Item 3 is a round-table evidence-taking session for our stage 1 consideration of the Food (Scotland) Bill. As usual with such sessions, I will give precedence to the panel members. I see this as an opportunity for committee members to listen to others’ comments, so I ask for patience from my colleagues.
If it is okay with everyone, we will go directly to questions. If panel members can introduce themselves the first time they speak, it might give us more time for the discussion. Is everyone happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you. Rhoda Grant will ask the first question.
Some of the evidence that we have taken about food standards Scotland suggests that it should take a lead on health protection issues such as nutrition and tackling obesity in Scotland. Should that be the role of the proposed new agency? Should it cover other aspects? If so, would that require more resources?
Who wants to take that one?
I am director of the Rowett institute of nutrition and health at the University of Aberdeen.
Food standards Scotland could be a very good vehicle for leading on nutritional issues relating to diet and health. The UK Food Standards Agency was developed with the intention of providing leadership in that area, and it gained a lot of public confidence as a place where the public could go for sound nutrition and health advice. Now that it has been split up, there is more confusion, and I think that food standards Scotland could take on that role in Scotland.
However, in order to take on that function, the proposed new agency needs to get access to some of the knowledge that was present in the UK Food Standards Agency and which has since been lost. For example, websites that provided information to consumers would have to be restored, which I guess would be a resourcing issue. I imagine, therefore, that if the new agency is to be set up properly, resources will be needed for the infrastructure to provide that information to the public.
As I have suggested, food standards Scotland could be a good vehicle for providing diet and health information to the public, but a broader question is whether it should take on a role that it perhaps did not have before: giving advice on obesity. That is difficult, because obesity is a complex issue that is not solely diet related. It would be helpful if food standards Scotland could take on a leadership role on diet-related obesity issues, but we need to recognise that some aspects of obesity would have to remain with the health department, given the clinical relationships that are also involved.
In short, food standards Scotland could take a lead role on giving advice on diet and nutrition, but I reserve my judgment on the issue of co-ordinating research, which I am sure we will discuss later.
I am the medical director of NHS National Services Scotland. In that respect, the point of most relevance to this debate is that one of our organisations is Health Protection Scotland.
On Professor Morgan’s point about the possibility of having more impact on health-related issues in Scotland, especially obesity, it is important to recognise that the national health service—and, in particular, one of our sister special boards, NHS Health Scotland—already plays a major role in that area. We would need to be clear about the relative responsibilities and how we can build on the best aspects of all the different organisations.
I support the comments that both speakers have made. As an independent body, food standards Scotland would be in a good position to lead on public health nutrition, and it should work with boards and local authorities to strengthen the work that is already taking place and to support the various partnerships.
10:00
The most important thing, if food standards Scotland is to have any type of role in providing public advice, is that it must be seen as an independent organisation. It must keep its independence in particular from industry, and even from Government in a sense. However it works, the bill must maintain that independence. I know that the organisation will be funded from Government, but that independence is needed so that the public can trust it. That is crucial, and it must be borne in mind as the bill is progressed to ensure that, in the public perception, the organisation has a strong link with the public rather than with official bodies.
If none of the other panel members wants to come in, we will move on. It did not take us too long to get to the independence question, but that is what happens in the Scottish Parliament.
The nature of funding for the body was a theme that arose in last week’s evidence session, and it raises questions. The make-up of the board was also discussed. Would any of you like to comment on the board make-up or on the funding mechanisms? I may be wrong, but I took from the evidence that we heard last week that, although there will be some core funding, areas such as research will be bidding for funds. How do we create independence for the body when it is funded in such a way? How strong can the board be in representing consumers? Do any of you have a response on that?
The make-up of the board will be crucial. The individuals on the board must be seen as trustworthy people who will not be afraid to speak out on issues even if they are going against Government policy. I know that it is sometimes very difficult when one is in that position, but the public must see that degree of independence as part of the body’s essential nature.
