Examination of Witness (Questions 480
- 499)
TUESDAY 18 JANUARY 2000
BARONESS HAYMAN
480. Exactly!
(Baroness Hayman) There are three bodies with overarching
responsibilities on GM issues because the Food Standards Agency
will have responsibility on GM food. The Human Genetics Commission,
which is starting its work, and I believe the Chairmanship of
that has been announced, will work around the implications for
human health in particular. We have not appointed a chairman to
the Agriculture and Environment Commission which is why that body
has not started its work. I understand that that appointment is
to be re-advertised later this week.
481. Re-advertised?
(Baroness Hayman) Yes.
482. So "shortly" in that lexicon
is likely to mean?
(Baroness Hayman) In the spring.
483. And the spring, Minister, the spring? June,
July, August, that sort of spring?
(Baroness Hayman) I do not want to weasel my way out
of this but the appointment is being made through the Cabinet
Office rather than MAFF appointment therefore I do not want to
give a commitment about a timing that I cannot discharge myself.
484. We will keep an eye on that. Apart from
the Chairman who is going to be on it? There are some hints in
the memorandum as well about ethicists and so on. Will it be seed
producers, farmers? Who is going to be on it?
(Baroness Hayman) My own understanding of this is
that the desire is to have on these Commissions a broad range
of interests that do reflect the fact that these will not be the
expert scientific committees to go through a regulatory process
or application.
485. That will be done elsewhere?
(Baroness Hayman) That will be done elsewhere.—That
they should be broader therefore they should not be dominated
by scientists with an interest or a knowledge of the subject,
if I can put it in fairly crude terms, and that they should reflect
a range of people. That should not rule out people who have some
knowledge of the subject. I think that would be quite counter-productive
but it certainly should have the ability to reflect the views
of consumers, the views of people who have ethical interests,
the views of people who are in farming, for example, rather than
simply come from a narrow field.
486. It is an issue that this Committee has
wrestled with in the past. How do you get the views of consumers
represented on these Commissions?
(Baroness Hayman) I think it is a difficult challenge
and you have difficulty either way. You have difficulty if you
go for the "professional consumer", someone who works
full time in the consumer movement because people feel that is
not representative of people who do their shopping twice a week
and do not take a specialised interest. Equally, and I have done
this myself in the past and I know, the problems of having heaped
on your shoulders the responsibility of representing vast numbers
of other people that you have no network or way of finding out
their position just because you are plucked off the street as
an ordinary consumer is difficult. I think that the process of
open application, the process of trying to persuade people to
come into this and not only taking people who are on the list
of usual suspects, if I can put it that way, does give them opportunities
and I think we have to make sure that they then have feedback
from consumer organisations and other groups so they are not only
representing their own interests.
487. I have to say when Janet Bainbridge came
to this Committee as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Novel
Foods and Processes she struck me as a pretty well-informed consumer
as well. We are, after all, all consumers.
(Baroness Hayman) I think that is right. After this
meeting I am going to chair the last meeting of the Consumer Panel
at MAFF which brought together individuals and I know that the
Food Standards Agency are thinking about how they could best structure
their consumer advisory grouping for the future.
488. I do not want to labour these organisational
points for to long but they are important and there have been
concerns expressed for example by Consumers in Europe that there
are gaps in the process. What you are saying is that the three
bodies being established, including the Food Standards Agency
as one of those three, means that there will be no gaps. They
are the overarching organisations that will take care of everything
between them.
(Baroness Hayman) I think that was the intent of the
Government when responding to the Select Committee report about
oversight of technology, yes, that there should not be any gaps.
Chairman: Minister, thank you very much. Mr
Mitchell?
Mr Mitchell
489. On the consumer choice issue, do you think
there is a genuine hostility to GM foods on the part of consumers
or alternatively there are doubts whipped up by a machinery of
panic mongering and fear creation?
(Baroness Hayman) I would not go for either generalisation,
if I may say so. Undoubtedly, there are people who have a genuine
hostility to GM produce and who want to be able not to buy it.
Equally, I think that there are many people who do not see any
advantages at the moment in the GM products that they are being
offered and therefore decide to take a very precautionary approach.
