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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 690-v House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE (FOOD INFORMATION SUB-COMMITTEE)
Tuesday 20 July 2004 MR NEIL MARTINSON and MS ROSEMARY HIGNETT LORD WHITTY, MR BILL SCRIVEN and MR IAN NEWTON Evidence heard in Public Questions 589 - 683
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Food Information Sub-Committee) on Tuesday 20 July 2004 Members present Mr Mark Lazarowicz, in the Chair Mr David Drew Mr Michael Jack Mr Austin Mitchell Joan Ruddock ________________ Memorandum submitted by Food Standards Agency
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Neil Martinson, Director of Communications, and Ms Rosemary Hignett, Head of Food Labelling and Standards Division, examined. Q589 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to Rosemary Hignett and Neil Martinson from the Food Standards Agency. Thank you very much indeed for returning to our evidence session this afternoon. My apologies once again for the way we had to end the session last week and we are grateful that you have returned today. Could I begin by asking for your views as to how clear it is who and which departments within government have responsibility for food policy? It has been suggested in some quarters that it is fragmented in certain ways. How far do you find the different parts of government work together and relate to what you do as an agency? Mr Martinson: The Agency has concordats in place with both Defra and the Department of Health. They spell out the principles and in some cases some degree of detail as to what the division of responsibilities is. In relation to the Food Standards Agency, it is fairly clear that we are responsible for issues in relation to food safety, food standards and enforcement, and also in providing primarily the evidence and the advice in relation to nutrition policy. Q590 Chairman: Are you aware of any cross-departmental working bodies being set up, for example, in which you have an involvement? Mr Martinson: There are a considerable number of cross-departmental working bodies on anything from BSE to contributions to the Food and Health Action Plan. I cannot list them all but there is a very significant number, and, of course, officials work on a daily basis across departments on particular issues. Q591 Mr Mitchell: I got the impression from the retailers that you focus heavily and heavy-handedly on them primarily so that as soon as a food scare hits the headlines, now almost weekly, you come down heavily on the retailers because that is the most convenient point of access for you. Do you accept that charge that you are working most assiduously on the retailers rather than any other section of the food chain? Mr Martinson: What we try to do is deal with the issues as they arise in a fair and consistent and proportionate way. Clearly, in terms of the retailers, they do represent a very significant part of the market. Some 90-odd per cent of consumers buy their food from the major supermarket retail chains, so inevitably if, for example, we are doing a survey, which is quite often based on market share, retailers will appear fairly high up, but certainly we would say that we deal with it in a fair and consistent way. Q592 Mr Mitchell: Yes, but things like labelling go right back down the food chain, do they not? How do you ensure that your message is going to reach the key players before the supermarkets? Mr Martinson: We also have a relationship with the major manufacturers through organisations like the Food and Drink Federation, and clearly in terms of any of our major surveys major branded products appear in them as well, so I do not think we quite accept that particular line of argument. Q593 Mr Mitchell: That is surveys that you are talking about, but when it comes to labelling and instructions it is easiest for you, is it not, to work through the supermarkets and tell them they must do so-and-so? My impression is that that is what you do because it is an easy way out. Ms Hignett: When we are developing labelling policy we always discuss our ideas and the issues with all stakeholders and that will always include the retailers. We also always include manufacturers and it will also include enforcers and the catering sector where that is relevant. We are always careful to involve everybody in those discussions. Certainly, as Mr Martinson has said, retailers are major players so they must expect to be involved. Q594 Mr Mitchell: You referred to a proportionate response. What is a proportionate response? When you get these food panics developing and the Daily Mail highlights something as dangerous, children are dying and shock, horror, how do you respond because they are going to blame you, are they not? Mr Martinson: If we could just deal with the issue of what have been called food scares, over the last four years what we have been doing is dealing with food safety issues in a much more transparent way, and when there is an issue all the major players involved are aware in advance of what the particular issue is. They are informed in advance of the action that the Agency is taking. If I could just quote from our annual consumer survey about the issues around food scares, when we have asked people, "How concerned are you about different issues?", in the year 2001 around 11 per cent said they were concerned about food scares. In a later survey, 2003, around two per cent of consumers said it was an issue for them. What we think is that in the way that we manage food safety now, both by informing and involving stakeholders across the spectrum (and we also involve consumer groups) but also by being transparent, it has helped to improve confidence in food safety in the United Kingdom. Q595 Mr Mitchell: That is interesting; that is a cheering statistic. Does that mean you have anticipated most of the food scares in advance so you have got them on your agenda? Mr Martinson: I do not think we can always anticipate any food scare that is going to come up, but what it does demonstrate is that it pays to be transparent, that in terms of some of the headlines that you might see in some newspapers it does not necessarily translate that all consumers are taking that message away with them. They will base it on their own experiences as well. Q596 Chairman: Can I follow up Mr Mitchell's point regarding the impression that it is the supermarkets which perhaps get the focus of attention? We had questions last week, as you will recall, on the catering sector and the type of information that this sector provides to its customers. What you told us last week was that this was an area in which there were encouraging noises that more needed to be done. It did not strike me that this was an area which at present was being regarded as a priority by yourselves and yet it is one which is obviously important to many consumers in terms of the information they get about the choices they make. Does that not perhaps back up the kind of suggestion that Mr Mitchell was making about the emphasis of your work? Ms Hignett: I do not see us as giving priority to any particular sector. I think there is a distinction between pre-packed foods where inevitably the discussions focus on manufacturers and retailers and non-pre-packed foods where the food service sector is more important and the issues become more difficult and more challenging in the food service sector because it is difficult to think in terms of a one-size-fits-all solution because the range of operations is so wide. Whilst for pre-packed foods the discussions tend to focus on legislation at EU level and then voluntary action in the UK, in relation to the food service sector the starting point is slightly different. The starting point is one which is very much focused on what it is practical to achieve rather than a legislative starting point. Q597 Joan Ruddock: I do not know whether the FSA did the research or whether it published the research, but it is the issue of organic baby food recently in which it was stated that there were more organic baby foods containing higher levels of dioxins than non-organic baby foods. I wondered what the FSA thought it was doing in terms of communicating to the public when all of the products surveyed had dioxins that were very well within the safety levels? What was it you were trying to achieve in commenting on that research? Mr Martinson: We did not make the comment in terms of organic baby food. I think that was made by a Scottish newspaper. We do a wide-ranging number of surveys where we try to benchmark the level of contaminants that may be in a range of foods and in that way we are able to use it partly in terms of dietary information so it is possible to find out if in fact the picture is getting better or worse. In terms of most environmental contaminants the picture is getting much better. There is a reduction. When we published that, which we published on our website, we made it very clear that on the basis of expert advice there was no reason to be concerned about the level of contaminants because they were all well below any levels that would give any reason for any parent to be concerned across both organic and conventional baby foods. Q598 Joan Ruddock: Does that not pose a problem though, because this could amount to a food scare for parents who have very specifically chosen organic baby foods because they want their babies to be safe? Here is a suggestion that dioxins, which most people believe are very unsafe, are more present and yet we all know that they were well within the safety limits. What do you feel about the message that you have communicated and your responsibilities for that? Mr Martinson: I do not think we communicated that particular message. In terms of the work that we do in relation to surveys, we find what we find and we have an obligation to report that and make it accessible, not least because it is used by scientists all over the world in terms of collecting data. I think it is regrettable that it was reported in that way, and obviously what we do is seek to avoid that, but we cannot control such reporting. Q599 Mr Jack: You have made some important points about what consumers should know about the food that they are eating. Is it important for consumers to have some benchmark by which to judge, for example, messages about salt, sugar, fibre and other nutritious intakes on a daily basis? Ms Hignett: Yes. I think the major problem with the nutrition information as we have it at the moment on foods is that it is just a number given in isolation, so it depends if you like either on the manufacturer voluntarily giving some