Clearly, the body will be seeking research funding. On a historical point, when the Food Standards Agency UK was set up, it lost research funding that was already in the system. There was a change to the system, and the agency lost out on that funding, which was a great pity. I hope that the new body will have an adequate research budget. That is very difficult to define, of course, but one of the body’s highest priorities must be to commission research and maintain links with other funding bodies so that it can influence them if necessary—perhaps indirectly—to push funding towards issues of great public health importance that are capable of resolution in real time.
As a microbiologist, I know that there are many such issues. We have made progress through research on our understanding of campylobacter but, unless we understand it even more, we will not make much more progress in controlling what is the most common cause of bacterial food poisoning in Scotland.
The question of independence raises a number of issues. One is the independence of the body itself, which will be separate from the original Foods Standards Agency UK—previously, of course, it was part of the overall system. In becoming independent, the body must be able to stand on its own two feet, but it is important to recognise that it needs to work in partnership with other bodies. Those links are crucial and need to be sorted out. The body cannot work in isolation from the Food Standards Agency UK, and it cannot work totally independently of Public Health England. However, it needs to have its own identity and its own understanding of how it will move forward.
Hugh Pennington is right to say that there was a great loss of research money when the Food Standards Agency UK was disbanded. The money for nutrition research certainly disappeared, although there is still evidence of some money for food safety research. The issue is where the new money will come from; we have to be clear about that. The way I understand the situation is that, previously, the Food Standards Agency UK had quite a sizable pot of money for research, which disappeared. The Food Standards Agency in Scotland had a small sum of money that was targeted towards research into Scottish-focused issues. That would need to be maintained.
However, the wider research funding opportunity, which comes from other Government sources such as the rural and environmental science and analytical services division, is a different budget and we need to be clear that it is different. It would not be a good idea to raid that budget to put resources into food standards Scotland, because the function of the RESAS budget is different from what the function of food standards Scotland’s budget will be.
If food standards Scotland requires research money, we need to consider where it will come from. There is a debate in my mind about what sort of research food standards Scotland should do. For example, I am not so sure that it is a great idea to have a legislative body commission research. It will need a budget for short-term research to answer its own specific questions, but I would keep the budget for strategic research needs independent.
I am from the Association of Public Analysts Scotland.
One part of the issue is to do with the budget. A third of the budget relates to operations. Will the body serve industry or the public? Will it be a consumer champion or not? There may be conflicts in the structure. If it is going to look at cutting plants and meat plants, is it going to be helping industry or the consumer?
We have been talking about the independence of food standards Scotland, but I wonder about the powers that it will have. The bill has a kind of general powers provision, which says:
“Food Standards Scotland may do anything which it considers necessary or expedient for the purposes of or in connection with its functions.”
The functions are laid out in the bill.
Our witness from Which? last week raised the issue that food standards Scotland will not have statutory access to food testing results from industry, and there was a belief that such statutory access would be very helpful. When industry carries out testing, the information should be passed routinely to either the FSA at UK level—which is now going, of course—or the new food standards Scotland. Do panel members agree with that? Would the power to compel industry—large supermarkets and producers—to provide their food testing results be welcome?
Any takers?
The more information the body has, the better able it will be to discharge its function, although there is an issue about the relationship with industry and getting information in that way. I sit on the fence on the question of food standards Scotland having overriding powers to get information of that kind but, in principle, yes, it would be useful to have that sort of information.
It would be useful to have that information up front to help prevent outbreaks and it would boost the public’s confidence about the monitoring that takes place and the information that is available for auditing and improving standards. That would be helpful.
A fair amount of testing is done on a fairly random basis. One needs to look carefully at whether the right kind of testing is being done on the right kinds of foods, and so on, because most of the results will be negative. My experience has been that that kind of testing is of value, but it is of relatively limited value in giving good public health protection. Other issues are probably more important, such as how well businesses are run. A lot of that falls down to local authority enforcement officers doing inspections, and so on.
