Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)

27 APRIL 2004

LORD WHITTY AND MR ANDREW LAWRENCE

  Q180 Chairman: I thought that Mr Lawrence's department in Defra was tasked with the job of opening up opportunities for Britain's food and farming industry. So far I have been told that you have had some discussions with Food from Britain, that you have visited some but not all the countries, that you have not worked out in any detail the economic gains or losses if that be the case to going there, and we have had a nice conversation with Tesco's. What actually are we doing to take advantage of all these—

  Lord Whitty: I think you are underestimating what I was saying about Food from Britain and their activities. There are a number of different things they have done; they have taken British companies over, for example, this month to Vienna for an effort which focuses on Central European markets. They have done quite a lot of research on food companies' potential for supplying Central and Eastern Europe, they have looked specifically at the Baltic States in another study, and they have tried to bring together the market information to ensure that medium-sized British companies have a better idea of the market. So it is not down to ministers or, indeed, Mr Lawrence—

  Q181 Chairman: I appreciate that, but whilst all this is going on—

  Lord Whitty: Food from Britain is the body tasked with doing that.

  Q182 Chairman:— the one thing that became very clear to the Committee is that the Germans and the French are already piling in there with investment to exploit opportunities in this area. Meanwhile, Britain is attending an exhibition here and talking to a few people there. Do you not think you should have been a bit more proactive to be ahead of the game? There are 38 million people in Poland, for example, and there are another 10 million in Hungary. Between the two of them they represent the population of England. It would seem that we ought to be being a little more proactive. Do you not think so?

  Lord Whitty: I think we are being proactive, and I think both through our embassies and through UK trade and investment there has been a lot of activity going on.

  Q183 Chairman: How much investment, then, have we put into Poland and Hungary?

  Lord Whitty: Have we put in, or are you talking about—

  Q184 Chairman: I am talking about the United Kingdom. If we go back, say, five years and look at the level then—bearing in mind it has been fairly evident for the last two years that Poland and Hungary are going to become full members of the European Union—what have we actually done?

  Lord Whitty: We have already described one major British company which is by far the biggest operator in Poland and Hungary as far as the retail side is concerned. There are other investors in that area. It is true that we have not—

  Q185 Chairman: Which, for example?

  Lord Whitty: I have not actually got the names on the tip of my tongue but there are other investments from the food sector in Central and Eastern Europe. If, however, you want me to confirm your general point that British investment, whether it be in the agriculture sector or in the food sector, has probably been less than the German, that is undoubtedly true—as it is with almost every other sector. I do not think that there is a problem that has been specific to agriculture. I do not know, Andrew, if you want to add anything to that?

  Mr Lawrence: I do not have the list to hand but we can provide you with one. In terms of the strategy, it is not actually the responsibility of my division to do this but Food from Britain has had £5 million for promotion across the board, and they do have a proactive strategy and work closely with our commercial desks in the embassies.

  Chairman: I think we would like to know a bit more about this because I think our report should reflect to those who read it what the opportunities really are, what the help is that the United Kingdom Government could give them and what they have done so far to help this process forward, and where they might see some opportunities. I would like to move on now to Diana Organ.

  Q186 Diana Organ: In the visits that you had with some of the states, the majority of states that are going to be, from 1 May, fully in the EU, how much have you been able to work with them to ensure that their environmental standards and their food safety standards are absolutely compatible with ours? When we went, as a Committee, we met food standards agency organisations and I do not think we were terribly convinced of their rigour and their effectiveness. The NFU, for instance, are very concerned about this (because they say there has got to be a level playing field) because of the confidence that our consumers will have in the products that are going to be on the shelves and, also, in the damage that will happen to our markets if there is a general loss in confidence because there is not seen to be through the EU a level playing field on food standards and on environmental quality standards. I just wondered how much you have been able to ensure that the new Member States meet those standards.

