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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 900-vi House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE Science and Technology Committee
Scientific Advice, Risk and Evidence: How the Government Handles Them
Wednesday 10 May 2006 DAME DEIRDRE HUTTON and DR ANDREW WADGE Evidence heard in Public Question 575 - 670
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday 10 May 2006 Members present Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair Adam Afriyie Dr Evan Harris Margaret Moran Mr Brooks Newmark Bob Spink Dr Desmond Turner
Witnesses: Dame Deirdre Hutton, Chair and Dr Andrew Wadge, Director of Food Safety Policy and Acting Chief Scientist, Food Standards Agency, gave evidence. Q575 Chairman: Good morning everybody and welcome to this session which is part of our broader inquiry looking at scientific advice to government, how government gets its advice and whether it acts upon it, how it assesses risk and we particularly welcome this morning Dame Deirdre Hutton, the Chair of the Food Standards Agency, welcome to you and to Dr Andrew Wadge, the Director of Food Safety Policy and Acting Chief Scientist, which is a mouthful, but you are very welcome too, Andrew, to our Committee. Can I say that we are particularly pleased to have you in front of us this morning because the Food Standards Agency comes with an excellent reputation in terms of the way in which it does handle advice and the way in which it presents advice to the Government and to the public at large, so we are very, very pleased to have you. Why do you think you have got such a good reputation and is it deserved? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Well obviously it is, yes, is the place to start. I think there are several reasons for it. I should say first that I think the Agency bases everything it does on science, and on sound science, but alongside that at the same time as we are assessing the science we also talk to a whole range of other stakeholders, so that process of collecting the science, talking to stakeholders about their appetite for risk, is a process that goes on simultaneously, so it means that we are getting, as it were, a sense from both sides, so from the science we get what the risks are and where the uncertainties are and alongside that we talk to the public, so I think it is a combination of good science and absolute transparency. If I think about the past, I think the thing that the Agency has brought that is new and I think has helped that reputation is the absolute transparency with which we operate both within the board, the staff, but also within the independent scientific committees, so we are seen to base it on science, we are seen to have good independent science, we talk to the public, we come to a view and it is all done in the public domain and I think that is probably the basis of it. Q576 Chairman: Would you agree, Andrew? Dr Wadge: Very much so, and I think it is interesting to compare and contrast with how it was. I used to work in the Department of Health before moving into the Food Standards Agency and I worked on food along with colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and I think that the policy there was to conduct science and then put the science out into the public domain and then very much retreat behind the barricades, whereas the approach now is very much discuss and engage with stakeholders and with the media right the way through the process, even though sometimes that can be quite uncomfortable, in the long run it leads to greater understanding of our position and what the science is saying. Q577 Chairman: I will come back to that later because we want to explore that with you. You have just recently been appointed; what would be the difference between your approach and that of Sir John Krebs, because you are not a scientist? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I am not a scientist, no. I think several things have happened in a sense since I have been there and I will come back to the "I'm not a scientist". First of all, if you are going to have a sound scientific base as the fundament of your organisation then all the processes within the organisation need to be directed towards that, so I am not a scientist, but nor do I think that science should somehow be held by one person and that one person should somehow be it, so what we have done in the last little while is put a huge amount of effort into developing what, in a general sense, we are terming scientific governance, so that has been about looking at the way in which science is governed throughout the Agency in terms of the collection of evidence, the use of evidence, for example, it is about the science strategy, which Andrew knows about in great detail. It has been about best practice, working with our nine independent scientific advisory committees. The operation of openness that I was talking about and indeed the appointment of Andrew as Acting Chief Scientist, which we initially did partly because our last Chief Executive was a scientist and we felt we wanted to separate the role of Chief Scientist from Chief Executive because, it seemed to me, there was conflict of interest there. Q578 Chairman: I will return to that issue, but I really just want to explore with you what is going to be different between you and Sir John Krebs? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I think what is different in a sense is that I bring a different set of skills. Q579 Chairman: What do you bring then? Dame Deirdre Hutton: What I bring is a very considerable experience of regulation and how you work regulation in a contemporary world. I have worked with the Financial Services Authority as Deputy Chair for some considerable time and I was on the board before that and I have also worked with the Better Regulation Task Force, now Commission, so I bring a very broad regulatory experience, I bring very broad experience of consumer policy and I have worked on and off with the food industry for a very long time so, you know, there are a range of skills that you need to make the agency work and I think those are the ones that I bring, but of course because that is what I bring, I have been very keen to offset the ones I do not bring by making sure that we have good processes for science within the Agency because it needs to continue absolutely to be based on sound science. Q580 Chairman: Can you manage without a scientist at the helm, Andrew? Dr Wadge: I would not like to suggest that the only reason that we managed in the past was because we had a scientist as a Chairman. What we do have in the Agency is about 40 per cent of our staff are scientifically trained. There is no separation between the policy divisions and the scientists, so scientists are integrated in the policy work, so all policy work within the organisation is done by people trained in science alongside administrators and what is key in terms of getting the science right is making sure that there is someone overseeing that and that is why the organisation has appointed a Chief Scientist to make sure that the scientific processes are correct, to act in a representational role for the Agency with Whitehall, with the outside world, with the academic community, with the media and also to ensure that there is a head of profession role for the scientists within the organisation to make sure that we are recruiting the right people, that they are developing the right skills and maintaining their expertise and competencies and that we retain the very good people within the organisation. Q581 Adam Afriyie: Dame Deirdre, you have separated the role of Chief Scientific Adviser and the Chief Executive, that must be a reflection of something that was unsatisfactory in the past; what was that? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I think it is simply a new Chairman come with new insights and new reasons for doing things and I reflect also on my experience in financial services that when you had the Chief Actuary as Chief Executive it led to problems and there was a conflict of interest. I do not think there had been any actual problems in the Agency because of that joint job, but I did feel quite strongly, as did the Deputy Chairman, and she had started the process before I got there, that it was right that those two jobs should be separated. The Chief Executive has the role of balancing various things that happen across the Agency and various interests which are both practical as well as scientific and we believed very strongly that we needed a Chief Scientist who could focus absolutely on the science, making sure it was robust, being a champion of the profession, who could also, at times, because he was senior enough in the organisation, put his hand up and say, "Hang on a minute, you are not doing this right". Q582 Adam Afriyie: That function was missing beforehand, this is what you are saying? Dame Deirdre Hutton: That is my perception, yes, but then I think, and it goes back to the point the Chairman made, I think a lot of the offset of that was done through having Sir John Krebs as Chairman. Q583 Adam Afriyie: In due course will you be appointing an external scientific adviser or is this it now? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Andrew, as we said at the beginning, is Acting Chief Scientist so from that you can tell that we are going through a process of developing the role and thinking about it, but I think there are a couple of things that we are thinking about, because I am not going to give a straight answer to your question because we have not got there yet, but I would point out that we have nine independent scientific committees that advise us which involve about 140 scientists who are external to the Agency who are there as an independent source of advice to the board and internally, so we have got an awful lot of independent external science coming into the Agency already and I think that slightly changes the balance around what it is you might actually need in Chief Scientist. Q584 Adam Afriyie: Does the role of Chief Scientific Adviser in the Food Standards Agency differ in any way from the other departmental Chief Scientific Advisers? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I am terribly sorry, I find that quite difficult to answer, I do not know enough and I think it might be helpful if Andrew answered that. Dr Wadge: I think it does. There are a number of similarities, but I think the main difference will be the point that Dame Deirdre has just said that we have these nine independent scientific advisory committees who are very specialist experts in areas of microbiology, toxicology, nutrition, who are there with a role of bringing that independent advice into the organisation. In addition to that we have contacts within all of the different research bodies, the royal societies, where, if there are particular problems where we need very rapid advice, we have the opportunity to bring expert advice in on an ad hoc basis, so I think that it is different in the sense that we have this network. I think the similarities in the roles are around representing the importance of science within the organisation and around the head of profession role that I mentioned earlier. Q585 Chairman: Could I just ask who actually appoints the people to these committees, how do these so-called experts get on these committees? Dr Wadge: I mean it is all done under the Nolan procedures, but they are appointed by Dame Deirdre. Some of the committees are jointly run with other departments, some of them are jointly run with the Department of Health, the committee on nutrition, for example, SACN, is jointly appointed by Dame Deirdre and the Chief Medical Officer. Q586 Chairman: They are appointed, they are not in any way openly advertised? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Yes, they are, it is done through Nolan procedures. Dr Wadge: Through Nolan procedures, yes. Q587 Adam Afriyie: You are new in your job, what are your key challenges? Dr Wadge: My chief challenge is to build on the work that we have done on establishing the Agency's reputation for basing its policy on sound science and to do that I want to raise the profile of science within the organisation. I particularly want to focus on the head of profession role around competencies and skills of the staff within the organisation and I think as well I want to make sure that, I think there is a tendency, no matter how hard you try, you may be getting the science right, but your external stakeholders may not see the process by which you have reached your conclusions all of the time and I think that although we work very hard on transparency and openness, I think that there are challenges for us to do even better. Q588 Adam Afriyie: How many days per week are you working? Dr Wadge: I work four days a week within the Agency as Director of Food Safety and as the Acting Chief Scientist. Q589 Adam Afriyie: About 50/50 two days a week on one and two days on the other? Dr Wadge: I would say it was more three days a week on the Director of Food Safety and one day a week on the Chief Scientist role. Q590 Adam Afriyie: One day a week, do you think that is enough? Dr Wadge: Well I think that what we are doing at the moment is we have set up a project board within the organisation, we are in discussion with the Office of Science and Innovation about the role and we are in the process of developing the role, what exactly it involves, what sort or support we need, and I think that those sorts of issues will come out of that project management work that we are doing. Q591 Adam Afriyie: On one day a week you are also looking to produce a new science strategy, I am not quite sure how you will fit it in with the timing, but what specific benefits do you see from the new science strategy that you are working on? Dr Wadge: I should say that I am not the only person there working on issues such as the science strategy. Q592 Chairman: No, we have gathered that, Andrew. Dr Wadge: Science strategy actually will be published later this month and I believe that you have seen a copy of that, if not we can provide you with that. That is a process that we have put together, we have been very specific about our strategic planned targets and what science we need to meet those targets, so it is very much about saying, "Here are the policy aims of the organisation, what science do we need? What is the process? What sort of information do we need to do that? How are we going to go about getting it?" In that process we have consulted very widely with our scientific committees, with the outside world, to a large extent with the academic community and we have taken on board a lot of comments around that, so I would not like to give you the impression that it is just me, there is quite a large team of people within the organisation. Q593 Adam Afriyie: And in the new science strategy, you did not have one before, you have got one now, what will be the difference between the past and when this new strategy is in place? Dr Wadge: I think the main difference is a very specific focus and link between our strategic planned targets around food safety, around choice, around diet and health and what science we actually need as an organisation to meet those very challenging targets we have set ourselves to reduce food borne disease, to improve dietary health, to increase consumer choice, what sort of science do we need, what is the best way of getting that science, how do we interpret that science once we get the science and how do we make sure that it then influences policy and, finally, how we evaluate it at the end of that? Q594 Adam Afriyie: The final question. What safeguards do you have in place to ensure that you have sufficient in-house expertise in social and natural science to be an intelligent customer and communicator of scientific advice? Dr Wadge: It is absolutely true to say that as an organisation when we were first established in 2000 we were largely focussed on the natural sciences, but we have been very specific in our strategic plan about the need to do more work on the social sciences and in the course of recognising that we have held with the Royal Society a meeting last September on social sciences. We held a seminar just two weeks go with leading social scientists from across the academic community to identify how social science can influence the work that we do, but also during the last few years we have been recruiting economists, operational researchers, people working on consumer attitudes and consumer science, so we are starting to recruit people from the social science world as well as engaging more. Q595 Adam Afriyie: And how are you monitoring or measuring the outcome of these changes or of this input? Dr Wadge: I think that the way that we monitor all of our science is around reviewing. If we have got a research programme, for example, on economics, we will always conduct a review at the end of the period to see whether that research met the policy needs that we set ourselves, whether the research was of a high scientific standard and then how that research then influenced the policy. Q596 Adam Afriyie: This is a rigid system? Is everything you undertake is measured and monitored afterwards? Dr Wadge: We certainly have a very specific programme in relation to the research and development function so all of our research programmes are formally reviewed in that way. I think that in terms of our more general policies, then I think it is a case of saying, "Well, how has that policy been developed and what input has there been from the scientist, from other stakeholders?" In the end it is a case of is that policy one that is fit for purpose. Dame Deirdre Hutton: I think there are a more general set of outcomes for the Agency, have we got to where we want to get to and of which the policy will be an underpinning part. We also do regular tracking of public opinion around levels of trust so, for example, trust in the Agency's ability to look after their interests in food safety last year was 67 per cent which is quite high; in fact it has gone up eight per cent in the last year. The science is the basis of that, it is a fundamental building block. If I could just add one point which I think Andrew has not said, is that it is very important to the Acting Chief Scientist role that Andrew is a member of the executive management board, so he has a senior position within the Agency and therefore a platform to say, "No, hang on, this is not right". Q597 Chairman: Just before we leave this particular area, Andrew, I am interested in how, for instance, non-scientific staff within the Agency actually get scientific training. I am also interested in how your permanent scientific staff actually maintain their competence, can you just talk me through that? Dr Wadge: We do not specifically train our non-scientific staff in science because we have a mixture of competencies and skills. Q598 Chairman: But they have to communicate it, do they not? Dr Wadge: If we need to communicate science, and it needs to be a very skilled complex bit of science, then someone such as myself will do that communication, we would not have an administrator doing that work, but administrators will bring a range of other skills to the party and help out. We would not look to specifically train our administrators in science, we would make sure that we have got the right mix of skills. Moving on to the point that you asked about, how do we maintain the skills? A number of our scientists are quite expert in their own