Examination of witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
THURSDAY 16 MARCH 2000
PROFESSOR SIR
JOHN KREBS
and MR GEOFFREY
PODGER
60. How are you going to do that?
(Mr Podger) That does mean operating via the Commission
who have responsibility to ensure a level playing field. But also
the commitment to openness, which is fundamental to us in the
United Kingdom, is happily beginning to make itself felt in the
publication of the Commission reports of various inspections they
are conducting in other European countries. That does give a much
better information base to challenge if, in fact, we believe there
is a problem in another European country which is potentially
exported to us.
61. You would not hesitate to research inequity
in this area, if you felt that controls were inadequately applied;
and publish the results, however embarrassing they might be at
Commission level?
(Mr Podger) No. I think it is inherent that we do
wish to see high standards throughout Europe, not least to protect
the British public.
Chairman
62. I am going to bring in Audrey Wise in a
second but I just want to clarify something since you are on the
subject, which is important, so it is sensible to deal with that
now. Your relationship with the proposed European Food Authority
and, of course, the Codex Alimentarius with the WTO framework,
has priority. We have seen in the case in France of your equivalent
body making announcements about beef in France, which obviously
clashed with the ones which have been made in the United Kingdom.
One can argue about the quality of scientific advice that has
gone into either, no doubt. Let us say that it is transposed to
the European Food Authority which makes a pronouncement. What
is the relationship? Where do the priorities lie? Is your job
to implement a decision of those two authorities? Do you give
input to them? Where does the geometry lie, if I may put it in
those terms? What does it look like?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) Of course, with the proposed
European Food Authority, we do not yet know the details of what
its structural function will be, but from the sketchy outline
that we have seen so far and the discussions that are going on,
the answer would be that we would both input clearly into the
thinking and working of the European authority, but in the sort
of case that you have referred to between France and the United
Kingdom, the European Food Authority would be influential in ensuring
that there was a consistent interpretation of the scientific evidence
and consequent action through different Member States.
63. You must be glad you are not Chairman of
that. That is easy to say but just imagine delivering that.
(Professor Sir John Krebs) Yes. I do not wish to comment
on that. As far as Codex Alimentarius is concerned, which, as
you know, is a WHO/FAO body, we are represented on Codex Alimentarius
and therefore have an input. Similarly, we respond to their conclusions
and recommendations, so it is a two-way flow.
64. Do you think a European Food Agency is necessary?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) It could be very beneficial
if it achieves the aspirations that some people have for it, of
producing greater consistency or greater coherence of food regulation
in the European Union, and enhancing sharing of information, sharing
of scientific assessment, and scientific expertise. All of those
things could be very beneficial.
Audrey Wise
65. I would like to return to the aspect of
the nutrition question, which I understand has not yet been directly
addressed. Sir John, you did mention youngsters, in finding out
what they want and how they see things. That is obviously important.
A while ago a school in my constituency had a system where the
first year children, nowadays known as year 7's, had a healthy
lunch once a week. One of the interesting things is that it was
equivalent to declaring that the rest of the time the year 7's
had unhealthy lunches and that the whole school had unhealthy
lunches as a normal feature. But the other interesting thing was
that the kids absolutely loved this particular day. Now the conventional
view is that children just do not want healthy meals; at least,
healthy meals as adults normally define them. These meals used
a lot of what I might term complex salads. They were interesting
dishes, not like some lettuce or a pile of vegetables where they
are soggy or not soggy. They were constructs which had some interest
but which meant, of course, also that they were labour-intensive
and they required fresh foods. In so far as they included cooked
foods, they required freshly cooked foods. At a similar time,
I was engaged in complaining bitterly about a regime in my area
for school meals, which involved vegetable deliveries once a week—or
if you were lucky twice a week—ready prepared, plonked in
water, left there for days. I thought, this is why the school
cannot get permission to have healthy lunches either more days
a week or for more kids. The other kids in the school lobbied
me vigorously for it to be extended to them. I think that it would
be very interesting—and not necessarily give the answers
that most adults and most professionals expect—if we really
did explore, but especially explore in practice (as they did)
the kids' views.
(Professor Sir John Krebs) I am heartened to hear
that particular case. I think your comment raises a number of
important points. One is about the skill base within schools for
provision of fresh food. That would not really come within our
purview but what does come within our purview is to comment on
the nutritional quality and nutritional standards of school meals.
The kind of initiative that you are referring to is very helpful
to know about.