  Lord Whitty: I have, in dealings with our opposite numbers in some of the enforcement agencies when I have visited, been insistent—even at quite an early stage in the last 24 months and right through that period—that the accession states have to take very seriously both environmental standards and the safety standards. These are very important issues as far as Western markets are concerned. It is true that there are a number of derogations within some of the Member States on some of the phytosanitary and food safety issues—and indeed some of the environmental issues although not so much directly in relation to agriculture—and that therefore there will be some delay before this is an absolute level playing field in terms of regulation. Most of those derogations, however, would finish by 2007 at the latest and we, therefore, will be on a level playing field relatively early on in the new enlarged Europe. There is a separate question as to how far the enforcement of those laws operates. I think most of the Member States have been very effective, but in the end some of them have periods of hiatus in actually transposing EU legislation into their domestic law and will all be at that point, subject to the derogations, but there is also a question of enforcement and I think the situation there does vary from country to country. In many cases, the enforcement mechanisms are regionalised or localised and there will be quite a patchy enforcement pattern to start with. We have been engaged, for example, in helping both the payment agencies and the enforcement agencies with bringing their operations up to scratch, as indeed have other existing Member States. I think whilst it will be problematical for a bit we can see a position where enforcement as well as the standards will be up to Western European levels. I am not pretending that is going to happen as from next week.

  Q187 Diana Organ: To follow on from that, when you said it is going to be a bit patchy and you are a little concerned about the enforcement, can I just ask you what do you think you ought to be doing to ensure that the Commission can be effective and bring in enforcement? Secondly, the other thing about where it is patchy. Where do you have your concern? We went to visit Poland and Hungary but you have done a little bit of a wider trawl. Where have you been looking and thinking "Well, we are not really sure that they are going to be coming up to the same standards that we are making our food producers and processors come up to"? The third thing is, have you or your officials or anybody from the Food Standards Agency been to any of the new accession states to give them advice, guidance and help on how they could come up to the standards of the rest of the EU?

  Lord Whitty: On the last question, as I said, our Defra officials and FSA officials have been helping to bring some of the Member States up to the standards.

  Q188 Diana Organ: Which ones? When you say "some"—

  Lord Whitty: I am not sure I have got it immediately in front of me but, for example, we have helped the Poles on their regional payments agency equivalent and we have helped on some of the phytosanitary ones elsewhere. We can give you the full list of our engagements but, of course, it is not only the UK that is doing this it is other existing EU members. I think, in terms of where are the anxieties, for a start there is a fairly rigorous process of clearing premises but not all of those premises have yet been cleared. There will, for example, be a two-tier operation in Poland where some dairies and some meat producers will have been certified for export to the rest of the existing EU and others will not. Theoretically that is a sustainable position in that they have supplied the local market with the second tier but, in practice, there may be some slippage and I think it is important that those EU countries who receive imports do check that they have come from certified premises. I think, on the other aspect of enforcement, where I say it is patchy, it is not so much patchy between countries, although I am sure some countries are somewhat better than others, as between different parts of the country; food standards tend to be localised and locally enforced through local authorities rather than through a national body and some of those local authorities are better than others. I suspect, for example, that enforcement in the West of Hungary is considerably better than more in the East of Hungary, but on the other hand it is also probable that because it is more productive and profitable agriculture in the West more of the exports, such as they are, will come from the better regulated end of the country. We cannot be sure that that is totally the case, but I do think one has to bear in mind that, for example, when Spain and Portugal entered the EU there were huge anxieties about their ability to impose adequate standards and within a very few years their methods of enforcement and meat hygiene, for example, were as good as any in the rest of Europe. So I think one can exaggerate the nature of the problem.

  Q189 Diana Organ: What would you be doing, though, to follow on because you did not quite answer the question, to exert pressure on the Commission to make sure that when the time is appropriate and we have gone through this initial patchy stage that they do enforce the regulations?

  Lord Whitty: The Commission does not directly enforce it, it is the national agencies which enforce and it is, therefore, making sure that they have the capacity at the national level to enforce, which is part of the help that we and other EU countries have already been giving them.

  Mr Lawrence: On the question of food establishments, as Lord Whitty says, Poland has transitional periods and some other countries do as well—the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia have transitional periods for upgrading their agri-food establishments. They have been granted on the basis of an assessment by the Commission. The Food and Veterinary Office have made—I do not know the exact number—tens, maybe a hundred visits to satisfy themselves that the transitional arrangements can be implemented and enforced properly. We, as the UK, have contributed via technical assistance and other measures to help the Commission. Throughout this whole process there has been a stress on the need for there to be no diminution in protection for animal, food and plant health, and that is what has guided the Commission and others. Just last Thursday the DG Sanco said that they were satisfied that the transitional arrangements in place and the efforts made by the applicant countries in the area of food safety and border inspection were sufficient and adequate, and they thought there would be no risk after 1 May. That is the basis on which we proceed.