contextual information or on the consumer bringing a rule of thumb of some sort to the party. Consumers may not in fact have the ability to do that. Q600 Mr Jack: Where would a consumer go to acquaint themselves with this important benchmarking information? Do you provide it? Ms Hignett: We do have consumer advice on what constitutes a lot or a little of fat, for instance, and we disseminate that through leaflet material and through our website. Q601 Mr Jack: Your website, for example, does not have a separate page summarising the average daily intake of a variety of nutritious ingredients. It does not have anything on the same page summarising what the daily intake of salt and sugar is. That information is scattered about. Do you not think that in terms of informing people there should be a starting point from which they could then relate to all the other information that you provide? Ms Hignett: There is certainly advice on the website around what constitutes a lot and a little of fat, salt, sugar, etc. I am certain that it is possible for that to be improved so that it is more accessible and we are looking at how to do that at the moment. We are also very aware that the website is probably not the best place to be providing that information. Q602 Mr Jack: You put a lot of emphasis in terms of the role of the FSA as a communicator of food information on the role of your website. Your evidence says so. Ms Hignett: Yes, our website is extremely important. What I wanted to say was that we think in relation to nutrition information that that contextual information should be present on the label so that it is present at the time of use. Q603 Mr Jack: Let me move on to paragraph 2 of your evidence in which you say, "Since most consumers read food labels at least occasionally ..." - and you put down some survey results. Let me ask you whether you have done any follow-up information as to what they are reading these labels for and do they find what they are looking for? Ms Hignett: That information is broken down in that survey in terms of what information people look for, so, for instance, the highest figure is for general information such as, what is the food, can I put it in the freezer, that sort of thing. The headline figure in there is that 64 per cent of them are looking for nutrition information, for instance, and there is other information in the survey about what the key information is for them. We also ask in the survey whether they find the information easy to understand and a figure of something like 25 per cent find that the nutrition information, for instance, is fairly or very difficult to use. Q604 Mr Jack: Given that at the moment under labelling, and again your evidence draws our attention to (and in fact your own comments earlier referred to) the fact that in non-packaged lines there is effectively no information. Coming back to the point I was asking about how does a consumer establish a mental benchmark about what they ought to be eating each day, is there not a yawning gap in the information provided to the consumer so that if they buy any unpackaged item of a given size and quantity they have got no real idea how that fits in with their overall dietary intake during the week? The reason I ask that question is that some things we eat are labelled as bad, but if you balance it up with an awful lot of the things that we label as good then you might have what some describe as a balanced and proper diet, but I cannot see with the array of information that is presently available how people form such a judgment when a large chunk of what people do buy contains no factual information whatsoever? Ms Hignett: That is right and that is one of the reasons why we are in discussion with the food service sector about what can be done to provide more nutrition information in catering establishments. The concept of signposting, which is being talked about a lot at the moment and which is giving relatively simple nutrition information in an easy to use manner, could in principle be applied consistently across pre-packed and non-pre-packed foods, which would give consumers the opportunity to look at their whole diet and take those decisions rather more easily than is the case at the moment. Q605 Mr Jack: In paragraph 4 of your evidence you indicate that 58 per cent of people look for information about ingredients. Some may argue that things like oranges have been around since whenever and you do not need to tell them what is in an orange, but if you take a banana, which contains fibre, natural sugars, potassium, all kinds of things, how do people know in that sector, in relation to their benchmark, whether they are getting the right balance or not, because the whole emphasis of the evidence we have had so far has been on things that are in packages? You mentioned the food service sector, which takes us slightly beyond the retail environment in buying food into the area where we sub-contract our food purchases in restaurants and so forth. We come back to the retail sector. Is there a need in your judgment to help people put together this overview by providing at the point of sale information of a nutritional content nature about non-packaged foods? Ms Hignett: I think I would give the same answer for non-pre-packs in retail and in catering establishments, that yes, if we are trying to encourage people to select a balanced diet then we cannot expect them to do that unless we make arrangements for them to have the information on which to do so. Q606 Mr Jack: What has the FSA done to move that agenda forward? Ms Hignett: At the moment we are in discussion with stakeholders across the board, as I discussed earlier, about what is being called signposting, so ways of providing nutrition information on pre-packs and non-pre-packs in catering establishments and elsewhere in a consistent way that enables consumers to look at their whole diet and make those choices more easily. We have not found a solution but we are in discussion about that at the moment. Q607 Mr Mitchell: I want to come back on this because I see you are doing information promotion for kids in schools, which is marvellous, although I wish you had the hero of my generation, who was Popeye, who always ate his spinach before he fought to a finish. All you have got is the Bash Street Kids who are not examples of good dietary behaviour in my book. I went to my grandchildren's sports day yesterday. They all sat down and stuffed themselves with ice cream and crisps (very salty crisps because I ate some of them myself) and pop. If you are venturing down the labelling path is there a case for kids' labelling to make all this comprehensible to kids and warn them off certain things? Ms Hignett: There is a case for two things. There is a case for looking at labelling for kids who are buying things from their own money, if you like, and you have to face the fact that most of the things that are bought for kids are bought by their parents rather than by the children. There is a case for looking at whether the information on foods that children are buying themselves could be better presented but there is also an issue around commercial activity aimed at children with a view to affecting their food choices and looking, particularly in the school environment, at whether that is appropriate and whether there are things which could be done to make it easier for children and for parents buying for children to make healthier choices. Q608 Mr Mitchell: But that is indirect, is it not? What could make an impression on kids would be a label on the product like "Better unsalted". Ms Hignett: One thing that is very clear is that children are very much attracted by things like role model endorsements, like cartoon characters on the packaging. That sort of thing provides an incentive and motivation for a child to want a particular product, so to look at the factual information content without looking at that overall picture misses a very important part of the jigsaw. Q609 Mr Mitchell: But that is an excuse for not putting warning information on the label for kids. Have you considered having any special system of children's labelling? Ms Hignett: We are looking at signposting, as I said, across the board and within that we are looking at signposting in relation to children, which gets a bit more complicated because you have got the issues of different age groups to worry about, but we are looking at it and seeing whether there is something that can be done. Q610 Chairman: You mentioned features such as the importance of role models in advertising and packaging aimed at children. Are you doing anything in this area? Is anyone addressing these issues and, if so, what are they? Ms Hignett: The Agency's board has recently agreed a whole work programme aimed at food productions aimed at children which focuses on a number of things which could be done to make the environment more friendly for children wanting to make healthier choices, if you like. One of the elements of that is that we would encourage role models to promote healthier options rather than high fat, high salt, high sugar foods. We have also, for instance, looked at the initiative which BBC Worldwide has announced, which is to only license the characters which they own on foods with a particular nutritional profile and we are looking at developing guidance on nutrition profiles which could be used by character licences. In effect the aim there is to reduce the amount of fat, sugar and salt in foods which are aimed directly at children. Q611 Mr Jack: What kinds of inquiries do you get on food safety issues? Can you give us the top three things the public ask you about? Mr Martinson: In terms of the issues of concern almost always the top level of concern is around food poisoning. This is not necessarily what they ask us about but this is what is picked up in our surveys. Four years ago the top level of concern was around BSE and concern about that has continued to decline. In terms of the third issue, I would have to look it up. Can I come back to you on that? Q612 Mr Jack: The reason I am asking the question by reverse is to say, in terms of information given by the sectors of the food industry which promote the question, how could they be improving on dealing with consumers' concerns about food safety issues? Perhaps once you have got the three you might like to give us some commentary about how the industry communicates better to its customers on food safety issues. We tend to concentrate on information on labels but that is not always the place that you can deal with some of these food safety issues. Mr Martinson: Just on the food safety issues, if we look at food poisoning the