There are fundamental philosophical issues to do with the role of testing. Testing is essential and it is necessary, but it has to be focused. It has to be done almost by looking at something where it is thought that there might be a problem and focusing on that rather than having a general testing programme, which can be quite expensive and produce quite small returns. Professional judgment is crucial when it comes to who is doing the testing on what and so on.
There is an issue with allowing industry to do its own testing. Cadbury’s was caught short because it was putting salmonella in chocolate. If we rely on industry to look after its own shop, we risk having problems. Similarly, in the case of horsemeat, the industry was looking after itself but was looking only for what it wanted to look for and did not find horsemeat. It is necessary to have an independent body that is willing to take the challenge on and horizon scan for the unknown unknowns, as it were. If we rely on industry, it will just tell us what we want to hear.
I am business regulation manager for environmental health at Glasgow City Council.
I will pick up on the broader question about powers. To fly off at a little bit of a tangent, I have a rather unpopular view about the enforcement role. I would like to see a slightly more aggressive role being taken, to be honest. As I am an enforcement person, perhaps that is in my blood.
I feel that there is a need for a more interventionist approach to nutrition and obesity. We engage fairly peripherally with quite a lot of initiatives that encourage and support healthier eating, but it is a great source of frustration to me that there is no final step that can be taken to push the issue slightly more. For example, there is a scheme in Scotland that advises the public about food safety compliance and there is a move in the bill to make that a mandatory scheme. I wonder whether its scope could be broadened to include a broader compliance or performance issue for businesses that relates to their nutritional performance and the kind of food that they sell. We could perhaps work out some kind of profile for businesses.
Does that relate to your evidence about food sales in and around schools and young people?
It would do. I do not want to pre-empt any discussion of those issues. However, to be honest, such sales lead me to think in the way that I described. My colleagues and I experience frustration, because the evidence is there but there is not very much that we can do.
That is helpful, because I was going to come on to that issue.
Very briefly, in relation to the general powers provision and testing with industry, I hope that the approach could be based on partnership rather than confrontation. As the witnesses have said, there is no point in testing things that you know are safe. Supermarkets and large producers that are ethical in their practices would be keen to work with FSS or the FSA to identify the higher-risk areas so that an inspection regime can be put in place around those. It would be good to see that being done. The approach does not always have to be confrontational, and I hope that there is a way forward based on partnership.
Mr Hamilton has helpfully allowed me to come on to my other question, on enforcement powers, so I thank him for that. An issue that I raised last week is that the policy memorandum states that, currently, when food is seized that is safe but in relation to which the vendors are guilty of food fraud, if you like, there is power to seize the food but not to destroy it, and it could, in theory, go back into the food chain. The bill appears to put a stop to that.
With reference to some of the more general powers, such as the duty to compel the reporting of breaches at outlets and the duty to give inspection outcome displays much more prominence in outlets, Mr Hamilton has talked about maybe introducing a cluster of other powers. This is a good opportunity for witnesses to put on the record any additional powers that they would like to be included in the bill. I add the caveat that I imagine that some breaches are by small businesses that are trying to do their best but are not complying. I would not like those businesses to be driven out of business but would like them to be supported to perform better. What additional powers do people want to see in the bill, particularly on enforcement? Mr Hamilton had started to give some suggestions about that.
Mr Hamilton, is it the case that if you seize food for one reason or another—it may have been labelled incorrectly, for example—you give back that food?
10:15
Generally speaking, we do not seize food on the basis that it is not what it says it is on the label—our powers extend only to seizing food that is deemed to be potentially unfit for consumption, so there is a safety imperative to do that. The bill would introduce a food standards power that mirrors those powers exactly. That would be very welcome. I am assuming that the powers would remain the same and that authorisation from a sheriff to destroy the food would be needed.
Do the panellists have any response to Bob Doris’s question about additional powers and his challenge to strengthen the bill? Of course, there are no guarantees that that would happen.