66. You obviously have relations with the Department
of Health. I think it is equally obvious that you need to have
a relationship with the Department of Education.
(Professor Sir John Krebs) Yes, I agree.
67. You are nodding so I gather that you intend
to develop such a relationship.
(Mr Podger) We have such a relationship already. Clearly
it would benefit from being intensified.
68. Right. So will you make some enquiries about
the prevalence of regimes of infrequent vegetable deliveries,
ready prepared, left in water, and convenience foods, which have
come to dominate the school meals scene?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) I think our role would
be to comment on the overall framework and the kinds of standards
that would be appropriate for school meals. I suspect we will
find it quite difficult to get into the technical details of exactly
how the meals are prepared and what the constraints are. Quite
rightly that will be seen as outside our purview.
(Mr Podger) What does emerge very clearly from this
story is the general principle that healthy eating can be thoroughly
enjoyable. It goes back to what Sir John was saying earlier. If
one is seeking to offer advice on this subject, it is important
to offer advice in such a way that people find themselves wanting
to take it and to maintain such a regime. That has been one of
the difficulties in health promotion and in other areas in the
past.
(Professor Sir John Krebs) One of our board members,
Robert Rees, who is a chef, is very much involved in Gloucester
where he lives, in educational initiatives in local schools. He
goes into local schools and teaches young children about the fun
of food. He said to me that one of his greatest pleasures is when
kids go home and describe to their parents how exciting it was
to cook something that sizzled, or whatever, and in that way not
only conveying the message to themselves but through to the family.
So we do have in the board a strong commitment to the educational
role.
Mr Hurst
69. I assume the sizzling was something other
than a pork sausage! Moving on from that, in some ways you are
going to be judged by the effectiveness of your enforcement schemes
via other agencies, local, national, or international. Thinking
back to the beef on the bone question, (not wishing to re-open
on that as to whether it was right or wrong), I think one would
judge that there was not a very effective enforcement of that
prohibition at a local level. How would you overcome that kind
of inertia or lack of funding, and how do you think you could
improve the whole mechanism?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) One of the things that
we are busy with now, and will be developing very rapidly after
the Agency is up and running, is a framework agreement with the
local authorities for consistent and high levels of enforcement
by the local authorities, by the EHOs and TSOs. In terms of monitoring
that, we will be receiving quarterly reports from the local authorities
on their enforcement performance, but we also have the power to
audit in a dipstick way the performance of particular authorities.
If, in the unlikely event, we found an authority to be failing
in its enforcement role, we have the power to take over. The clear
basis for this is a partnership between us and the local authorities
because they have responsibility for the enforcement and we have
responsibility for the oversight and the framework. So I think
the answer is through the partnership with the local authorities,
where we wish to have high consistent standards throughout the
United Kingdom.
70. How would that actually work? Would you
have league tables of how many shops, how many restaurants, percentage
of visits per annum, per quarter, per five years?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) It is important that the
performance is transparent, so the details of the kind of thing
you are talking about are still very much up for discussion, and
to be worked out and for the local authorities to buy into. In
my view, transparent reporting to the public of what is going
on is essential.
71. What does that exactly mean? That word "transparent".
I think one of the first things to do is to abolish the word "transparent".
If we want the general public to understand what we mean by transparent,
we mean clear, obvious.
(Professor Sir John Krebs) Yes, we mean clear, understandable,
accessible.
72. If we are going to follow that through,
there must be some idea of how many visits there should be to
particular establishments. There must be some idea not only as
to visits but the quality of those visits. Whether they find things
which should not be there and what they are going to do about
it.
(Professor Sir John Krebs) Yes, input and output measures.
(Mr Podger) May I add two things to the discussion.
The first point, to address your first question. One of the things
we have recognised is that it is necessary to involve local authorities
more in policy development than we have in the past. That is one
way of securing implementation of the policy. Obviously one can
understand the point of view of food inspectors, who find Government
has introduced yet another policy about which they knew nothing
or had no opportunity to make a contribution, that this is not
the way to get the most effective enforcement. I think we have
to be aware of this. The second point, which is worth making,
is just as we see the need, as Sir John has said, to have clear
performance standards against which we can be measured, I think
local authorities are increasingly accepting that they need to
do the same in the food enforcement area. It is fair to say that
often we are not in a position where necessarily it is that clearly
set out at local authority level, as to precisely why resources
are directed in such a direction and what it is intended to achieve.
