Examination of Witnesses (Questions 565-579)
MR NEIL
MARTINSON AND
MS ROSEMARY
HIGNETT
12 JULY 2004
Chairman: Welcome to the Committee this
afternoon. Thank you for your written evidence, and we look forward
to hearing what you have to say today in this oral session. I
would like to invite David Drew to being the questions on our
behalf.
Q565 Mr Drew: Good afternoon. Can I ask
you for an overview of the situation. What are the areas? Certainly
we have seen this to some extent this afternoon, and last week
as well, the need for clarity in this area; obviously, there is
you, the FSA, there are the various central government departments
and there are different parts of local government. Do you find
that this is an area which needs clarification if it is to be
more effective, in terms of really being able to guarantee to
the consumer that what they are purchasing is what they think
it is as labelled and therefore what they will be eating?
Ms Hignett: In terms of the current
food labelling legislation, particularly the areas of nutrition
labelling and health claims, which you have been talking about
earlier this afternoon, I think it is very clear that the legislation
itself is imperfect, there are some changes which need to be made
to it. I think it is clear that we need to have nutrition information
on all foods, not just the majority of foods and not just on a
voluntary basis. I think it is clear that we need improved legislation
in relation to health claims so that consumers can trust the information
which they see on labels. We need to have a change in those two
aspects of the legislation, certainly.
Q566 Mr Drew: If we were to look at your
role, notwithstanding at the moment there is no statutory underwriting,
either nationally or through the EU, what additional powers would
you want at the moment, but if there was to be a statutory underpinning
would you need?
Ms Hignett: Both of those areas,
health claims and nutrition labelling, fall within EU competence,
so those rules need to be changed at EU level. The Agency is actively
promulgating, if you like, in Brussels ideas for changes to the
legislation and supporting the proposal for changes in health
claims legislation, which is under negotiation at the moment.
I think that the Agency has within its remit responsibility for
negotiating on those two issues in Brussels and we are positively
arguing for change.
Q567 Mr Drew: Who takes the lead within
Europe at the level of these negotiations?
Ms Hignett: When they are being
taken forward at official level the Food Standards Agency leads
for the UK Government and the UK Government line is agreed across
Whitehall in the usual way. When decisions are taken at the Council
of Ministers it is usually at the Agriculture Council and it would
be the relevant minister from Defra who would be involved but
the briefing would be provided by the Food Standards Agency.
Q568 Mr Drew: Presumably there are some
fairly strong opponents of these moves within the larger companies
in the food industry?
Ms Hignett: I would not say that
quite categorically, actually. In relation to nutrition labelling,
I think, as we have heard, there is the desire to keep the arrangements
voluntary. There is not a very strong resistance to provision
of information and I think perhaps there is an acceptance on the
part of industry that compulsory nutrition labelling of some form
is on its way. In relation to health claims I think there are
mixed views, because of course industry has the opportunity, through
a single European approval system, of gaining access to the whole
European market through a single approval. If you like, there
is resistance to legislation but also an acceptance that there
is an opportunity there. I would say that broadly, and there are
mixed views, the industry view is in favour of the type of regulation
which is being proposed in Brussels.
Q569 Chairman: What is the nature of
your relationship with Defra and how closely do you find yourselves
working with it, given that of course your accountability is not
through Defra?
Mr Martinson: With Defra and indeed
with all of the government departments that we work with closely
we have concordats which spell out in a fair degree of detail
what the nature of the relationship is. Also the Chairman of the
Agency meets on a regular basis with Defra ministers and, as you
would expect, officials meet with Defra officials on a regular
basis as well. I think I would say also that we work on a very
practical level on a whole range of issues, and I would say very
constructively if we take issues like BSE controls, where there
are shared responsibilities in different parts of the food chain,
there is very, very close working indeed and I think very constructive
working.
Q570 Joan Ruddock: On communicating messages
about food information, obviously the public being on the end
of it, who do you see as communicating those messages at the moment
and what sorts of messages are people receiving and what value
is there in the messages, do you imagine?
Mr Martinson: In terms of who
has responsibility for communicating messages, clearly the food
industry has a significant responsibility because every day millions
of products of food are bought and what is on the label is incredibly
important in helping consumers to choose. Also, we as the FSA
have a role along with the Department of Health in terms of trying
to influence the balance of the diet. We have taken up particular
initiatives, for example, salt, which was mentioned earlier. Also
I think it is important to recognise the role of people like the
NGOs and public health charities, because often they are able
to raise issues which might have escaped our attention. I think
one of the things which we have been keen to do at the FSA is
encourage a much wider debate around food-related issues which
recognises there is a wide range of voices involved. As far as
the messages which are communicated, one of the things which is
interesting, in terms of looking at the evidence in terms of consumer
understanding, is actually there is a fairly high degree of awareness
among many consumers of what kinds of foods they should be eating,
foods which contain less fat, less salt, and so on, more fruit
and vegetables. As I am sure you are aware, there is also a huge
variance between what people know and what people do, and I think
for many of us in government that is one of the key issues, how
we try to turn that kind of knowledge into some kind of behavioural
change. It is a very, very big challenge.