And there are equally, I am certain, people who are not particularly
worried either way and make their purchases on completely different
issues. I believe one of the challenges in labelling and information
for consumers is the range of interests that consumers have. Saying
consumers with a capital C is answering for the whole of the population
of this country because we are all consumers and there is a vast
variety of issues that interest people. Some people are interested
in the food they eat because of religious scruples. Some people
are interested because of ethical issues about animal welfare.
Some people are interested because they have a health problem
themselves around an allergic reaction to a particular food. Some
people are interested because they particularly want to buy on
country of origin. There is a whole range of issues and for some
people undoubtedly GM is an important issue. I think we should
be facilitating choice around that range of issues and I would
not under-estimate the strength of feeling of some people about
GM food and protecting their right not to buy it. Equally, I would
not generalise from that strength of feeling to say that it is
across the board.
490. But inherently consumers' main preoccupation
is price and quality, is it not? It is useful to create fear amongst
consumers as a means of combating GM because that is the Achilles'
heel of GM production. What is basically a scientific issue is
being turned into a consumer issue because that is the best and
easiest way of attacking GM.
(Baroness Hayman) You can read this two ways. You
can either read it, as you are suggesting, that consumers just
do not understand the science—
491. I was not saying that.
(Baroness Hayman)—Or else they would not be
taken along this scare route. I think it was implicit in what
you were saying actually. Or you can take it, and I think this
is what is there, that predominantly consumers do their own risk
benefit analysis when they are shopping about what is important
to them and the benefits of what is being offered at the moment
do not seem to them to outweigh what may be in their mind very
remote but possible risk and therefore they take a very precautionary
approach, or some of them choose to. I am sure you are right that
all the evidence points at base to the fact that most people go
on price and quality and our responsibility, coming back, is around
the quality issue and the safety of a product that is GM.
492. But this is the consideration for consumers,
to repeat the Asda advert. You yourself said that the tomato puree
that Zeneca put out was of high quality and sold well and was
competitive.
(Baroness Hayman) And, equally, it has now been withdrawn,
not on any safety grounds—
493. Because of the panic.
(Baroness Hayman) I think what I am trying not to
do is say, "Consumers believe this ..." or, "Consumers
want that ... " because I think there is a range of opinion
there and I think markets do ebb and flow and popularity ebbs
and flows and different products will get different responses.
494. If you are taking that position it follows
that government responsibility is to guarantee the continuation
of non-GM supplies to the consumer.
(Baroness Hayman) I am not sure that is the Government's
responsibility to guarantee. If I think about people who are vegetarian
for example, is it the Government's responsibility to guarantee
the supply of vegetarian food? I think it is very important that
the Government makes sure that people do not label food as vegetarian
and we then find out that they are doing so misleadingly so consumers
are misled. The market will decide whether vegetarian food or
organic food or halal food is actually produced and I am not sure
it is for the Government to guarantee that. I think it is for
the Government to guarantee there is an appropriate regulatory
process that ensures that safety considerations are to the forefront
and it is the Government's responsibility to ensure that appropriate
labelling is on produce and it is the government's responsibility
to ensure that consumers are not misled. After that I think then
you have to let the market and individuals decide.
495. If we lie back and leave it to the market
given international trade agreements is it not going to be very
difficult for the market to continue to provide in the way you
are saying it should?
(Baroness Hayman) Are you thinking particularly in
terms of identity preservation?
496. What is exportable and importable under
international trade agreements and the difficulty of classifying
it.
(Baroness Hayman) But I think that a lot of the identity
preservation issues throughout the food chain will actually be
led by market forces rather than regulatory forces.
497. Okay, but again another problem with the
market if you are going to create those distinctions is the cost
of segregation. Who is going to carry those costs?
(Baroness Hayman) I think within the food chain that
will be sorted out amongst the individual people at stages of
that chain depending on where and who can bear it, but there will
be costs inherent in segregation.
498. Which in the end will be borne by the consumer?
(Baroness Hayman) And in the end those will be borne
by the consumer, I think that is right.
499. The result of this concern/fear that is
being created is that consumers will have to pay higher prices?
(Baroness Hayman) Consumers who want to guarantee
the identity of preservation and the separation, yes.
| 