All these issues you are mentioning such as what is the proper
number of visits actually come out in making this initial determination
of what you are seeking to achieve. We do therefore think that
throughout the enforcement chain, including ourselves, there needs
to be a more focused effort and something which follows a clearly
set-out plan.
73. Clearly the local authority might come back
to you and say, "The reason why the enforcement has not been
terribly high so far is because of lack of resources." You
are coming along to say, "Not only do you lack resources,
but you have to spend some of those on schemes and policies as
to how monitoring might take place in the future." What would
your function be in relation to local authorities saying to you,
"We don't have the resources so we can't enforce"?
(Mr Podger) The fundamental issue is to determine
what resources there are and how they are being used. Until you
have gone through that stage you cannot have meaningful discussions
as to whether there is insufficiency of inspection resources or
not. We have to go through that process with local authority colleagues
first.
74. There is another concern—and those
of us who have come from Agriculture will be aware of it - the
farming industry will certainly say, "Is it going to be yet
another regulatory and financial burden put upon us"?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) I was going to say that
it is certainly not our intention to introduce any unnecessary
burdens.
(Mr Podger) It is perhaps worth adding that we did
particularly try and consider how we could look at the farming
side in such a way so as not to be adding the additional inspections
and so on, often. We are very much reliant on the good offices
of the State Veterinary Service and the local authorities, who
are already in there inspecting, rather than creating an additional
inspection force. We have deliberately not done that, precisely
because we are very conscious of the concern you mention, and
we want the existing resources to work better.
75. There would be a case, (although I do not
wish to open it now, Chairman), that many would say that the Meat
Hygiene Service and veterinary inspections already have double
inspections—in many cases, at the point of the slaughterhouse—which
is, in fact, an additional burden. The idea of having more than
that would horrify anyone who is engaged in that kind of industry.
(Mr Podger) We have to recognise, as I am sure the
Committee does, that there is a particular difficulty in relation
to meat hygiene. This is because of the requirements of the European
Directives, which the Commission have indicated they are very
much proposing to reform. Obviously, as you know, we are very
keen to do that: let me say, first of all, to protect the public;
but, secondly, it would have the effect, in our view, of removing
unnecessary regulatory burdens.
76. The final point within this section is to
you, Sir John. You spoke well of Scotland and lessons we have
learned. I know Edinburgh is the home of the battered Mars bar.
What did you particularly have in mind that we might learn from
their regime?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) From Scotland? I do not
remember saying we could learn particularly from Scotland.
Mr Hurst: It was a quotation you made from Edinburgh,
as recently as 3 February 2000, claiming that valuable lessons
can be learned from tackling food safety.
Chairman: I think you were being polite! Simon,
you were going to ask a question.
Mr Burns
77. May I come back on this question of enforcement.
Rightly or wrongly, there is a fear in certain quarters, particularly
I suspect in the farming community, that there is a whole new
food police going to be unleashed on poor unsuspecting farmers,
all dominated by a desire to be politically correct and to err
on the side of officiousness in the carrying out of their duties.
What reassurances can you give that this is not going to be the
case? The other thing, which has been a problem in other areas
in the past, is what sort of uniformity is there going to be in
the decision-making process of enforcement throughout the country,
so that you do not hear the stories that you hear in other areas,
where in one area decisions are being taken that are not being
taken in other areas, and vice versa?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) On the question of consistency
and uniformity, that is central to the framework agreement which
we will be developing in partnership with the local authorities,
so there are clearly laid-out consistent standards for enforcement.
We would be expecting not to hear stories of huge differences
or any discernible differences in the pattern of enforcement in
the different parts of the United Kingdom. In terms of the overall
regulatory burden on the farming industry, we would want to be
consistent with protecting consumer food, safety and health. We
would want to have the most efficient system possible to minimise
the regulatory burden consistent with protecting the health of
the public.
78. How?
(Professor Sir John Krebs) An example, which has already
been referred to by Geoffrey Podger, is the system that we are
advocating for the inspection of abattoirs, the HACCP based system,
as opposed to the current system where the responsibility lies
with the veterinary inspectors rather than the industry itself,
taking ownership of hygiene and safety standards. So that would
be an example of where one can work together with the industry
in a partnership that both protects the public better and reduces
the regulatory burden.
Mr Hurst
79. Sir John, your research budget in this country
and in Scotland is £23 million per annum.
(Professor Sir John Krebs) Yes.
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