Agency set itself a target when it was established of reducing food poisoning by 20 per cent over ----- Q613 Mr Jack: From what to what? Mr Martinson: This was from the reported figures. Q614 Mr Jack: Which were? Mr Martinson: Which were around 70,000 a year, reported to what was then the PHIS, and so it was a 20 per cent reduction on that headline figure. Clearly that represents a much larger figure that goes unreported which is estimated at around a million a year. To date the figure has declined by about 18 per cent, so in a sense we have almost hit the target, but the main point here is about how that has been achieved through working with industry across the board to look at ways of improving practices. That could be anything from, for example, bio-security on farms in relation to chicken and the spread of campylobacter to working with the catering industry to improve practices there also in order to reduce the issues of food poisoning. In terms of information, by and large there is quite a lot of information out there already including that on labels, particularly in relation to preparation and cooking of food and particularly in terms of those foods which could present a slightly higher risk in terms of uncooked meat. Mr Jack: If we are talking about the myriad ways in which people can purchase their food outside the home, do you believe there is any need for some kind of nationally communicable standard by which people can be assured that when they go to a restaurant or a major food chain or buy their food out anywhere that establishment is in accord with the best practice, because the last thing you normally ask about when you go to a restaurant is, "What is going on behind the scenes where I cannot see it?". I recently watched one of these celebrity chef programmes where he had been advising this guy who ran some place in Yorkshire, I think it was ----- Mr Mitchell: It went bankrupt. Mr Jack: ----- and it was an unmitigated disaster, what was shown on the television, and I am assuming that it was an honest representation of what was going on. Mr Mitchell: Not in Yorkshire. Mr Jack: It was in Yorkshire. Mr Mitchell: Not an honest representation of what goes on in Yorkshire. Q615 Mr Jack: The point I am getting at is that clearly the public could have been exposed in those circumstances to an enormous risk and the idea of food safety in running that particular establishment seemed miles away, as with most things in food preparation in this particular instance, from what the restaurant should have been about. I question from that standpoint how it was they deviated so far but the people up front did not know about it. Mr Martinson: There will be a requirement from January 2006 for all catering establishments to raise their game with the introduction of new rules which will require them to document in a proportionate way the measures that they are taking within their restaurant in relation to food standard. It is called HASOP. Please do not ask me what it stands for because I always forget. That is about critical control points in the food chain, and certainly the Agency sees that as a good step in relation to addressing those particular kinds of concerns. In addition, to state the obvious, consumers also have a role because I have to say that what I think is paradoxical is the level of complaints and reports that consumers make compared to what they say their experience is. The level of complaints is very low. Certainly if consumers were more able to complain to the local environmental health officer to investigate and then take appropriate action, that would help. Q616 Mr Jack: Let me conclude by asking a question about your own role in communicating food safety issues. You were, like the proverbial greyhound, out of the stocks over the question of oily fish, only on mature reflection to have to revise that information. Do you not think, following Ms Ruddock's observations, that you had not quite got the balance right in terms of waiting and assessing before you said something? I recall that equally you were very quick in commenting on some very early research about the possible relationship between sheep meat and I think New Variant CJD but without all of the substance of science having been completed, and therefore a worry was raised in the consumer's mind. How do you argue about the balance between transparency and not worrying people unnecessarily? Mr Martinson: The key issue is how you establish a relationship of trust with consumers and indeed wider stakeholders. In relation to the risk of BSE in sheep, this was not something that came out of thin air. Scientists had been looking into this for some time and the Agency was very clear that consumers had a right to know that there was a possible risk. We were not saying to anyone that they should change their diet or indeed avoid eating sheep. Certainly in terms of the research we did in relation to understanding of that, that message did seem to be communicated. As always with those kinds of issues, you need to turn it on its head and we know from previous food safety issues that it has been disastrous when information has been withheld from the public. On the oily fish one, I am not sure what particular issue you are referring to. Q617 Mr Jack: If my memory is correct, the first announcement was two portions of oily fish a week and only one if you were a pregnant woman, and then you issued subsequent guidance which indicated that a greater number of servings was okay, and you then said that the balance of risk is to eat the oily fish because the Omega 3 fat does you more good than the potential risks you are coming up against. One minute you can be running to the fishmonger saying, "Here, you can have this lousy fish back", and the next minute you are going and saying, "I will have four portions a week". Mr Martinson: If I can put that into some kind of context it may help. It has been longstanding advice, not just in this country but also in many other countries, to eat two portions of fish a week, one of which should be oily. A question to which nobody knew the answer was how many portions of oily fish, given the contaminants that might be in them. We could not answer that question because we did not have the scientific base on which to do that. About 18 months ago we commissioned independent experts in this country to look at the research, to look at the evidence and provide us with advice. They did that around six weeks ago and what we then did was try to present it in a way that we felt was understandable for most consumers with a number of caveats in relation to vulnerable groups. It is difficult to see what else we could have done because there was no evidence before we asked the question. We have now got the evidence. No other agency in the world has been able to provide that advice, so we think in a sense this is a step forward. We are able to provide it with a greater degree of certainty. Two years ago we could not have given the answer. Q618 Joan Ruddock: It occurred to me that perhaps - and I have no idea whether this is right or not - people should be advised to take some oily capsule as a supplement to their diet and avoid the fish altogether. Is that something you can do or can you only advise about the content and nutrition and all the rest of it and the dangers of food? Mr Martinson: The advice that we have provided is that you can get the benefits in relation to oily fish from eating oily fish, but if people choose to take it from somewhere else that is their choice. Q619 Joan Ruddock: But that advice is something you could or do give, is it? Mr Martinson: Generally speaking our advice is in terms of dietary intake from food as opposed to supplements, but if people have specific dietary and indeed medical needs often that advice is from their doctor. Mr Mitchell: A doctor telling you to take pills instead of eating fish would be barmy. Q620 Joan Ruddock: If the FSA thinks there is some risk, albeit that risk is low, and you are saying the only reason for taking that risk is because of another benefit and the other benefit could be provided by an alternative source, is it not reasonable for you to advise that that is so? Mr Martinson: Not in this particular case. Chairman: Let us not pursue this line in too much detail. Q621 Mr Drew: One of the real issues about food safety nowadays is the degree to which we have lost national control of food safety issues because it is invested in the EU. To what extent does the work of the FSA and now in the European Food Standards Agency mean that you are always subject to intensive lobbying pressure at a level in Europe where the big food manufacturers will literally throw money at an issue if there appears to be a risk of them losing their potential market? Ms Hignett: As far as food law is concerned most of it is made at EU level, which of course, since much of our food is imported from other EU Member States, is a plus as well as a minus, if you like. Whether that subjects us to a greater level of lobbying than would otherwise be the case I am not sure. Whenever an important issue is tackled, whether it is at national level or at EU level, there will be lobbying. Q622 Mr Drew: We all know because we have had conversations about a particular case, which I am not going to go into at this stage, but it is just my experience when I have looked at the operation of this area in particular, and this is real big bucks at European level because obviously it is the entry into world markets. To what extent do you think you would be somewhat hidebound by the fact that there would be a natural assumption that if a product has become an established national product it would inevitably therefore be accepted at EU level and then there would be very little you could do even if there was some concern over it? I am talking about manufactured products here; I am not talking about fresh products. We are talking about the big scale of the market place. I wonder what your worries would be if there genuinely were concerns being expressed here, particularly if it came down to the issue of how we might want to label things with some information being required and the other European countries being far less concerned about that? Ms Hignett: I think that the task we have then is to persuade other Member States, and we are quite familiar with being in that position of trying to persuade other Member States. If there is a safety concern, then whether or not a product is an established product on the market we would be in favour of appropriate action being taken to protect consumers from that safety risk. On the other side of the coin we very much oppose any moves which would