research and their checking
of standards, they spend a fortune on this and I am not in any
way denigrating that, it is just as well they do because that
is an important contribution to the safety of the food chain.
Mr Paterson
781. Your document proposes that local government
will maintain registers of food premises and will collect the
levy and they are permitted to take a slice of the levy to pay
for their administration costs. You have also said that you are
going to be consulting with them during this period. How are your
consultations going, how is local government taking this? Who
do you think they will put in to bat to collect the levy and what
sort of slice will they be taking out?
(Mr Rooker) The very first sentence you said there
that we are proposing that local authorities have a register of
food premises—we are not. There is a legal obligation now
to have a register of food premises. We are using the existing
legal obligation on which to piggyback the collection because
it is cheaper. In other words, we do not have to go and measure
anything, we know where the food premises are. It is true that
there is no incentive for local authorities at the present time
to find places that are registered and of course if they are not
registered it means they are not inspecting them either. By definition,
they are supposed to be inspecting these food premises. If there
are food premises not registered they are not being inspected.
Part of our task here is to make sure we toughen that up so that
all food premises get on that register. It is a legal requirement.
We have not decided the cut, if you like. What we did say was
within the £90 we are confident that there is enough there
to cover the collection costs of local authorities—so there
is no extra requirement of local authorities to have extra money
from the Department of the Environment—as well as a modest
amount of extra resource for them to actually improve their enforcement
performance. We have not got a figure that I can give you. It
is fairly modest but nevertheless it is not chicken feed. Their
collection costs would be recovered and they could retain then
a modest amount in addition to use for their own resources to
improve their enforcement. If as a result of this there is an
incentive to get far more food premises on the register than there
are now that has got to be good for food standards. We are in
genuine consultation with them obviously because the way they
collect money may vary from authority to authority and we try
to avoid central collection with the Food Agency doing it itself.
Because local authorities have got this register, or they are
supposed to have put it that way, of these food premises, it seemed
to us administratively cheaper than any other scheme. I invite
the Committee as I have invited every meeting I have done, and
I will be doing the road show again tomorrow and Monday in different
parts of the country to ask people to come up with something that
is cheap and easy collect that will provide the same amount money
that seems fair, if you think there is an alternative.
Ms Keeble
782. You have made it very clear that you
want this to be an Agency that has a new culture that will be
open and transparent and so on and bring substantial changes and
benefits. It is quite difficult to envisage exactly what you mean
partly because it is a new Agency. It would be quite helpful if
you could say if there is an Agency that exists now which you
think it would be most like just so we can get some idea of what
kind of organisation you have in mind. I know it is a very hypothetical
point but it would help to give some idea and flavour of the way
in which it is likely to operate.
(Tessa Jowell) Can I have a crack at that and
say I think it is very difficult to establish any kind of analogy
because this is a new body. There is not quite anything like it
so far and if there are analogies that work maybe bits of them
we will want to borrow from and bits of them that we specifically
will not want to borrow from. I think it is probably not a good
idea to cast around for an agency that we would see acting as
a model. If I can just say, Sally, I think within your question
is also another question which is about how we will recognise
the Agency's success or failure.
783. That is right.
(Tessa Jowell) And I think that that is very important
and there are a number of ways in which I suspect everybody here
would recognise its success—that we do see greater confidence
in the public in the safety of food, that people are more informed
and more aware about the content of food and what they eat, that
there is greater awareness about the risks and patterns of transmission
of food-borne illness. I would say, as I think I said before,
that simply taking a crude figure like a reduction in the amount
of food-borne illness is perhaps a false trail because it may
well be that improved surveillance and improved public awareness
will actually see the incidence of reported food-borne illness
increase in the short term. I think in the long run we would certainly
want to be able to make some sort of judgment about the way in
which food borne illness is managed and that it will be managed
better than it is at the moment. There is still too much fragmentation
and we do want to get to grips with that. As I think I have said
before, I have asked the Chief Medical Officer to lead a review
of communicable disease, of which food borne illness is part,
in order to ensure that every link in what can be quite a long
chain is as good and as strong as it can be. There will be all
these areas of joint work, going back to where we started three
hours ago, in relation to nutrition and the safety of what may
be new foods but also there will be very important areas of joint
work, I suspect, that will develop in relation to the management
of communicable and specifically food borne illness.
Chairman
784. Ministers, could I thank you both very
much indeed. I do apologise for the long session but, as you are
well aware, Parliament did put us under a very tight timetable
in terms of evidence taking and it is not the first session that
has overrun but a 50 per cent overrun is quite heavy. Thank you
very much indeed for both evidence sessions.
(Mr Rooker) The sessions have been very useful
for us likewise.
(Tessa Jowell) Thank you very much.
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