right and are appointed on to world health organisation expert committees, European food safety authority expert committees and so they are recognised in their own right and contribute to international discussions around regulation and risk assessment, but I think that the other two areas is that through the scientific advisory committees we have a network through which our scientists engage on nutrition or microbiology and keep in touch with those who are at the cutting edge. We also fund a significant amount of research on food safety and individual scientists within the organisations will act as the project officers and will regularly visit the different research organisations and discuss that research and so there is an on-going process of keeping an eye open on the horizon as to what the scientific developments are that could be influencing ---- Q599 Chairman: The point I am making, Andrew, is you have obviously given us that assurance that your scientists are actually at the cutting edge rather than in fact dealing with yesterday's science in terms of applying them to what are very obviously very complex issues regarding food safety. Dr Wadge: I think that we are in touch with people who are at the cutting edge I think is how I would like to put it, but I do want to develop this role of the Chief Scientist to specifically develop that head of profession role, linking in with the Cabinet Office initiative on professional skills for government, because there is clearly a tremendous need for people within the Food Standards Agency to act as the intelligent customer in terms of scientific information and advice. Q600 Chairman: Do you think that should be a model across government departments in your personal opinion? Dr Wadge: I think it is something that works well and I think it may have benefit to other departments, yes. Q601 Dr Turner Dame Deirdre, you have got quite an interesting CV and you have obviously spent a lot of time as a lay person working with scientists. You have taken over from a pure scientist, so what do you think for you is the role of the lay person in an organisation such as the one that you are now Chair of, what do you set out to do? For instance, do you see yourself, for instance, as preventing the scientists in the Food Standards Agency from getting too close to scientists working for the food industry, for instance? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Fundamentally I said that I bring a set of experiences. I suppose the other one I bring is a lot of experience in corporate governance in running organisations, so I do not see myself as a consumer champion, for example, which is how I was described last night which is very irritating. What I do see myself is as somebody who has a lot of experience in running organisations and particularly regulatory organisations, so what I am interested in as Chair of this organisation is making sure that it works in the most effective possible way and one of the things I have been saying since I have been there is that I want the engine room of the organisation to work properly. I see that as being about making sure that there are other proper processes in relation to science, but an awful lot of what we do is not science, it is around enforcement, it is around working with local authorities. I think it is a mistake to think that everything the Agency does is science, there is an awful lot that goes on as well as that. It see it my job as making sure that the board works properly in corporate governance terms, that it sets the strategy, that it holds the organisation to account in an effective way and that we actually deliver on our strategic plan and our business plan. So, in a sense, my role is fundamentally a corporate governance role and I would hope that I would have made certain that we have the processes in place to ensure that the scientists did not get too close to the industry. On the other hand, I also bring a set of regulatory experiences which say that in some areas like nutrition we do not have any power, we have got to persuade companies to do things and so I also need to bring an understanding of how regulation works at its best, how markets work and how we can persuade the market to do things when we cannot tell them to do things and I think that is a skill which is very different from the scientific skill set which is actually rather important, so my role is leading, nudging, steering, holding to account. Q602 Dr Turner You carefully describe yourself as not actually being a consumer champion, yet you are in a position and the whole agency is there to protect the interests of the public. Dame Deirdre Hutton: Absolutely. Q603 Dr Turner In a sense you are a champion for the public, whether you describe yourself as that or not, and do you think that you have enough lay representation with you on your board to fulfil that role? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Yes. Q604 Dr Turner How representative do you think that you are or need to be? Dame Deirdre Hutton: It is a very interesting question. I think that a few years ago the thinking would have said that what you needed on a board was a set of representatives who came from particular constituencies and represented that constituency; that is not actually a view I share, or what you need to have to make any organisation run effectively. In thinking about what that organisation does you need the right set of skills on the board. You also need people on a board who understand about how to make boards work and how to make systems work within an organisation, so what I have on the board are a range of people who indeed come with different sets of skills. For example, somebody who has an expertise in environmental health, people who have an industry background, somebody who comes from a micro business background, people who have a broader public interest, but I do not see them as representatives, I see them as people who bring a skill set in the interests of achieving an efficient organisation. Just coming back, as it were, to the first part of your comment, I think what I see us as trying to achieve is consumer welfare. I am very, very conscious as a regulator that you stay within your regulatory objectives. We have objectives that are set down in the Act and any regulator strays beyond those at their peril, that is the objective we are supposed to deliver, but fundamentally it comes down to an assessment of risk and the balance between providing the right degree of consumer protection, together with allowing industry to flourish, innovate and compete, because that is the way you deliver goods and choices and value to the customer. It is a balance, and I think it is probably true to say that regulators are doomed never to get the balance quite right, but that is what you are seeking to do, to find the balance between welfare and a flourishing market. Q605 Dr Turner Your scientific policy almost makes itself in certain areas, like making sure we have food which is not contaminated with bacteria or carcinogenic pesticides or whatever, that almost thinks for itself. The area that I think you touched on where it gets a little more blurred is nutritional advice and there is right now, for instance, a difference between the way in which major supermarkets and food manufacturers are behaving in terms of nutritional content of their food and the systems and advice that you are issuing. How do you feel about that and what is your approach to that? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Can I ask you, are you referring specifically to the front of pack labelling process? Q606 Dr Turner Yes, and the sort of traffic light ---- Dame Deirdre Hutton: Sorry, terminology, by front of pack labelling, I mean signposting, I use traffic light labelling. We based our approach to traffic light labelling on research in interviews with something like 2,600 people, it is probably the biggest piece of research that has ever been done in this area. We first of all talked to consumers to find out what sort of things they would like. We then tested out the various models that we had developed, so it was a very iterative process in coming to the recommendation we made. What we agreed as a board was four core principles which effectively would allow the industry to reflect their brands, because brands are extraordinarily important to industry, but would give consumers a sufficiently consistent basis. You are absolutely right, there was some disparity across the supermarkets. Waitrose, Asda and Sainsbury's, who collectively represent about 37 per cent of the market, are adopting a system which is consistent with ours; Tesco has decided not to. The way we have approached that is that I have said to the industry, "Look, actually we are all trying to change consumer behaviour here". In one sense this is a large experiment, we do not know what is going to work, we are absolutely clear that we need to give consumers clear information so they can make their own choices and make good choices, so after a year or 18 months or whatever, my offer to the industry is that we look at what has actually happened in terms of consumer behaviour, do the post op research - I am very happy to put it out under an independent academic expert - and at the end of that year or 18 months, okay, let us find out what has worked and if the Tesco system works better than our system, then we should be prepared to go with it, we are an evidence based organisation. Dr Wadge: If I could just add as well, I think that is a very good example of where we are doing social sciences which is picking up the question that came up earlier on, what is the input of social science, this is entirely an area of social science and behavioural change so it is a very good example. Q607 Adam Afriyie: Can we be precise, are you actually monitoring the impact of your traffic light labelling scheme during the course of the next 12 months rather than waiting until the end of 12 months to look at it, or are you waiting until the end of the 12 month period? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Essentially the people who have the information about actual consumer purchasing practice in the supermarkets is not us and that is usually confidential information, but what Sainsbury's told us the other day is that they are seeing changes in consumer purchasing, that people are not boycotting red traffic lights and also, which is the underlying purpose, he says it is having an influence on the criteria he is using for the manufacture of products. Q608 Adam Afriyie: I have also heard that directly from manufacturers. Their criticism is that the Tesco - I am glad to hear you acknowledge that there may be other better labelling mechanisms - but the Tesco labelling scheme had seen equally, if not larger, drops in sales of, for example, unhealthy foods when compared to the traffic light scheme, but there have been accusations that the traffic light scheme is simplistic and unscientific, so I guess you are telling us that you will wait and see what the evidence is in a year's time? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Yes, but I would also say that on average people buy 67 items in 27 minutes which means eight seconds per item. You are going up and down the aisle with screaming children, you do not have time frankly - and I speak as somebody who has done this - you do not have time to look at the very, very detailed information on the back of the packet and what we are trying to do is to give people very clear simple quick information on what the ingredients are and at what level they appear in the product. Yes, of course it is simple and there is the more detailed information for people who want it, but I have to say consumers very much welcome the simple information. Q609 Adam Afriyie: Moving now to junk food in schools. Your predecessor suggested that the Secretary of State for Education's pledge to ban junk food in schools is not founded on evidence. Would you describe the policy as evidence based? Dame Deirdre Hutton: We have been assessing the nutrients that there should be in schools. I am not quite sure that we have said that have we, Andrew? Dr Wadge: We have a range of policies in schools, but not a particular policy. Dr Harris: I think the question was about the Secretary of State's policy of banning junk food in schools. Q610 Adam Afriyie: A while ago we heard the Secretary of State talking about that we must not have junk food in schools. Do you have a view on that, did that ripple through to the FSA in any way and have you done anything about that? Dame Deirdre Hutton: What we are doing is collecting evidence on what school food should contain and there is an awful lot of movement, some of which is generated by us, some of which is generated by the School Foods Trust. One of the things we are also doing is we have just put out a research call for the connection between what children eat and their behaviour and I think it would be very good to get some good research evidence on that. Q611 Chairman: Dame Deirdre, the point of this question is simply this, we are not accusing the Food Standards Agency, we are saying that Sir John Krebs in March said this: "There was no evidence that the Government's policy will work, there was no scientific definition of junk food, there was no cost benefit analysis and there was no public engagement". That was a pretty damming statement from your predecessor about government policy. Do you agree with it and what is the point of having a Food Standards Agency if you are not being used? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I have to say I do not agree with it. I think the problem I have is that one hamburger eaten once a week is not a problem, but if all that is available in schools is fizzy sugary drinks and not fruit juice and water, then the balance of what children are eating and getting in schools is not good and not good for them. It is the distinction between one bit of junk food and a balanced diet, I think, is a difficult one. Q612 Adam Afriyie: You mention fizzy drinks at schools, but there is a huge conflict here between healthy foods and obesity, because if you have a diet drink which may not necessarily contain all the nutritional requirements that you may be looking for as opposed to a fruit drink which contains lots of sugar and high levels of calories, then there is an inherent conflict there. How does the FSA address that conflict? Dr Wadge: If I could just come in. We are working with the Health Department and the Education Department on a range of activities within schools and one of them is about target nutrient specification which is saying, what are the appropriate nutrients that should be available within school meals. We are working on making sure that children learn how to cook, they learn what sort of nutritional advice is important, alongside food hygiene advice. We are doing surveys of school lunch boxes, we are working on a whole range of activities. I think the purpose of the Food Standards Agency is to try to help and play our part in improving the diet of young people at schools, I do not think that that is done by simplistic actions. Chairman: Andrew, that is not our point, our point is that we have no concerns about what the Food Standards Agency is concerned, the purpose of this inquiry is whether, when the Government makes a policy which it clearly did in terms of junk food in schools, it is based on evidence, and Sir John Krebs said it was not based on evidence at all in his lecture in which he made very damming comments about this unscientific approach. We have heard from Dame Deirdre that yours is an Agency that prides itself on obtaining good scientific evidence before in fact it gives advice. Were you asked for advice before this policy came into being, yes or no? Q613 Dr Harris: Can we be clear what the policy is, because I think it has not been clear from your previous answer, Dame Deirdre. "The Labour Party Conference in September 2005, the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Ruth Kelly, announced plans to ban foods high in fat, salt and sugar from meals and vending machines in English schools saying: 'I am absolutely clear that the scandal of junk food served every day in school canteens must end. So today I can announce that we will ban poor quality processed bangers and burgers being served in schools from next September'." And the remarks the Chairman just made about Sir John Krebs' comment relate to that specific policy. You are independent of the Government, what is your view? Dame Deirdre Hutton: That is very helpful, thank you, all this happened before my time obviously. My view is, as I think I said, that it is difficult to talk about one specific food and say that is a junk food and ban it. What we are interested in, and I repeat this, what we are interested in is the balance of the diet that children get at school and what we want to do is to make sure that what we have defined as the target nutrient specification is followed within schools. I think there is a sense in which that statement is a particularly political statement for a particular audience in a way that frankly as a science based organisation we do not do. What we do have evidence for is that the diet that children have been fed at school does not fit the target nutrient specifications that we feel they require and that is our approach. Q614 Adam Afriyie: The FSA had no input into that policy that was announced at the Labour Party Conference? Dr Wadge: Not that I am aware of. Dame Deirdre Hutton: I am sorry, I simply do not know, it was before ---- Q615 Chairman: Have you commented on it since? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I have not commented on that specific remark, but what we are doing is the underpinning science which will allow school food caterers or local authorities or whatever to try and make sure that they have the right balance of diet in schools, that is our function. Q616 Chairman: Dame Deirdre, I am getting a little concerned now, because having spoken very complimentarily about the organisation, it seems to me that you are not being proactive when you actually see something which is blatantly wrong being proffered as scientific in terms of government policy and surely that should be one of your roles? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I think that what we are doing in talking to the Department of Health and the Department of Education is trying to make sure they have the sound scientific base. I mean I think that in the comment that Ruth Kelly made in that in terms of - I am sorry I do not have instant recall - providing a proper diet for children in schools, it is absolutely right and we will provide her with the material to do that. Where, I think, we would differ and indeed we have been very careful in all our public discussions never to say "a particular food is junk food", where we would differ from her in a way is in the last I see as a highly political statement which she made which is about junk food. Q617 Dr Harris: It is a political statement, yes, that is fine and apologies for that statement, but it was a policy announcement, so it was a specific policy. This issue is not about whether politicians make evidence based statements, it is evidence based policy formulation by a government and that is what I think was of concern. Dame Deirdre Hutton: What I think we are doing in this case is helping the Government exactly to make a policy based and evidence based policy in terms of providing the information about target nutrient specification. Q618 Chairman: Do you ever comment on a policy without being asked because, I mean, you would if it was a private company, would you not? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Yes, we do. I suppose what I am struggling with is partly we are the generators of the policy often, so we are the people who, as it were, are unearthing the problem and presenting it to government and saying something needs to be done about this, so do we then comment in retrospect? Yes, we do. Q619 Adam Afriyie: So if the Government was to come up with a policy which was completely contrary to the scientific evidence and advice that you have, you would get out there in the media and point out that this was completely against scientific advice? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I think I would probably take the slightly different approach in that you will know that all our policy is discussed in public, the board meets in public, I would be far more likely instead of getting on the radio to take that policy through the science and to the board and to say, "Is this something that we can agree with or should we go to government and say, 'We believe this is wrong'?" Q620 Chairman: Just before you go on, can you actually give me one example where you have actually said to government, "We feel your policy is wrong", is there one occasion where that has happened? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Probably not in my six months. Q621 Chairman: Andrew, do you know of any occasion where it has happened? Dr Wadge: Not as ---- Chairman: Perhaps you could write to us and look through the records. Q622 Adam Afriyie: What steps are you taking to address the concerns over the high level of trans fats in foods, because your labelling scheme does not take that into account? Dame Deirdre Hutton: The first thing I would say is that there are EU implications here and I shall hand over to Andrew. Dr Wadge: Two things about trans fats. One is that in terms of labelling we are pressing within Europe for proper labelling of trans fats to be included in the review that is going to take place in 2007/2008 so we will be pressing for proper labelling of trans fats. I think in terms of public health this illustrates how we work. What we have done is we have been to the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, we have asked them about trans fats in relation to our strategy that we will be consulting on later this year on saturated fats and energy imbalance and we said, "What is the importance of trans fats compared to saturated fats?" The advice from the independent experts has been that in relation to overall dietary intake and public health impact actually you should focus on saturated fats rather than trans fats. I think this illustrates the way that we work, we take the science, we act on that science, but we also recognise that consumers want to exercise choice and so we will be pressing within Europe for proper labelling so that consumers can exercise their choice on trans fats. Q623 Adam Afriyie: Dame Deirdre, in your view do you have the power and influence, enough power and influence, or the right types of power and influence, to encourage the food industry to reduce trans fats or saturated fats within food? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Interestingly enough I think this is an area where the market is, in a way, running ahead of the science. Marks and Spencer, for example, have taken all the trans fats out of their food because they perceive that as an issue that consumers are worried about, so there is an interesting dynamic here where the market, for its own reasons, wishes to satisfy consumer demands and does that, and the regulator is, in a sense, slightly behind that conversation, so there are a whole range of different influences that go on here. Q624 Dr Turner Staying with the fats, one of the things which seems of obvious concern is the use by industrial bakeries of hydrogenated fats purely for manufacturing convenience and to increase the shelf life of their products and these are, as I understand it, quite a potential health hazard. How concerned are you and do you think that the public is sufficiently aware that there is this content in most of the industrially baked bread they take off supermarket shelves? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I think the public probably are not aware and, as Andrew said, we would like to be able to ensure that form of labelling, but I come back to what Andrew said in relation to the science that our view is that the bigger problem is around fat as a whole and saturated fats, that is the bigger problem in relation to nutrition. Dr Wadge: The other point is that the advice that we have received from our experts is that the intake of trans fats should not exceed two per cent of total energy intake and the information that we have obtained from diet and nutrition surveys shows that this is the case. Having said that, our work on energy imbalance and saturated fats in general show that there is still clearly a lot of work to be done, but the evidence is pointing towards work focussed on saturated fats in general rather than trans fats specifically. Q625 Dr Turner This seems to be a very key area because there is a clear social divide in this, just as we are very acutely aware that there is a social health divide, there is a clear social dietary divide and these products figure far more in the diet of children in poorer households than in middle class communities, so do you feel there is an urgent need to address this problem and this may need government action to address it? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I think in a sense you should address that question to the scientists. The advice I am getting which, in a sense you have just heard, is that this is not the critical need, no. It is one of those issues where, in a sense, the public perception of something has actually moved ahead of where the science is in terms of being more worried about something than the scientists are. Q626 Dr Turner I am thinking of our obese children who are drinking fizzy drinks full of sugar, they are being stuffed with bread which contains far more than two per cent of hydrogenated fat, that we are building up an enormous health risk for the future in these kids? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I agree with you about the enormous health risk to these children, but that is about the total energy balance and I think what Andrew is saying is that the greater problem here is around fats as a whole, saturated fats, and their contribution to the energy imbalance and for us that is a greater problem than the very specific problems which are perceived as being the --- Q627 Dr Turner Yes, but what are you doing about it, what are you proposing to do about it? Dame Deirdre Hutton: About the total of saturated fats? Q628 Dr Turner The problem as you state it. Dame Deirdre Hutton: That is exactly why, it goes back to the previous conversation, that is exactly why we are doing two things, first of all giving the public the information about levels of fat so that they can see how to change their own dietary habits, and I should say that the purpose of sign posting is to help people understand complex foods because the information we had from consumers is that they simply do not know what is in complex food, so levels of salt, in fact, and sugar indeed come as a huge surprise to people when they start to see the labelling, so the one strategy is to give the public the information, the other strategy is to work with the industry to start reducing levels of fat. If you recall we want to reduce salt, fat and sugar, we started with salt, we had a very successful campaign around the reduction of salt and industry has worked with us actually very well on that. We are now moving on to fat and sugar which is rather more difficult because it is actually an integral part of the food rather than an added ingredient. Q629 Dr Turner: But not in bread. Dr Wadge: Could I make one very specific point on that, in that you asked what exactly are we doing. Our strategic plan target for 2010 says we want to shift from 13.4 per cent of energy intake due to saturated fats to 11 per cent. We will be consulting on a strategy to achieve that. Q630 Dr Turner: Is aspartame safe to use as a sweetener? Dr Wadge: We have received --- Q631 Chairman: Yes, or no. Dr Wadge: We have received advice from the --- Q632 Chairman: Yes or no. Dame Deirdre Hutton: Scientists do not do yes or no, science evolves. Dr Wadge: I have to explain this in terms of scientific evaluation. Aspartame has been evaluated on a number of occasions, most recently by the European Food Safety Authority at the end of last week. Q633 Chairman: What is your view of their findings? Dr Wadge: In our view, based on that independent scientific expert advice, it does not present a risk and is safe to use. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. I am coming back to question 3, I am sorry, and we need to move, Committee, now. Thank you very much, that was a very interesting section. Q634 Bob Spink: Dame Deirdre, could you just clarify, did you say there was 67 per cent public trust in the FSA earlier? Dame Deirdre Hutton: When we did the last consumer survey it was 67 per cent and it had increased eight per cent in a year. That is trust in the ability of the Agency to ensure food safety. Q635 Bob Spink: You said that was quite high. Dame Deirdre Hutton: It is not bad, compared to many other levels of trust in society. Chairman: That is putting him in his place. Q636 Bob Spink: Compared to trusting, perhaps, the political bodies, you are right, but compared to trusting independent bodies that are set up to defend the public interest, I would put to you that that would be quite low in fact, very concerningly low; do you think that is because the advice coming out from various scientific bodies is changing all the time, like red wine is good, red wine is bad? It focuses on things depending on the circumstances evolving. Dame Deirdre Hutton: I must say to you first of all that compared with the experience of another FSA, 67 per cent feels pretty high and it is going up, which is the really important thing. For consumers the range of advice that comes out is very, very difficult and that is partly a problem with the media, is it not, that they will pick things up and report them so you get 27 different stories about diet in the media each week, which does make it very difficult, hence our role in things like signpost labelling. Bob Spink: We politicians like to blame everything on the media, do we not? Chairman: We will come back to the media. Q637 Bob Spink: You have produced this 29-point science checklist. I am a scientist, I have read through it, it is an exercise in the pretty obvious, I guess - for instance, "Has a comprehensive literature survey been undertaken?" That is about Key Stage 3, is it not? I just wondered, what was wrong with the Chief Scientific Adviser's guidelines for scientific analysis and policy-making? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Can I just explain the genesis of the scientific checklist? It started because I was aware that we did not have on the board - partly because I have replaced John Krebs but also just the make-up of the board in general - many people, in fact only one person, with a scientific background. Therefore, in its role of holding science as well as everything else to account, the board needed to know what questions to ask effectively, so the development of the scientific checklist was very much about giving board members a tool for interrogating science when it came to the board. Q638 Bob Spink: Can I come back to my question then, Dame Deirdre, what is wrong with the guidelines on scientific analysis and policy-making which the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser has put forward and which I would suggest would be probably as comprehensive as yours? Dame Deirdre Hutton: There probably is not anything wrong with them, but this was something we developed internally according to what the board members said they wanted. We then floated it with the chairs of the independent scientific committees who, having initially been slightly suspicious of it as an approach, actually became rather positive about it, but Andrew could talk about that. Dr Wadge: We very much work with the Office of Science and Innovation and the key scientific guidelines on how we do science are ones that we follow very closely, and we have been able in the past to highlight specific examples of how we use science in developing policies. Q639 Bob Spink: Is this checklist based on their scientific analysis in policy-making? Dr Wadge: It addresses a very specific thing that is slightly different from the purpose of the OSI guidelines, which is around what are the types of specific questions that the board members need to ask themselves when assessing a scientific issue, and we need to remember we are dealing with a whole range of complex issues from scientific information about front of pack labelling and what consumers are saying about that, information about atypical scrapie and very complex scientific information with uncertainties, so it is how do we (as in we the board) weigh up on what might be from a wide variety of different quantitative and qualitative research? How do we know the different types of research and how do you weight those? It is really just going through a systematic way of assessing that; it is an aide memoir basically for that. Q640 Bob Spink: Is it likely to become just a tick-box or will it be really useful to you? Dame Deirdre Hutton: It will be very useful to board members, and it is not something that board members are going to sit there with at board meetings asking each question in turn - apart from anything else there is not time. What it will do is just direct them in certain ways in thinking about how they answer questions. I should also say, because I started off by saying that the genesis of this was in not having very many people with a scientific background on the board, we have just made two appointments of people who do have scientific backgrounds because it was something I was keen to rebalance a little. Chairman: It was not used with the Government's junk food issue, was it? I leave that hanging in the air. Q641 Bob Spink: The interpretation section may have been. The Institute of Food Science and Technology has drawn attention to a developing skills shortage, particularly in the professional and science areas: do you see this as a problem? How many postgraduate places are you currently funding and is that useful and a good way to spend your money? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I do think it is a problem. Indeed, several years ago when I chaired one of the foresight programmes on the food chain for the Office of Science and Technology it was something we identified then as being a real difficulty, that the number of people with skills going into the industry was not sufficient, but on the particular question, Andrew. Dr Wadge: First of all I ought to say that we work closely with the Institute and yesterday, for example, I was giving a talk on complexities in the food chain with the Scottish Food and Drink Federation and the Institute of Food Science and Technology. We are funding six postgraduate studentships this year, and this is a new scheme which we have recently introduced. We think it is important in terms of helping ensure the science base and ensure that people are trained in areas of food science, but also of course they may want to come and work with us in the longer term. Four of these six are working on areas of diet and nutrition and two on issues around microbiological food safety. Chairman: I am going to move on now because I am very conscious of the time. Margaret, do you want to start on risk? Q642 Margaret Moran: Turning to the issue of risk, you mentioned at the outset, Dame Deirdre, that you are fundamentally about balancing risk. Can you tell us whether you feel the Agency has sufficient expertise in risk management and assessment, and what indicators do you use to assure yourself that that is the case? Dame Deirdre Hutton: There are fundamentally two sorts of risk that we deal with, although they are integrated: one is the assessment of risk in terms of developing policy and standards, which is very much what we are talking about today, but there is another set of risks which are the operational risks such as what is the risk of that particular food outlet causing food poisoning. I would see that as operational risk and we do try to integrate that within the Agency. There is not a formulaic approach to risk; on the one hand science is a moving object as it develops and, on the other hand, consumer attitudes to risk also change, and then there are the market attitudes to risk. What we are trying to do all the time is, to bring all of those views together and to be clear about the science insofar as we can, to be clear about the uncertainty and therefore be clear about what the options might be for risk management, all the time as well doing the consultation with the public and other stakeholders to try and marry into that process the acceptability of risk or the risk appetite, in the jargon, for the public. It is very difficult to put a precise indicator on that or say what is the proper formulaic approach to risk, it is much more of a moving target where there are various processes you go through to try and come to the right answer. Q643 Margaret Moran: Given that risk, as you say, is a very complex area, do you feel that you have the expertise within the Agency to deal with that very complex set of issues? Dr Wadge: Perhaps I could use the example of how we respond to food incidents, and we record about 1000 food incidents a year on our database. The way that we respond to those is we have a very clear protocol within the organisation for bringing it together, starting with the risk assessment, if necessary seeking independent advice very quickly on that, then weighing up the various options for interventions and the costs, and that could range from simply issuing advice to consumers, that you may wish to be aware that this has happened in relation to food, through to complete product recalls if that is appropriate. We do that and we follow a protocol, and at the end of it we have a process of evaluation. I chair an emergency committee which reviews how we have handled particular incidents, the lessons learned and whether we have got that risk management right. Dame Deirdre Hutton: If I can answer your specific question, yes, I do think we have the skills but sometimes they are pretty stretched. Q644 Margaret Moran: Is that because the skills are not there? Dame Deirdre Hutton: No, the skills absolutely are there, but if you think about last year, apart from the on-going thousand incidents we had three major incidents: one was Eurofreeze in Ireland, E-coli and Sudan 1. If two of those incidents occurred at the same time, your key people are dealing with one and all of a sudden there is another one, and it is a question of how you balance the on-going resource in a reasonably economic way, coupled with the potential for two major incidents to occur at once. There is a stretch, but do we have the skills, yes. Q645 Margaret Moran: You are touching on my next question which is how do you ensure that regulation is cost-effective and proportional to the risk with a particular issue, and do you use the value per life calculations to guide your policy-making? Dame Deirdre Hutton: In answer to the last, yes, and the clearest example we have of that is when we were looking at whether over 30-month beef should be allowed back into the food chain - Andrew is just looking up the figures. That was quite early on in my time in the Agency and one of the things that struck me very forcibly is that there is almost a government fear of putting monetary values on life out into the public domain. OTM was a very interesting example because we did exactly that, we said if you take route A it will cost X million per life saved, if you take route B it will cost Y million per life saved, and that was discussed openly with stakeholders over a period of months. In the end we went effectively for the route which put the lower value on life saved, so yes, we do. I thought that was a really encouraging example, because if you discuss it openly in the public and treat the public as grown-ups you can have all sorts of debates with them and it is really important. I have forgotten the first half of your question, I am sorry. Q646 Margaret Moran: You have probably answered it anyway, thank you very much. How do you define the precautionary principle? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I am going to ask Andrew to define it. Dr Wadge: The problem with the precautionary principle is that I have yet to see an internationally agreed definition of it, so therefore what we like to talk about is the precautionary approach, which is actually what we take in relation to consumer safety. Our statutory responsibility is to put consumer interests first in relation to food and if you look at the risk assessment process, if you look at the approvals process for a novel food coming on the market, it is essentially a precautionary approach: you are not allowed to put a novel food on the market until you have satisfied independent expert advisers of its safety. Our approach will be, in terms of doing a risk assessment, let us make sure that the public will not be harmed. If at the end of that period of assessment there is some uncertainty, there is an absolute duty on us to say what that uncertainty is so that people can then exercise choice. An example of this was in relation to the dioxin emissions from the funeral pyres in foot and mouth where our modelling said there was probably unlikely to be deposition of dioxins around the farms to an extent that would cause undue intake in the population, but there was such a tremendous uncertainty in the models that we gave precautionary advice to those people who consumed milk from their own farms that they may wish to vary their diet whilst we then conducted some research to measure what was happening at the farms rather than relying on the model. The measures actually in the end supported our advice and we were able to remove that precautionary advice, but that is an example of how we use the precautionary approach as opposed to the precautionary principle. Q647 Dr Harris: I am not sure I see the difference. I do not know if that was a definition of the precautionary approach because you said three different things, if we break down what you said, I will try and remember, although, like you, I do not have instant recall. You said for example that you are not allowed to put a novel food on the market until it has been tested for efficacy and "safety", but what is safety because safety is never 100 per cent guaranteed, as you yourself have said quite rightly in your documents, so in a sense that is not a clear definition. Dr Wadge: There is a definition of safety in relation to a novel food. Q648 Dr Harris: There is? Dr Wadge: Yes. Q649 Dr Harris: So the precautionary approach means requiring them to meet what definition of safety? Dr Wadge: To be as safe as conventional counterparts. Q650 Dr Harris: Is that the precautionary approach or is that just the standard approach you take for food safety, which is what I thought would be obvious? Dr Wadge: I think it is precautionary in the sense that you are requiring the food industry to conduct a series of tests on a particular product before putting it on the market; a non-precautionary approach would be to simply put it on the market and see what the effects were. Q651 Dr Harris: I am interested to know that that is your view of the precautionary approach - that you test something first against standards. Because in your first answer, you also said in respect of dioxin, that your precautionary approach was to say that people may wish to change their diet, but you did not ban anything. Dr Wadge: Yes. Q652 Dr Harris: So, you just offered advice - which I would call an advisory approach - given the uncertainty. Are you saying that giving advice when there is uncertainty is a further definition of the precautionary approach? Dame Deirdre Hutton: No, it is one of the tools you have for a precautionary approach. A precautionary approach could, it seems to me, include a whole range of things, from banning something to giving people advice so they could make decisions for themselves. A precautionary approach is not one thing, there are a range of activities that you could undertake. Q653 Dr Harris: Some people say a precautionary approach is to say do not do something, or not allow someone to do it until your evaluations are complete, but in the example you gave your precautionary approach was instead to say "We advise you that you might not wish to do something while we investigate as best we can". So haven't you have chosen - I am not arguing with you, I am just saying it is the case - each version of the precautionary approach to fit the situation. Dr Wadge: It demonstrates the importance of assessing, on a case by case basis, individual risks, because each one is different. In this case foot and mouth pyres were burning, dioxins were being emitted in very small levels, modelling had been undertaken which suggested that there was no risk to public health, but there were tremendous uncertainties in that model and it seemed entirely appropriate for us to say on a precautionary basis that the at-risk population should be made aware of that, and if they wished to reduce the possibility of risk they could on a precautionary basis vary their diet, and that is how they could do it. Q654 Dr Harris: You are using precautionary there adjectively as a good thing - again, I am not arguing with you - that, it is good practice to do something that is precautionary. If you take eggs, where the World Health Organisation says "make yolks solid" and you say "just make whites solid, the yolks can be runny," you think your position is correct, appropriate, and you think that the World Health Organisation position is not appropriate, it is over-regulatory. Yet you have described the World Health Organisation advice as "precautionary", Dame Deirdre. Dame Deirdre Hutton: It is precautionary, it is just more precautionary than our advice. Q655 Dr Harris: You did not describe it as too precautionary. Maybe you were misquoted in the Telegraph where you described it not as "too precautionary" or "over-precautionary" or "adversely precautionary", you just described it as "precautionary". So I am surprised that you express disagree - not with the word "precautionary". Do you see the difficulty we are in? Dr Wadge: I can see exactly the difficulty you are in and hopefully I can illuminate the position. It again comes back to looking at the specific case and the circumstances around that particular issue. We contacted the WHO and asked them what was the basis of that, and they said WHO is giving advice for the whole of the world, relating to a whole range of diseases and a whole range of circumstances in which people consume eggs, and that advice therefore was recognising that there is a whole range of different hygiene factors that are quite separate from those that occur within the UK, and they felt it was justified therefore to issue that more precautionary advice than our own precautionary advice which was around cooking until your whites are hard. Q656 Chairman: Just as a precaution we would very much like you to write to us with what you regard as your definition of precautionary advice. Dr Wadge: Okay, yes. Q657 Dr Harris: But the WHO advice was specifically to minimise the danger posed by avian flu, that was the context of it, it was not to deal with other things that you just mentioned. Dr Wadge: Sorry, we contacted WHO and they were quite specific about that, that it was general advice - they did not want to differentiate between avian flu and other hygiene risks in relation to eggs, they were quite specific on that point, whereas our own advice is specifically around avian flu. Chairman: I really do need to move on, we are desperately running out of time. I thought we might go on to some food scares. Q658 Dr Harris: My next word was going to be Sudan - not the country but Sudan 1. The risk of eating the dye contained in processed food has been equated by Alan Boobis of Imperial College to the cancer risk of smoking one cigarette in an entire lifetime. Do you think that the decision to do what was done in respect of recalling all the affected foodstuffs was therefore proportionate in relation to that risk? Dame Deirdre Hutton: I am going to start off by saying I was not there at the time, therefore I was not privy to all the discussion that went on, but I think an absolutely key point is that the dye that was being used is illegal and it is not supposed to be put in food. There is a very fundamental point about the extent to which you expect people to keep rules that are perfectly clear. Dr Wadge: If you look at our website and the statements we have made, we have been very clear that the levels were extremely low and any risk would have been low. In relation to the independent expert advice that we received, Sudan