have the effect of taking products off the market if there were not a safety concern, so we would not want to see any unnecessary reduction in consumer choice. Q623 Mr Mitchell: I wanted to follow up something you said in answer to Mr Jack. I think it is totally unrealistic to place the emphasis on consumers to invigilate conditions in restaurants. That is barmy. That is your job. When I go to a restaurant I do not want to inspect the kitchen - if I get food poisoning I will sue - but it is not my responsibility to inspect the safety of conditions, it is your responsibility, and I think it is unreasonable to try and shift it on to consumers. That is just by way of an observation. The point is you said you were having some kind of certifying scheme from January 2006, I think you said. I was just interested in how that works, because you indicated it would be a hazard assessment thing done by the proprietor. They are going to lie, are they not? They are going to fill in a form and say "Mine is the best possible kitchen". If you are going to have that you have got to have an inspection system to make sure they are telling the truth and you have got to have some system of certification that you can put up above the door "This has been certified as good, clean, nutritious - whatever it is - by the Food Standards Agency". Mr Martinson: Just to pick up on that, I do not think I said consumers had a role in terms of inspecting or invigilation. What I said was that about 2 per cent of consumers who say they had food poisoning in restaurants actually make a complaint about it. My point was that that would actually assist in terms of trying to find out where the problems are. There are something like 350,000 catering establishments in the UK. In relation to your suggestion, that is being piloted at the moment in Northern Ireland and in Wales by the FSA with local authorities. Local authorities are responsible for the inspection of premises rather than the Agency, and one of the issues that we are looking into is whether it is going to be feasible when the new regulations come in to introduce precisely the kind of proposals that you have just suggested. There are a number of difficulties with it, partly in relation to how often a premises may be inspected because, clearly, once you have got it up on the wall you have got no guarantees about what happens between that and the next inspection, necessarily. I think the other thing to say is that for most people in catering, clearly, they do not want to poison their customers; it is not good for their business. So we hope that is a good incentive. Q624 Mr Mitchell: That is inspection by Environmental Health, presumably. At the end of the day, if they pass the inspection it is not just testified to by the fact that the restaurant remains in existence and not closed, it needs something to display on the doorway. Mr Martinson: We certainly are looking actively into greater transparency for consumers in relation to standards in restaurants. Chairman: Thank you. We had intended to ask some questions about the Farm Assurance Schemes, but in view of pressures of time, if my colleagues agree, I will pursue that in writing with the Agency and conclude the questions at this stage. Thank you very much indeed for coming along to give us evidence this afternoon. Thank you. Memorandum submitted by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Lord Whitty, a Member of the House of Lords, Minister for Food, Farming and Sustainable Energy, Mr Bill Scriven, Head of Food Chain Marketing and Competitiveness Division and Mr Ian Newton, Head of Trade Policy Unit, European Union International Division, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, examined. Chairman: Good afternoon, Lord Whitty. Thank you for coming to give us your evidence this afternoon, and we are sorry we are running a little bit behind schedule. I see you are joined by two members of your department this afternoon. Could I begin by inviting Michael Jack to open our questions this afternoon? Q625 Mr Jack: Thank you very much, Chairman. Lord Whitty, you are no stranger to our method of inquiry. I read your evidence with keen interest and without doubt you have summarised in four pages an awful lot of activity that is going on in various ways in which information is being transmitted to various consumers, young and old, in the field of food, but nowhere in the document could I find a statement about, for example, who in government is responsible for policy on food information. In the context of labels, for example, there is no statement in your evidence saying what is Defra's view about labels, their contents and their future development. Could you enlighten me on, first of all - you are the sponsor ministry for a £55-60 billion industry, the food and drink industry - who is responsible for policy within government for food information? Lord Whitty: If you are talking about mandatory information provided by regulation in relation to the food safety or nutritional content, then the FSA is. The FSA, as you know, is an independent agency - you have just been talking to them - and they come under the aegis of the Department of Health. There are, of course, other methods of information about food including assurance standards, retailers' information and other forms of information in which we, as sponsor ministry, encourage the industry to provide as accurate and as detailed information as they can in various ways, but the actual regulatory dimension of it is the FSA. Q626 Mr Jack: That is a good answer from the regulatory side but that was not the question I asked. The question I asked was about food information. The Government has had presented to it the Department of Health report on obesity, and the antidote for that - or part of it - is good advice and information to the consumer. The Government, by definition, when it responds to that report, will have to have a view about these matters. So I ask again, in putting together views on issues like that and bearing in mind your department's key sponsorship role for the food industry, who is in charge within government, on the question of food information for, from the Government's standpoint, transmitting messages about food or deciding what messages the Government would like to transmit about food? Who is in charge? Lord Whitty: The response to the report will be a cross-government report but the FSA are the lead department. Q627 Mr Jack: So you are saying that your department has no view on this matter? Lord Whitty: No, I just said we have a view on a number of matters and we, clearly, have a view in relation to what information should go in, but if you are asking who is in charge, who is the lead department in relation to food information, and on the regulatory and educational side, if you like, it is the FSA. Q628 Mr Jack: The FSA told us there were lots of cross-government committees that meet on this subject to decide policy. Lord Whitty: Indeed. Q629 Mr Jack: Could you give us a flavour of what your input to any of those is? Lord Whitty: At the moment, the dynamics of it are largely being led on the health side by the preparation for the Food and Health Action Programme and the Public Health White Paper. That is the main, active co-ordination at official level that operates in that area. There have been previous bodies ---- Q630 Mr Jack: So Defra is involved in that? Lord Whitty: Defra is involved in that. Q631 Mr Jack: What kind of input do you have to that? What is your role in that? What kind of things do you put on the table for others to digest? Lord Whitty: We are responsible for the sustainability of the British food sector. That includes concern about the economics of it, the environmental impact of it and the social, which includes the nutritional, aspect of it. So we therefore have a view on all of those, but it may be that other agencies are the main bodies. For example, we are the co-ordinating department for public procurement of food. We do not actually have a big public procurement programme ourselves but we are the co-ordinating department encouraging the Department for Education, the Prison Service, the Armed Forces and the NHS and so forth to improve the quality of their public procurement of food, both in terms of the amount that is sourced both locally and from British sources and the nutritional quality of it. So we have that role, for example. Q632 Mr Jack: Let me just stop you. I went and looked at your website today, and on food it covers food manufacturing, importing, exporting, and general information on regulation, and it touches on eggs, poultry and milk products, beef labelling, competition, food chain, and organic production. However, as the department, for example, that is responsible for the production side, if you like, of all of the fresh food in the country; there is no information to relate that area of your responsibility to food information. So, in other words, if a member of the public thought "Defra: food. I will go there for information", they are going to be left sort of feeling around. I just wondered why this lack of engagement in having ---- Lord Whitty: There is no lack of engagement; it is a daily engagement between my officials and the FSA and other agencies. You will know, in terms of the machinery of government, that it was a deliberate decision of government to remove the regulatory and informational side - consumer-oriented side - from the production side. So what became the FSA was removed from MAFF by a deliberate decision and placed under the aegis of health ministers. You can argue whether that was wrong or right but it was a deliberate separation. We have maintained a very high level of continuous engagement with the FSA and with the Department of Health on all of these issues but our role is not the provision of information except in a few limited areas, like veterinary medicine ---- Q633 Mr Jack: You said your officials were involved in the working up of this Food and Health Action Plan. Lord Whitty: Yes. Q634 Mr Jack: What is the message? What are you telling your officials (I presume they report back to you on what goes on in this body) they ought to be doing from the Defra standpoint to ensure, as your note says, "Improving consumer information will be a key focus of the Food and Health Action Plan." What is Defra's contribution to that? What do you think this Food and Health Action Plan should be doing? Therefore, what are you telling your representatives on this cross-government body to do? What is the Defra message? Lord Whitty: We should seek to ensure that the information provided to consumers who will sustain the future health of the British food industry