Examination of Witnesses (Questions 625-639)
LORD WHITTY,
MR BILL
SCRIVEN AND
MR IAN
NEWTON
20 JULY 2004
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 Health Committee 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; 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.
| 