I work in enforcement, so it is only natural that I would say that there should be more enforcement powers. I respect the view that there is always the potential for inappropriate use of powers but, if anything, there is a suggestion that some of the powers are not being used adequately. I take that point on board. However, there is a case for making mandatory the food hygiene information scheme, which is a welcome part of the bill.
Information is already available to the public through freedom of information. However, a more meaningful scheme—in other words, one that is mandatory for business—would be helpful. There are certain doubts about how helpful such a scheme would be; in our opinion, that would be a relatively inexpensive way to proceed. As I said, I would quite like to see the expansion of that scheme’s scope.
On powers, food premises licensing is an additional issue that is quite close to my profession’s heart. Powers on that exist in the Food Safety Act 1990, but I would be crucified if I did not mention the issue on my colleagues’ behalf. There is quite a strong appetite for that, primarily to prevent the emergence of unsuitable businesses as a matter of course.
I agree absolutely with what has been said about the mandatory display of the scores on the doors as it were. That has been progressed in Wales. There were supposedly going to be some problems with doing that, but they have not amounted to very much. I am very much in favour of that power being included at this stage rather than it being left to ministers to come forward with at an appropriate time, because that would very much be in the public interest.
There is perhaps a move towards industry testing. Under the 80:20 rule, 80 per cent of your problems could come from 20 per cent of your estate. There was an E coli outbreak in Fife that related to a small restaurant, the E coli outbreak in Wishaw related to a small butcher’s shop, and there was a case in Glasgow. Lots of problems are coming out of small areas. You are expecting industry to self-police. That might be okay for organisations such as Tesco and Asda, but who will look after the small guys who are causing a lot of the problems and killing people?
When the committee visited Aberdeen, it was mentioned that the proposal is not to have the five-point scoring system that is used in Wales because it is not clear how a score of three or four would be judged and what the public would understand by that. Instead, the idea is to have three levels. At the first level, a health improvement notice would be issued, but should it be displayed? If so, how quickly should that be done, and how long should the individual be given to rectify the situation before they are required to display the notice? The second level is when a business has passed the health inspection, so the premises are regarded as hygienic. The third level, which 1,000 businesses have reached, is the gold standard, which is an exceptional standard to reach. That seems quite a good system. I seek comments, in particular, on how quickly a health improvement notice should be displayed.
As you have described very well, the scheme in Scotland is quite simple compared with that in England, and it is less problematic. In reality, there are only two statuses in the food hygiene information scheme, one of which is “improvement required”. A very small minority of premises are deemed to require improvement. The vast majority are given a pass; in other words, they are considered to be of a satisfactory standard.
I am sure that my colleagues would love to make this much more complicated or more impenetrable for the public, but in reality it is very simple and straightforward: the scheme is completely flawed, because it is not mandatory. Without contradicting what I have already said, I would look for the scheme to be carried forward as it is, but I would like its scope to be enlarged. It is all very well saying that a business is clean and well operated, but if it serves, in the main, deeply unhealthy food, perhaps that gives us an avenue in.
I do not know whether that entirely answers your question.
Not quite, because my question was about how long people should have before they must comply with a health improvement notice or display the notice, which will have an effect on their business.
The key is to be aware of the fact that the display of the notice is for public information; it is not an enforcement tool. We have enforcement mechanisms that require a business to comply within a given period of time. If the business presented a risk, it would probably be closed immediately. If there were serious issues, it would probably be subject to a notice, and it would be allowed 14 days to rectify them.
I think that, under the scheme, the display of the notice would be pretty much instantaneous—there would be a requirement to display it straight away. If the business could sort things out straight away, it would obviously be allowed to change that.
From this and previous discussions, I understand that the UK Food Standards Agency’s funding was split and that it was underfunded. We heard in Aberdeen that a number of Scottish units—Rowett is the main one—are involved in the research, but the Scottish research is, I understand, complemented by research at big units in Norwich and Cambridge. Moreover, research funding comes from councils such as the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and others.