  Q190 Diana Organ: Lastly, because there is this sort of hazy period, do you not think it is more important than ever that we do not have a situation in the UK—where we are rather keen on "gold-plating", that is the accusation that is put to us; that if there is any sort of regulation we tend to make sure that we do it "with knobs on"—where we might be in a very unfair situation for our producers and processors if we keep on "gold-plating" any regulation? It is very important that during this period of enlargement we do not even further disadvantage our industry.

  Lord Whitty: As you know, the Government have said they will not "gold-plate" any EU regulation, and whilst there are some historic examples where that has been done that will very rapidly be overtaken by the whole of Europe coming up to that standard. For example, with pig stalls and so on, next year the rest of Europe will catch up with that. So I think the Government have been very firm on the issue of "gold-plating", as far as agricultural regulation is concerned.

  Q191 Diana Organ: So there is a commitment from you that we will not go on gold-plating?

  Lord Whitty: I would not put it quite in those terms because I do not think we are "gold-plating", so it is not a question of "going on"; we have stopped "gold-plating".

  Mr Mitchell: Have you stopped "gold-plating" your regulations yet?

  Q192 Joan Ruddock: I wonder what the Minister considers the new labelling and traceability arrangements to be for GM. It seems to me that we do need "gold-plating" if we want to have any certainty. The UK Government is determined to break the moratorium and is voting for marketing consent for the Bt11 maize. How does the Minister see our consumers being guaranteed a choice of GM-free foods when, as far as we were able to ascertain in our visits to Poland and Hungary, they had no capability whatever to give that guarantee to their exports?

  Lord Whitty: If there were GM production, and it would have had to pass the EU certification process if there is, in Poland and elsewhere, then it would be subject to the same criteria and the same labelling and traceability requirements as anybody else's. The country with the biggest current GM production is Spain, but in order to be able to say it is non-GM you have to be able to demonstrate that there is less than 0.9% GM content, and that would be the case for any production in Poland or elsewhere. So that the same rules would apply and the same process would apply to any application from Poland for a licence for GM produce, either for growing or importing, as would apply to anything here, in Spain or anywhere else. I think the same standards would apply because labelling is an issue for the final markets and we would be able to enforce those standards, at least to the same degree that we are able to enforce them in relation to imports from existing EU countries.

  Q193 Joan Ruddock: If I may suggest, you do not have to grow a crop in order to have a canning factory producing canned sweetcorn, for example. My point is, if we are to guarantee, what are we going to put in place here to ensure that we do not import contaminated produce that has a GM content? Certainly I have no confidence that the accession countries universally will be able to provide testing within their own countries as to whether they have GM content or not in their produce.

  Lord Whitty: I do not think this is an issue that primarily relates to accession countries. We have to be in a position where produce from anywhere in the world coming into our shops and claiming to be non-GM can be tested. I know queries have been raised as to whether that is the case for anything, but there are huge amounts of GM produce being produced in North and South America where that criteria will need to be testable in the UK to enforce EU standards. I do not think that is substantially altered by the fact that there might, in future, be significant GM production in Poland. Insofar as people have doubts about the effectiveness of the regime it is not affected by potential Polish production when there is half the mid-west covered by GM crops.

  Q194 Mr Drew: This is going to be a question I do not know the answer to, but if we were to take action, say, that we were uncertain on the quality of the produce coming from Poland and Hungary, and we would therefore go as far as to say we were not prepared, unless it is clearly provable that that does not contain GM, what would happen in terms of the EU arrangements? Would we enter into an internal trade dispute or what?

  Lord Whitty: If it is a product that has been granted, through the system, a licence to be grown or sold within the EU then it is able to come into the UK as long as it does not claim to be non-GM. So the issue is not stopping it coming in, in those circumstances. If you are saying could there be GM crops which do not have a licence and which are not recognised by EU law, then clearly that is a problem and, if discovered, we would ban it in the same way as we would ban anything which is unlicensed for consumption within the EU. That is not a trade dispute; the Poles, or whoever, would have been producing something which is not cleared for consumption within the EU. When there is a safety problem or a plant disease, seed disease or animal disease problem, where we find some imports from Germany, we ban it for a time until they have cleared up the problem. It happens quite frequently. In principle, GM production is not any different. So there are two levels: is it legal GM, which is wrongly labelled (in which case we can take action to ensure that it is properly labelled); and if it is non-legal GM then we can ban it.