is understandable, is accurate and is able to be delivered by the industry itself. To do that there is the question of its form, both its regulatory form and its form over and above regulation, and there is a question of how we engage the various parts of the industry in delivering that information. So whether we are talking about retailers or restaurateurs or the manufacturers, we want to see that process of the Food and Health Action Plan and the broader strategy for public health to engage positively the food industry in delivering the message and making sure that the message is something which the food industry can or ought to be able to deliver. Q635 Mr Jack: Are you, in any way, instructing your officials about the balance that should be struck in terms of the messages that this Food and Health Action Plan puts out between, for example, fresh and manufactured foods, bearing in mind your sponsorship of both sides of the industry? There are some who may have a very distinct view about what is good versus bad, from the health standpoint. You, on the other hand, represent producer interests ---- Lord Whitty: I do not represent producer interests; I represent the public's interests in the success of the British food industry. Q636 Mr Jack: You make it clear that you are unique in government, in that you have the responsibility for this great food and drink industry; you are the sponsoring body of it and you are there to champion ---- Lord Whitty: But I do not represent them. Q637 Mr Jack: You represent their views. I am sure if the food ---- Lord Whitty: They may well want me to represent their views a little bit more explicitly and precisely, but I represent what I think is their long-term interest, which is a different thing from representing their views. Their long-term interest is in ensuring they have got informed, healthy, long-lived and understanding customers. Chairman: I think there was an issue Austin was going to take at this stage, and then you can follow your point further. Q638 Mr Mitchell: I was as delighted as Michael clearly is to hear that you are the sponsor of the food industry because, Britain being the largest concentration of food production (?) as Europe's food town, it is nice to have such a benign and amiable sponsor, I must say. Like him, I want to ask what it involves. You are saying that what you are doing is ensuring they have long-lived, healthy customers. How far are you also promoting the industry's economic interests and its development? Lord Whitty: We are clearly promoting the industry's economic interests in the sense that we are looking to them to raise their game, in terms of their technology, their taking on board the demands of the consumers and of the environment and their trade issues - whether they are issues of import or export - and so forth. Then, within the Government machine, we are acting, if you like, as their critical friend. Q639 Mr Mitchell: Whitbread told us you were not spreading enough information about them; you did not know enough about the food industry to tell other departments what is involved there. Lord Whitty: I would be surprised at that, but I think they have enough engagement in various parts of Defra to know what we do and what we do not do. There will be some criticism but, in general, I think the food industry is pretty clear on who its sponsor is, what we are prepared to do for them and what our relationship is with the other key departments who interface with them. Q640 Mr Mitchell: So you are sponsoring both the producers and the manufacturers? Lord Whitty: Yes. Q641 Mr Mitchell: The food service sector as well as the food chain? The whole lot? Lord Whitty: Yes. Q642 Mr Jack: Can I just tell you why I have been pursuing my line of inquiry about what your department's actual views are on some of this? For example, in your evidence under the paragraph that talks about EU marketing standards, you quite rightly describe at the retail stage: "This information must include the nature of produce, its quality and whether it is Class 1 or 2". However, part of this great plan for Food and Health Action will, no doubt, deal with nutrition and ingredient contents. I would have thought that you might have had a view, for example, with the marketing of fresh produce, as to whether it would enhance the sales of those items in the context of this plan if consumers were better informed about, for example, what the nutritional content of the banana, the apple, the beef, the pork, etc, was, but you are neutral in your views about these issues in your evidence. Why? Lord Whitty: I do not think we are neutral about them in our evidence or in practice. We are clear that part of the responsibility of the food industry in all its manifestations is to deliver a wide range of choice, certainly, and the option of pursuing a healthy diet, but the balance of that healthy diet is primarily a matter for health ministers and, to some extent, the FSA. We want to ensure that the British industry can supply the healthy elements ---- Q643 Mr Jack: I know that, but if you take, for example, lettuce, which is high in folic acid and good for pregnant mothers I understand, I would have thought Defra might have had a view as to whether that piece of information ought to be given by retailers, for example, to customers in addition to the fact of describing whether it is a Class 1 or 2 lettuce or what its weight was. Yet you do not seem to have a view. Lord Whitty: I think you are mixing up the issue of what is regulated and what is not. Q644 Mr Jack: Do you want to go beyond regulation then? Lord Whitty: Yes. Q645 Mr Jack: How? Lord Whitty: There are bits of regulation which after the removal of the FSA from the old MAFF stayed with what is now Defra. One of those bits is the bit you picked up here under marketing standards for fresh fruit and vegetables. That has remained, perhaps slightly anomalously but it has remained, with Defra. We are therefore responsible for carrying out the EU regulations in that area. However, over and above that, as part of our overall food policy in the Sustainable Food and Farming Strategy adopted following the Curry report, we are party to cross-government commitments on diet and a balanced diet, which includes, for example, the Five-a-day, the fresh fruit in schools and various elements which promote fresh produce. If you are saying do I want to go beyond that and persuade retailers and others to advertise the specific benefits of specific fresh products then that is probably going a bit far, but the general message that fresh food, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables - which includes lettuces and salads - are of benefit, then, yes, we would wish to encourage those who purvey them whether they are restaurants or retailers, so to do. That should benefit elements of the primary producers as well. Q646 Mr Jack: We have talked about health and we have talked about your position. North of the border there is a Scottish Food and Health Co-ordinator who manages to bridge these gaps. Have you given any thought to the appointment of such a person south of the border? Lord Whitty: My understanding of the Scottish position is that there is somebody within the Scottish Executive who is, if you like, the point of contact so that there is a one-stop-shop for food policy issues, but she is not, as I understand it, the executive responsible in all the areas of the Scottish Executive; the health department, the agriculture department, the education department - they have a similar structure to us. Of course, the FSA, which is the main regulator in the industry, is a national, UK body; therefore, it is not an analogous position. It is certainly not a co-ordinator in the sense of a superstructure over all the departments and agencies which have bits of responsibility for food. If you are saying should there be more of a one-stop-shop for information, well, that is something that we could certainly look at. At the moment we are focusing strongly on the health element and there may be recommendations in relation to how you get information on food health coming out of the Public Health White Paper. I think it is wrong to say (as I have seen this position in Scotland described) it is a Food Tsar; it is nothing of the sort, it is a co-ordicator of information - or least a focal point for information - not an executive job. Chairman: There was a particular issue regarding the industry/government interface that I think Joan Ruddock wanted to pursue. Q647 Joan Ruddock: I think the Minister is saying that there is going to be a White Paper, that there are clearly discussions going on and we will know in due course, but some things have already come to our attention, namely the initiative on salt and the way in which the Minister for Health has named companies and said that there would be a need to take some stronger action. To what extent has Defra been in discussions with the Department of Health over that particular initiative, which is on-going at the moment? Lord Whitty: The issue of salt in food is quite a long-running one in which MAFF, and then Defra, have been involved with the Department of Health for some time. The particular initiative on naming the companies we are not directly involved in but, clearly, that was an initiative in which the Department of Health were trying to ratchet up the pressure on some of the manufacturers they felt were not delivering enough on that front. However, the basic policy we have been involved in. Q648 Joan Ruddock: Given that that has been publicly stated, is Defra then working with the industry in any sense to reinforce those messages? Or do you say "That's them, and they did that and it is nothing to do with us, really"? Lord Whitty: No, we are not; we are keeping in close touch with the Department of Health on all these things, but it is their initiative to actually pick out salt as one of the principal areas. We have had a salt reduction policy which is a Defra, and before that MAFF, policy as well as a Department of Health policy for some considerable time, and certainly quite a lot has been achieved on the bakery side, for example. Q649 Joan Ruddock: Should it not be a joint policy? Should you not be jointly tackling this issue? Lord Whitty: We are a joint party to it but the setters of the targets are those who are responsible for health, in effect, and that is why the Department of Health set the targets and monitors against those targets. So they are, therefore, best placed to say if companies and products are falling below those targets. Q650 Joan Ruddock: Given that we have had a lot of evidence that suggests that the voluntary initiative is somewhat