is a genotoxic carcinogen and the independent expert advisers say that therefore we cannot identify an absolutely safe level, but the key point is that it is illegal, and I think that from a regulatory point of view I would turn it round the other way: how would consumers feel if we turned a blind eye to the food industry using an illegal dye that is used as an industrial boot polish, present in their food? I do not think consumers wanted that and that was our assessment. Q659 Dr Harris: Those were the other two options? Complete withdrawal causing effectively panic - at least in the media - or turning a blind eye. We are talking about proportionality as we just heard from Margaret Moran: could a middle way not be found to say that the risk does not appear to be significant to health on the levels found here? But in the interests of keeping to the law and therefore having public confidence, was the basis on which to move forward. So there is no middle way. Dr Wadge: It is very difficult, a middle way, when something is either illegal or not illegal, and I find it difficult to find see where the middle way is in that. We identified that it was present and we were able to trace its use throughout the food chain, and where we were clear that it was being used and not permitted then those products had to be withdrawn. Q660 Dr Harris: On the basis of illegality not safety. Dr Wadge: Yes. Q661 Dr Harris: Do you think that distinctions were stressed enough, because there is benefit in not having panic, okay? No one is saying that people should be allowed to do illegal things, or at least allowed to get away with doing illegal things, but the normal way to deal with that is through prosecution, where appropriate, rather than a total withdrawal which is implied to be on the grounds of safety. Dame Deirdre Hutton: I slightly question that. I do recall seeing Sir John Krebs on television saying that it was being withdrawn on the grounds of the fact that it was illegal. There are always various translations put on these things by the media which it is sometimes difficult to control, but I think it was always clear from the Agency's perspective - again, saying that as somebody who was not there - and certainly from my recollection of Sir John on the media, that it was being done on the ground of illegality. Q662 Dr Harris: I am not sure recall is appropriate for illegality, you just need to stop the illegal behaviour. The illegal behaviour was having it in the food chain, not people then buying it. It is not illegal for me to buy something that is not particularly dangerous that contains something that it should not contain. This was the biggest packaged food recall in British history and it is remarkable, and it has been remarked on by Professor Lofstedt, for example, who as you know is an expert on risk management, that that did not seem to be based on the evidence of safety, which is unfortunate shall we say? Dr Wadge: I had the benefit of speaking to Professor Lofstedt yesterday because he was talking at the same meeting as I was talking at, and he recognised that that was not on the basis of safety but on the basis of the fact that it was not permitted in food. The key point here is that what we want to do within the Food Standards Agency and working with the food industry is prevent these types of incidents occurring in the first place because they are hugely costly to the industry and they are not helpful in terms of consumer confidence, and that is why in the aftermath of the Sudan 1 incident we set up a food incident taskforce with a whole range of people from the food industry and enforcement community consumers to look at ways in which we can prevent these types of things happening, and those are around much better assurance schemes right back through the food chain and a better use of intelligence through the food chain. We have to be clear that where contamination does occur and where illegal contaminants are present then under general food law there is a requirement for that food industry not to sell the product and to inform the competent authorities and consumers. Chairman: I just want to bring Margaret in here briefly about the issue of the use of media and information. Q663 Margaret Moran: You touched on the fact that the media have a very significant role, particularly in the perception of risk. Have you attempted to engage with the media in dealing with that and have you ever thought about using a standardised index or table of risks so that as a new risk emerges there is some sort of context for the public and the media to gauge what is actually happening? Dame Deirdre Hutton: On the first part of your question, yes, we do, we engage with the media all the time, not least because they are a key way of getting messages out to the public and the sensible way to approach the media is to have constant background briefing with them, so that when it comes to the point at which you have a real message to get out you are in a much better position to do it, so we have a big communications department and that kind of liaison with the media is constant. In terms of your index of risk question, I am giving Andrew time to think about the answer to that but I am conscious of the fact, for example, that the BBC is beginning to think very seriously about risk and is thinking about its own risk guidelines and whether they are appropriate for the way in which issues like MMR are handled in the media. Dr Wadge: Guidelines are extremely helpful and I very much welcome the BBC's approach to producing guidelines on risk. The idea of having an index about risk often comes down to ideas of saying you can compare this risk with another risk, so if Sudan happened we could say it is the equivalent of. The difficulty with that is that usually those are numerical and I do not think most of the public think in terms of ten to the minus nine or ten to the minus seven, and the other point is that as Professor Ragnall would say, actually there is a big difference in how consumers receive risks, whether they are voluntary risks or involuntary risks. People do not like mobile phone masts, but they do like mobile phones - they are not worried about the risk of actually using it but they do not want the mast at the back of their gardens. Chairman: Hear, hear. Q664 Dr Harris: It is not that simple though, is it? Dr Wadge: That is the difficulty of using that type of quantification. Q665 Margaret Moran: Should it be up to the BBC to be providing guidelines? Surely that is your role, to have a context for there media and all the rest of us to measure what is coming at us? Dame Deirdre Hutton: Any sensible broadcasting organisation ought to have guidelines, absolutely, in the same way as you would have guidelines around ethics and around neutrality and all the other things I am sure they have guidelines for, so in the handling of risk it seems to me it is entirely sensible for them to do that. It is also good if they draw up those guidelines in conjunction with bodies like ours, or at least getting our input, but that aside yes, of course, when we talk to them about particular issues we will always try and put it in a context and try and frame the risk for them in a way that is understandable. I would find it very difficult to say this is a level one risk, this is a level two risk, because actually what is a level one risk for Mrs Jones may be a level three risk for David Bloggs. That kind of standardisation is therefore quite difficult. Chairman: I am very conscious that we only have four minutes to go and I wanted to get Brooks in with one question on transparency. Q666 Mr Newmark: I am just curious as to what opportunities there are for sharing best practices between government departments in areas such as risk management, communication and public engagement. Dr Wadge: Within the UK? Q667 Mr Newmark: Let us start within the UK. I was going to ask an EU question but I will just focus on the UK for the time being. Dr Wadge: We are doing both in the sense that we work closely with the Office of Science and Innovation, with DEFRA and the Department of Health on identifying areas of research and exchanging best practice in relation to risk management, but we also maintain and develop very good contacts with the national agencies in different Member States across Europe, with the European Food Safety Authority and also with colleagues in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada around risk assessment and managing risk, trying to develop best practice and also share intelligence on food safety issues. Q668 Mr Newmark: Have you been proactive in sharing that? Dr Wadge: Very much so. This year we have recently signed an agreement with the Canadian authorities about sharing information which was an initiative that we developed and the Australian and New Zealand authorities are now keen to join that. Dame Deirdre Hutton: If I give you an example of being proactive, I brought the EFSA management board over to the UK in February to look at what we were doing in terms of nutrition and labelling in the UK, so yes, we do. Q669 Mr Newmark: You have found that other departments have been responsive to your whole approach to his? Dr Wadge: Yes is the answer, in relation to food. I cannot comment more broadly in relation to science. Mr Newmark: I had some interesting questions on the EU but, unfortunately, time is short. Q670 Chairman: I am very sorry. Can I thank you, Dame Deirdre and Dr Andrew Wadge, for a tremendous session this morning. We have a lot of questions that we would like to write to you on. Dr Wadge: We would be very happy. Chairman: In terms of this inquiry because my poor chairmanship has meant that we have not got through as much as we should. We thank you enormously for your contributions, thank you very much. |