  The Committee suspended from 4.36 pm to 4.48 pm for a division in the House

  Q195 David Taylor: I am going to return to food safety, so you can breathe a sigh of relief. Over recent years there has been a well-grounded series of alarms and excursions which have eroded consumer confidence. Any of those consumers reading your earlier comments, Minister, might not have been especially impressed by that phrase "enforcement might be problematical for a bit"—I think that is what you said. I would like to ask you: when the Commission, last autumn, expressed serious doubts about the readiness of food processing plants in several of the accession countries and then, with almost indecent haste, announced earlier on this year that the new Member States will not be subject to any food related safeguard measures imposed by Brussels on whole countries (and you referred to derogations earlier on); did you not, at least, have a frisson of unease about that? No agriculture minister wants to have the next crisis on their watch, do they?

  Lord Whitty: I do not think it is true to say that the Commission jumped from saying they had got severe anxieties to clearing everything, because there are premises which have still to be cleared—and Mr Lawrence was referring to the FVO[8]inspections and there will be some premises as of 1 May (quite a lot in some cases) which will not have been so cleared—and that is quite apart from the derogations. I think the Commission probably quite rightly said there should be no general problem relating to whole countries but there will be some premises which will not be entitled to send their products into the European food market. The issue of enforcement more generally is one which over the same period as the derogations are phased out, if that is the right word, should be enhanced to a level of food safety which would meet the rest of European standards. I think we are talking about a situation where very rapidly the Eastern and Central European countries will come up to Western European standards. Clearly, we still have to have vigilance within the UK market, and we will require our own enforcement and our own inspections and so forth. None of that changes because these countries have access to the single market.

  Q196 David Taylor: So would it be true to say that you are reasonably relaxed about the standard of food safety in the new states and its ability or capacity to undermine consumer confidence, because to many it appears there are still some lax standards? You have heard from colleagues who visited plants elsewhere last year. You are reasonably relaxed about this?

  Lord Whitty: "Relaxed" is the wrong word. I am never relaxed about food safety standards, I think there is always significant room for improvement and there is always the possibility of something, not necessarily in Central Europe but somewhere in the world and somewhere within the EU, not meeting the standards that are supposedly being enforced. So we have to be ever vigilant. "Relaxed" is not a term I would use. What I am reasonably confident in is that the same standards can be achieved by the Central European countries within a reasonable period of time and, certainly, at the time when we are claiming a level playing field will exist—at the end of these derogations. That does not take anything away from the need for us to be vigilant ourselves, both in things like traceability and labelling and in checking on the quality of meat and so forth which comes into this country.

  Q197 David Taylor: Secondly, and finally, Chairman, can I turn to the related area of illegal imports? The Food and Drink Federation put to us their fears about what they call the permeability of the new frontier to the enlarged EU, and raised doubts about the capacity to prevent illegal imports coming through the new Member States. How seriously does Defra see the threat of such imports coming through such an enlarged frontier to the new and enlarged EU?

  Lord Whitty: The Commission themselves—and I think Mr Lawrence referred to this earlier—have looked directly at the 22 BIPs[9]so-called, where they can import into the eastern end of the European Union. So that imports into those countries are going to be fairly tightly controlled, and the Commission were confident that those ports or frontier crossings are up to the same level as those, for example, in British ports. Therefore, I think I am reasonably confident that the FBO and the Commission's officials have done a reasonable job in that respect. Of course, if you are talking about a 1,000-mile frontier, although it is being closed quite substantially for other reasons, it is always possible that something can get across that frontier which does not go through the BIPs, but in general certainly the legal trade will come through only the 22 points on that border with Belarus and the Ukraine.

  Mr Lawrence: Twenty-two is the figure that was approved in March. In fact, by 1 May it will be 37.

  Q198 David Taylor: It is an issue at arm's length, in a sense; you are happy enough about the comments made by other organisations and bodies such as the Commission—

  Lord Whitty: It is the Commission which is the enforcement standard even in the UK.

  Q199 David Taylor: I understand that, but do you not think that the Minister of Agriculture in our own country has some responsibility to assess the robustness of the measures that are in place and to check those out? Has that been weighed up? Have any tests been performed? What has been the direct involvement in light of the importance of protecting the EU and ourselves against any illegal imports? Have you just left it entirely to the Commission?

  Lord Whitty: Yes. The authorisation of ports of entry is, in this sense, quality controlled for British ports by the same body, so I am not saying anything different for the standards that we expect in Felixstowe; the standards will be exactly the same standards as we expect on the Polish/Belarus border and they are enforced by the same people. So I do not think there is any undermining of that, we are maintaining the same standards which operate for us.


8   European Commission's Food and Veterinary Office. Back

9   Border Inspection Posts. Back


 
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