faltering, do you think the Government ought to take a stronger line and, possibly, ought to legislate in this field? Lord Whitty: In which field? Q651 Joan Ruddock: In terms of quantities. Lord Whitty: We are still on salt? Q652 Joan Ruddock: We all know that sugar and fat is the same issue, really, but it is about the levels that are healthy or unhealthy and about the information that ought to be given to people to try to make an assessment to do what is best for them diet-wise. Lord Whitty: I think there are two separate issues. On the question of whether, in effect, some heavily-salted products should be eliminated from the market by regulation if the voluntary system does not do it, the voluntary system has eliminated quite a lot of heavily-salted food but some other, particularly highly-processed, products have come in, so that there is a highly-salted processed thing where bread has reduced its salt content. So if the direction was faltering entirely then I think the option of looking at regulation in these and other fields might be appropriate. The issue of information is, of course, one which is under active consideration, principally with the FSA and the Department of Health, but I suspect that the issue of information on salt, fat and sugar will form part of the consideration of the Public Health White Paper, and maybe regulation on what information should be given. There is, of course, some dispute as to what information is useful and what is not, which may make actual regulation more difficult, but we are still generally at the point where, product-by-product, salt is being reduced by, largely, voluntary action. We need to take that faster. If it fails to speed up then I suppose there may become a case for actual bans, but I think we are not at that point at this point. Q653 Joan Ruddock: Might not regulation of that kind, that could ultimately be a ban, create a level playing field? Some of the evidence given to us has been suggesting that people like the taste of salty food and, therefore, those who continue to market salty foods could gain market advantage over others who have been more responsible? Lord Whitty: Yes, although that has not been the economic effect of the reduction in salt in bread. Q654 Joan Ruddock: It has not? Lord Whitty: It has not, in that it has not been the saltier breads which have prevailed. Certainly, to some extent, the less-salty breads have had a bigger market share. However, that could happen; I appreciate it could happen. One of the problems in all this - and I am not saying anything different, I do not think, from what the Department of Health or the FSA would say - is that if you focus on one aspect of unhealthy food then, clearly, if you have a couple of bags of crisps a week, however salty they are, if you also eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and have a reasonably healthy lifestyle it is not going to do you much harm, but if you only eat highly-salted food and sit in front of the television all the time, then, by and large, you are going to end up in a pretty poor condition by the time you are my age - if you should get that far. So there is this question of whether banning particular foods is the appropriate response except in extreme circumstances or whether the overall message, which I think does need to be the overall message, of a more balanced diet is the more appropriate way forward. Q655 Mr Drew: In terms of the relationship with the FSA, I do not want to keep going over old ground but in a sense, in setting up Defra - which was quite a radical thing to do and to actually give food its own ministry - it does seem rather bizarre that the key agency that reports through to government is actually reporting to another department. Is it not about time that the Government actually did what it said it was going to do, which is treat food as an important issue and not relegate it to health, which clearly it has to be in terms of all the other panoply of things that health does? Lord Whitty: I do not think the term "relegation" is the appropriate one. Food is, clearly, a huge aspect of health and one that is most appropriately dealt with in the health context. Q656 Mr Drew: Why? Lord Whitty: Because the public interest in what food you eat is how healthy it is. There are other public interests, like does it cause environmental damage in its production or how much does it produce into the balance of payments, which may be more appropriate for departments dealing with economics - as sponsors for the environment as we do through environmental legislation. The health and diet elements seem to be the most important public concern about food, and it was felt at the time - and I think I would agree with this - that having the department which was basically a production department, which was even more a production-focused department when it was MAFF, also responsible for the regulation at the consumer end was a conflict of interest. In a sense, that is no different from saying that the DTI is the sponsor for the chemicals industry but the Department for the Environment regulates its environmental effect. That is probably beneficial. There are indeed problems, as you know, in the transport sector, which I used to be familiar with, where if you have, within the Department of Transport, also the responsibility for health and safety in transport then there are potential conflicts of interest. Now, you cannot resolve all these conflicts of interest by drawing different lines across government, but it seems to me quite a consistent line that the producer department and the main regulator ought probably to be separated. Whether you just do that by hiving it off into an agency or whether you do it by having an agency which is responsible to another ministry is a matter of the Prime Minister of the day's decision, in a sense, but it does seem to me you do have to separate the two somehow. It was not considered, historically, that MAFF did separate them sufficiently. Q657 Mr Drew: I wonder if the Treasury has quite the same qualms about having that degree of accountability through some of its agencies. I just think ---- Lord Whitty: I am not answering for the Treasury. Q658 Mr Drew: I am not going to ask you to speak for the Treasury, I am just posing that as a dilemma. I am just thinking that, really, the Government actually, as I said, it is very radical - it actually gave food its own ministry. It may be seen as a producer oriented agency of government initially but it could have, obviously, then been able to do some of the things that, if you like, many of us would want to see happen, which is make these connections . There is a danger that we have now ended up with a bit of a hotch-potch which means that an area like labelling, which we obviously cannot take today, falls down between a numbers of different stools. Lord Whitty: I do not think it falls down. There is a separation and there is a separation of the consumer information responsibility and the sponsorship of the industry. Part of the sponsorship of the industry is to ensure that the industry at all levels from primary agriculture right through to the retailers is upping the quality of its product. That is consistent with ensuring that the best information goes to the consumer. There is no falling between two stools; there are different departments responsible for different sides of the same coin. Chairman: Can we now turn to the question of European food legislation issues and related issues? Mr Jack: I was just going to say to my colleague, Mr Drew, with a reshuffle coming up, so I am told, perhaps you will be the Secretary of State for the balanced diet in future administrations. Mr Drew: They would not be eating much, though, would they? Certainly not fish. Q659 Mr Jack: Minister, as far as Europe is concerned, Europe dictates the terms of much of our food labelling policy. The emphasis seems, at the present time, to be on a labelling regime which is about what is in food in terms of ingredients, but there are signs that they are moving away from that towards recognising the importance of nutritional information. If that is the way things are going, who within the United Kingdom Government is determining our policy towards this particular matter? Who speaks for Britain on these issues? Lord Whitty: The department that is primarily responsible for this is still the FSA. Q660 Mr Jack: They do not go to the Council of Ministers, do they? Lord Whitty: If you will allow me, the issue in Europe is that they are dealt with largely on the Agriculture Council. Q661 Mr Jack: Ah, so you are responsible for labelling? Lord Whitty: Our ministers are responsible for negotiating in Europe but we are responsible on the basis of briefs from the FSA. Q662 Mr Jack: That sort of brings us round full circle from my first line of questioning. When you are deciding policy, give us a flavour as to how the policy responsibility in government is lined up to decide what the Defra line to take will be in the discussions in the Council of Minister on these labelling issues. Who are the people who input to you? Who is in charge of policy in this area? Lord Whitty: If there is a proposition for a new directive, for example, from Europe, which there is currently, as you rightly say, in relation to labelling, then the FSA are the lead department to gain the cross-departmental view within Whitehall. So they would lead the consultation with other government departments in Whitehall on the proposition coming from the Commission or being proposed by the Commission. That would be agreed. We would feed into that, as would other departments, but we would feed into that in the light of our sponsorship and our view on where the industry should be going and the impact, detrimental or positive, this might have on the industry. So we would feed into that. There would then be the normal Cabinet Office write-round and we would hopefully reach a consensus position which would then be taken away in detail by the FSA who would be producing a brief so that when it actually arose it would be FSA officials who would be in contact with the Commission officials and by the time it reached the Council the FSA co-ordinated brief would be the basis on which the Secretary of State, or I, or whoever is representing us at the Council, would deal with it. Q663 Mr Jack: Given that the process on the new labelling regime has begun, what in summary is the Defra input to the FSA voices-gathering exercise in government? What is your department's view on the current line of thinking in the Commission? Lord Whitty: There are two or three different dimensions to what the Commission is currently proposing. There