Q571 Joan Ruddock: There is also an interesting
example, is there not, about what you said, that people think
they know what they should be eating, and the messages which you
give on the GM issue, where the public have said, "No, no,
no, we're absolutely not going to eat it," and effectively
you have said "There's no reason why you shouldn't"?
Mr Martinson: What we have said
is that, in terms of food safety, the GM foods which have been
approved are as safe as their conventional counterparts. In our
submission to Government last year we said there were lots of
reasons why consumers probably did not want to eat them, which
were much broader than the food safety issues alone although they
are still very significant, also it included environmental issues.
I think we have tried to acknowledge a wide range of consumer
concern.
Q572 Joan Ruddock: I do not want to go
too far on the GM issue, but, I must say, when you say that "they
are as safe as," I think many people would say they are as
safe as, as far as we know?
Mr Martinson: That is true of
many things which we eat.
Q573 Joan Ruddock: In terms of the overall
messages, how much authority, notwithstanding what I have just
said, do you think the FSA has? We know that there is a growing
acceptance, or more people believing that the FSA is the place
to get their information. Do you believe that you have good credibility
with the public?
Mr Martinson: No. We have worked
very hard to try to establish our credibility and we set ourselves
a fairly ambitious aspiration to be the most trusted source of
advice on food safety standards and nutrition in the United Kingdom.
The way we measure progress is by doing a lot of consumer surveys,
a lot of consumer research, and on a number of key indicators
confidence in the Agency has increased and trust in the Agency
has increased. We are not complacent about the kinds of challenges
which remain. We are also very conscious, in terms of food safety,
that we cannot get it wrong at all, there is no room for manoeuvre
there at all, we have to keep it right all of the time. That is
a very considerable pressure.
Q574 Joan Ruddock: Have you done any
research to establish what use the public makes of the information
once they have received it?
Mr Martinson: It depends on partly
from whom they receive it but also their own personal circumstances.
Food is an incredibly personal issue. What we try to do, in terms
of the information which we have provided, which is fairly consistent
now in terms of good practice, is target the information towards
life stages. For example, we know that when women are pregnant
they are much more receptive to, and indeed want, more information
about food, in the same way as when women are breast-feeding.
We have an enormous amount of information targeted at particular
life stages, and it may be pregnant woman or indeed it may be
people as they grow older. In those kinds of situations the evidence
we have is that there is a fairly high use of information. I think
also it is important to say that, in a sense, it is quite fragmented
and it is very clear that the poorer people are the less use they
make of information and the less access they have to information.
Conversely, the better off people are the more information they
have, and in a sense they are information-rich.
Q575 Joan Ruddock: How do you account
for the fact that most mothers now wish to feed their children
with organic products, despite the fact that you say there is
no nutritional gain in having organic products?
Mr Martinson: I think that mothers
will make decisions for a whole range of reasons. We are not here
to tell them what they should or should not do. In terms of nutritional
benefit, certainly there is no reason to consider that organic
baby food is any worse than conventional baby food. We have never
claimed that, ever.
Q576 Joan Ruddock: No, you have been
neutral, but clearly they are not taking your advice, are they?
They are specifically rejecting that advice and going for something
which they believe does make a difference?
Ms Hignett: I think we have not
advised people either to use or not use organic food. What we
have done is analyse the available evidence and we have said that,
on the basis of the available evidence, there is no difference
in nutritional or safety terms between food produced organically
or conventionally. We have said also that we consider organic
food to be a helpful addition to the range of choice available
to consumers, and we are quite neutral as to whether people choose
to buy organic on that basis or not.
Q577 Joan Ruddock: It would suggest that
people are giving a different weight perhaps to different sources
of information; do you think that?
Mr Martinson: I am not sure we
have a huge amount of information or evidence in relation to mothers
choosing baby food in that kind of sense. Certainly it is something
which it would be worth understanding better, in terms of motivation.
Joan Ruddock: It is a very significant
consumer phenomenon. Thank you.
Q578 Chairman: One of the issues which
we have been looking at in this investigation has been the food
information, or the lack of it, which is provided at catering
outlets, restaurants and pubs, this kind of area. What is the
Agency's view on how food information issues should be addressed
in that sector of industry?
Ms Hignett: I think it is particularly
important in relation to healthy eating choices, because people
are eating out more frequently, and because we are trying to encourage
particular choices in this case so we do mind what choices people
make in relation to nutrition content. It does seem to us that
we must look at ways of making it easier for people to make healthier
choices when they are eating in catering establishments. I think
that is particularly the case when we are talking about the sort
of routine eating out, so the lunchtime, daily eating out occurrence,
maybe not necessarily as much the celebratory, restaurant occasion.
Certainly there does seem to be interest both amongst consumers
and, to some degree, from the food service sector in using signposting
of healthier options to help consumers make healthier choices
when eating out.
Q579 Chairman: What are you doing about
that?
Ms Hignett: We are looking at
sign-posting generally, so both in food service and in the retail
situation, and really there are two things which we have to do.
The first is consumer research to find out what consumers want
and we have plans to do that shortly. The second is to look at
criteria for differentiating between healthier and less healthy
choices, and we have a project underway at the moment to work
up those criteria.
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