is the issue of nutrition and health claims. Obviously, the Department of Health has to make a decision on whether it is desirable to have nutritional aspects labelled in this way, but we would then qualify that by saying: "Is it possible, with this product, to identify quite so clearly the nutritional value or otherwise? Is it detectable? What is the science of the issue" - because we are, by and large, responsible for the scientific basis of not all such claims but of how we produce the food. I suppose, summed-up, it is the practicality of propositions in terms of how all levels of the industry should display the information. Our view is really on that dimension rather than do we second-guess the Department of Health on whether milk is good for you or not? Q664 Mr Jack: What I am just ever so slightly struggling with, because the input of the United Kingdom is very important on this, is who has got the ultimate, if you like, veto on the Government's position? The FSA gather the information, you have just indicated that on health claims the Department of Health has a view and then you have a view on the sort of measurability side of these matters. The Food Standards Agency's reporting line is to health ministers (that is who they are answerable to) and yet you are leading, as a department, on the Council on all of these issues. Lord Whitty: By the time it reaches the Council there will be a cross-government position which will have taken into account our views on the practicality. It is not just the measurability it is also how you label things - whether it is a reasonable burden on the industry to provide that degree of information, whether it is comprehensible to consumers and whether it actually conveys the information that it is intended to convey - and we will have views on all of those things. There will be a cross-departmental view on that informing the position that we take when the issue comes to Council, which is pretty far down the process. Q665 Mr Jack: Do you have any specialists with Defra who guide you? Are you the ministry that goes to the Council? Lord Whitty: Not generally, the Secretary of State normally goes. Q666 Mr Jack: So within Defra does she have a group of people who are providing her with a uniquely Defra-based perspective? If she has to go and discuss with the Secretary of State for Health the evidence that comes from the Food Standards Agency, I presume she must have some advice that comes from somewhere within Defra. Is there a group which works on these matters? Lord Whitty: Not in that sense. The implication of such proposals coming from other government departments or indeed from Europe for the industry, clearly, there are experts within the department who can advise on it. There are some areas where we are the experts. There are some areas, like, in fact, in veterinary medicines, plant health and animal health related issues, and some other things like quality of fresh fruit, where we actually also are the experts, but in general it is our view on the impact of these proposals on the industry, which includes the impact on the industry's consumers. Q667 Chairman: How do you avoid any discontinuity between what is being said at official level by an independent agency and then by ministers politically at the Council level? It is quite an unusual situation, is it not, compared to other areas of government responsibility, if it is an independent agency, effectively, representing the UK at official level? Lord Whitty: The independent agency may or may not be accompanied by Department of Health people. I do not think it is particularly unusual. The Environment Agency are quite often in the same position, as are the HSE. Q668 Joan Ruddock: I am interested to know if the pathway by which the UK Government decided to support 0.9 per cent contamination for GM labelling was the same. Did that begin with the technical advice of the FSA? Lord Whitty: The advice of the FSA in that respect was two-fold. One: is there a safety issue involved here and, two, is there a consumer issue involved here? The FSA view is that provided the GM products have gone through the process it is unlikely there is a food safety issue. Nevertheless, on the consumer issue it is very clear that consumers want to know whether the products contain GM or not. Our position on this was (a) we are responsible for looking at the environmental effects of GM in relation to crops and (b) we are responsible for seeing whether any standards which are set are actually enforceable. So our view was that when people were calling for a 0.1 per cent rate, that would not actually be enforceable because at those kinds of levels it would be pretty difficult to detect whether it was 0.1 or 0.2, whereas at 1 per cent or thereabouts this was eminently detectable on current technology. So our view was, again, in relation to the practicality of the regulations and how they would be enforced in the industry or in the enforcers. Q669 Joan Ruddock: I apologise for contradicting the Minister but, of course, 0.1 per cent is the detectable level and it is the one that most supermarkets adopt. So as far as I understand it, the practicality is in no way in dispute; 0.1 per cent can be policed, and that would be the desire of consumers. It was a very strange decision for many consumers that the Government did go to 0.9 per cent. Lord Whitty: There are different stages of being able to detect it. Clearly, if you have a boat-load of soya landing from, say (let us not say the United States), Brazil, which may or may not contain it, then the actual sample you take is unlikely to be able to detect 0.1 per cent with any degree of accuracy. If you are talking about in single products then it is likely to be higher, if you are talking about highly processed goods then it is probably not detectable at all. There are different levels of detectability, but 0.9 per cent is not a particularly totally robust figure, in that you are saying 0.8 per cent is not detectable and 1 per cent is, but it is roughly the area where for most products you could, under existing technology, find whether there was GM presence or not. Q670 Joan Ruddock: Is it not a fact that when supermarkets claim for their own products that they are "GM-free" they are actually saying that this is a product that does not have more than 0.1 per cent GM in it? Lord Whitty: That is what they claim to say, yes, and they do that by ensuring they know the sources and that therefore they know that their soya milk, for example, is produced by non-GM soya farmers and they would say that the chances of contamination are pretty unlikely. However, when you are coming to regulate, you have to have a higher degree of accuracy there because, if you breach the regulation, then there is a sanction and the sanction can only really apply if you have proof and, in general, the technical advice to us would be that you could not get proof much below 0.9 per cent. Q671 Mr Drew: What consultation did the FSA undertake before it came up with the advice that it gave to both yourselves and the Department of Health? Did they undertake a major consultation exercise? Lord Whitty: Are we talking about on the GM? Q672 Mr Drew: Yes, on the GM. Lord Whitty: Yes, certainly, quite a number of times in the period up to 2003 when the regulations were adopted, certainly in the previous two years. Q673 Mr Drew: I think it is a fair presumption from all the evidence that I have seen in terms of opinion polling that the public would have wanted the lower threshold rather than the higher threshold. Therefore, on what grounds did the FSA decide that it was satisfactory to go for a higher threshold? I understand that they may have actually given the advice to say, "Ministers, there are two thresholds and here are the reasons for both of these", but they actually came down in favour of the 0.9 per cent threshold. Lord Whitty: The FSA are working on the same basis as us, that regulations have to be enforceable. I have no doubt that you are right, that consumers would by and large like to know, "Is this GM or is it not?" but, when you are making a regulation, you have to ensure that any breach of that regulation can be proved and that the sanction is therefore not challengeable. Some of these were joint consultations between ourselves and the FSA, but both of us would say that good regulation requires any breach to be detectable or indeed compliance to be detectable and, if it is not, then it is not good regulation. Q674 Joan Ruddock: Is there not a proposal for 0.5 per cent for seeds? How is that going to be policed if it is not possible? Lord Whitty: Seeds are a single product. None of this is 100 per cent statistically accurate but it is easier to detect out of a bag of seeds whether there is 0.5 per cent when they are an homogenous product than when it is a whole boatload of soya which may well have come from several different sources or a processed product which will include ingredients which are from several different sources and probably from several different countries. I may be wrong and I will check on this but I think that 0.5 per cent is a figure which has been included for other things/seeds regulations. Q675 Chairman: I think this last exchange illustrates one of the issues which has come up a number of times in our inquiry which is the wide range of messages that consumers get about food and from a range of sources leading to the question of, who should consumers trust when they are trying to reach conclusions about what we should be eating? One of the witnesses has said that they did not trust Government and that they were not too keen on a number of other possible sources of advice as well. What is your view as to how this issue should be addressed and, more specifically, how far should Government be taking the lead in trying to bring about reasonably clear and consistent messages to consumers? Lord Whitty: It is pretty clear that they do not trust Government, they do not trust scientists and they do not trust the agriculture sector, they do not trust the food manufacturers and they do not even trust the newspapers. They trust slightly more the supermarkets and that is because they think that they offer effective assurance schemes and that, by and large, those respectable purveyors of food - it is not a particularly logical position - have a standard themselves that they enforce for their own commercial interests and because they want to serve their consumer interest well. That is why it is so important that messages are not just regulatory messages, that they are well beyond regulation, and that there is a degree of consensus about what kind of messages you hope to put across because most of the messages that impact on people would not be the minutia of the EU labelling standards or even the actual labels themselves, they will be the advertising, the way things are presented in the shops, the way they are presented on menus and the way they are presented in other literature which the industry create and that does mean that you have to have established probably a greater degree of consensus on these things than yet exists and part of the process of the Public Health White Paper in food dimensions is hopefully going to create a greater consensus around, broadly speaking, the balanced diet approach and the information that is needed for that can then be followed through. You are certainly right that if you rely on the Government giving the information, then that is not necessarily the most trusted form of information to the consumers. Q676 Chairman: To take one example of how information can be presented to consumers, we have heard a great deal of discussion, of which you will obviously be aware also, on the possible introduction of a traffic light system of labelling. What is the view within Defra on this at the moment? Lord Whitty: There are some difficulties about the traffic light system. Tesco have adopted it; I think it is a useful initiative and we ought to see how well it works in both senses as to how much information they can convey through it and what the actual consumer behaviour in response to that is. So, whilst we are not sponsoring what Tesco are doing, we do think it is a very useful attempt to try and convey information in a way which is more understandable than perhaps historically we have managed. Q677 Chairman: How far can this be done on a consensus basis and a voluntary basis amongst the retailers for example because again one of the pieces of evidence that we have had has pointed out that, if there was an inconsistency in message, then consumers would not understand the message when it came from different quarters? So, if it is going to work, there have to be schemes, be it traffic light or anything else, which apply across large parts of the sector. Is that not one where there is a role for Government? Lord Whitty: I would agree with you but there are admissions against this. Even on five a day, the supermarkets have tended to try and present it in slightly different ways in their own slogans. Now, that is the market. As long as broadly speaking they are doing the same message, then it is not too bad but, if we were to introduce an across-the-board traffic light system, it would be necessary that all retailers had pretty much the same kind of concept of what the traffic lights meant and, if you try and do that without regulation, it is actually quite difficult because one can get it at Tesco at the moment and presumably one can see a competitive advantage in them being the traffic light merchants for the moment. If we were to regulate on it, we would have to be much more specific. The other way of getting it across the board, particularly in relation to fresh produce, is assurance schemes where there is some progress made in terms of the red tractor and other indications of assurance. At the moment, the assurance that the consumers by and large trust most is the very fact that it is on the big supermarket shelves because they think that actually of itself conveys assurance, but there are substantial areas where assurance schemes could play a bigger role in raising public awareness about the safety of food, particularly maybe in the dietary effect of it. Q678 Chairman: Whether it is a traffic light system or another form of labelling standard or whether it is assurance schemes, should there not be a role for Government to be taking the lead in trying to bring about those standards, be it by a regulatory --- Lord Whitty: If it is regulatory, it would have to be an EU body and of course one of the options under the current EU discussions is whether there should be an EU traffic light scheme or at least an EU green light system. In terms of providing information, clearly the FSA would be in the lead here but the FSA are in a position and it is part of their mandate to produce information and guidance to everybody in the food trade as to how they should convey information about their food, so there is a Government educative and advisory role, if you like. Q679 Mr Jack: Does Defra think that traffic lights are good or bad? Lord Whitty: There is not an answer to that. We think that greater clarity of message would be helpful. If the traffic light system can convey that accurately and people respond to it, then they are good. Q680 Mr Jack: If you were pressed to try and define a traffic light system that you could endorse, what would its characteristics be? Lord Whitty: The problem is that traffic lights may apply to different things. You can have a traffic light system in salt content or you can have a traffic light system in fat content but it is difficult to have a traffic light system which conveys everything that we would want people to understand about a balanced diet. Therefore, if people are looking already to limit their fat content or their salt content, then a traffic light system could be very helpful but it is not going to say how much of this bit of medium salty bread should I have as compared with vegetables and as compared with roast beef a week. It is difficult to convey that through a traffic light system. Q681 Mr Jack: Can I just ask you about assurance schemes; you put particular weight on that. Do you think that they are a good way of communicating messages about the nature of the way that food is produced bearing in mind that many of the assurance schemes we have come across seem only to indicate an adherence to minimum statutory standards and do not in any way relate to the quality or other attributes of the food produced but sometimes the logos that are used seem to convey lots of those extra bits of information together with country of origin messages and therefore the logos go beyond a simple point of reassurance? Are you happy with that? Lord Whitty: Certainly the red tractor is intended to convey not only the way that the food is produced and the compliance with minimum standards but also that it has been produced from a farm which has been properly inspected and which meets those standards and, by and large, that is a standard which people are beginning to recognise. There are other series of standards, for example leaf or freedom foods, which convey other aspects of how food is produced and which probably have a more limited segment of the consumers who relate to them. One could argue that the organic label was similar but is one that is subject to a higher level of standard if you like, so there is not a single standard that is going to actually convey all the information but the comprehensiveness for fresh food of a clearer and recognisable standard for the basic level of quality and quality production is important and that is where red tractor is trying to go. The higher level standards are also, by and large, not yet sufficiently recognised by a large enough section of consumers to have achieved the ratcheting up, if you like, of quality standards, but I believe that they will be there and that, with increased consciousness, they will make a contribution. If you are asking me if assurance schemes can convey a balanced diet, then the answer is "no" anymore than a single dimensional traffic light system can. Q682 Joan Ruddock: I want to turn to the WTO and the negotiations that the EU is having in relation to Article 2.2 which we know is about not having barriers to trade. The argument has been put that mandatory labelling in the context of the WTO can be seen to be a barrier to trade. How successful are we being within the EU in trying to persuade other countries of our point of view which is that mandatory labelling is an important aid in itself and should not be seen as an anti-competitive measure? Lord Whitty: I think that, in general, we are up against a difficulty. The EU has established that they would wish to preserve their labelling system and indeed enhance some, as is currently under discussion. In the WTO's negotiations, the European Commission has actually tried to keep the concept of mandatory labelling of foods in play for the negotiations. It has to be said that almost all the other negotiating partners are in some difficulty on this and do regard it certainly beyond pure safety issues as being a form of hidden protection and that the other partners to the WTO may well see that this is an EU attempt to introduce further protection by the backdoor. The current position is that it is part of the EU's negotiating mandate. There are aspects of mandatory labelling which could lead us into protection and therefore the UK within the EU is careful to try and ensure that we do not get into that, but those negotiations still have to take place. You will probably know that the latest development is that there is a new framework which has been produced only last Friday, the full implications of which I am not in a position to tell you, but the idea is that that will go to the WTO over the next few days for the WTO General Council on I think the 29th of this month and that we would therefore have a framework for further negotiations on the agriculture chapter of the WTO. Whether that occurs before or after the American elections and various other changes is not for me to decide but there are some developments on what we are going to discuss in the WTO which will need updating within the next fortnight. Q683 Joan Ruddock: It does not sound all that helpful. There has seemingly been a move and this is of course again where we caught on the GM issue by the WTO arguing very narrow Sanitary and Phytosanitary regulations rather than the wider issues and there is a great concern amongst those who have given us evidence that we could see ourselves going into a position where we cannot give our consumers what they are demanding particularly, for example, on ethical issues. Lord Whitty: I think that is probably true. If you make the labelling mandatory, then we do run the risk of there being a WTO beyond the safety issue. The Codex Alimentarius is recognised in the WTO structure, so the safety issues - and those are increasing all the time - are protected but, if you go beyond that, then there are potential WTO cases like the GM one. Chairman: Lord Whitty, thank you very much. That brings us to the end of our questions this afternoon. Your evidence has, once again, been most helpful and that now concludes the meeting of the Committee this afternoon.
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