Recommendation 33 of the Scudamore report is:
“FSA Scotland and the Scottish Government must urgently identify the scientific capacity and capability it would require to deliver official controls in the future, so that decisions could be made about what needed to be available in Scotland and what needed to be available elsewhere. This should then be used to inform more strategic investment decision.”
During last week’s evidence session, we heard from Jim Wildgoose that there are 15 UK scientific advisory committees. Can the witnesses outline where we are now and where we will go with the new body? We have already heard about the rural fund, which should be separate. Will we still have scientific advisory committees and systems, given the split that has occurred in England? What would happen with all those aspects of research and the relationship with the current complementary system if Scotland were an independent country? Dr Wildgoose made it very clear that the Scottish Food Advisory Committee would cease to exist. What are the implications of that for Scotland, irrespective of what happens post-September?
If the Food Standards Agency in Scotland becomes a separate body, it will have effectively dislocated itself from what went before, although I suppose that, in many ways, that has happened as a result of the fragmentation of the Food Standards Agency in England.
Advisory committees were set up to take on various activities. There are advisory committees on nutrition, novel foods, pathogens and toxicology, for example. I do not see any advantage in duplicating those committees. They already exist to bring together the best people from across the whole of the UK to give advice. Setting up a separate set of bodies would just be duplication for no positive benefit, and the same people who are already on the existing committees would probably be used. I think that the best thing that we can do is harness the information and use the existing advisory committees.
The question then is how we do that. Previously, under the old set-up, the Food Standards Agency Scotland was part of the Food Standards Agency, which was the parent body, so all the relationships were built in. Now that the FSA has become fragmented, we need to revisit the mechanisms to see how a new, independent body would be able to influence and get advice out of the committees. I do not think that that would be impossible, but it would require us to look at the mechanisms to ensure that they were fit for purpose.
I cannot imagine any reason why what I suggest should not be possible. Certainly, the advisory committees that I know of do not see themselves working for just one body; they just give advice, and there is no reason why that advice should not be given to Scotland as well as to England. The mechanisms are important. For example, there would have to be a conversation between food standards Scotland and Public Health England, which has the secretariat for nutrition advice, about how food standards Scotland would get proper representation and advice in that area.
I would not duplicate committees. At the end of the day, all advice is about synthesising information from the maximum number of sources. Any committee should come to a good consensus for everybody.
Many places are funding research on different nutrition or food safety topics, and the advisory committees will filter that research. I am not convinced that food standards Scotland would need to do more research independently. Plenty of research is going on and the only question in my mind is whether it would need to do specific things to deal with specific policy needs. Sufficient research is going on in other areas to allow the advisory committees to pull together the required information. As I said, I am not convinced that a body that is the advisory committee and the enforcing body should also commission research. I think that there could be a conflict and that those functions should be kept separate.
I do not think that there is an issue about the new body getting advice. The mechanisms are there, potentially; certainly, the advisory committees are there. The mechanisms need to be examined to ensure that they do what we want them to do. There is plenty of research going on, although no doubt many of my colleagues would argue that we have lost the Food Standards Agency in the UK and that its research budget has never been replaced. Nevertheless, a lot of work is going on in the UK and across Europe, and the advisory committees can pull it together and give advice through food standards Scotland as an independent body.
I echo Peter Morgan’s comments about advisory committees. One that is of particular interest to me is the advisory committee on the microbiological safety of food, which existed before the Food Standards Agency was set up and which has worked extremely well in producing a consensus view on problems and the best solutions to them, which can then be embedded in legislation. Its chair used to work in Scotland—she is now a professor in Liverpool—so she knows the situation well.
Peter Morgan made an important point about maintaining a formal link between the advisory committees and what happens in Scotland. They need to avoid ignoring special Scottish problems—there are one or two such problems, and I will come on to one in a moment. It is really important that that link is maintained, with, if possible, advisory committees having Scottish representation or a Scottish voice—someone who knows the Scottish scene. Like Peter, I do not see any reason why that could not be done. The negotiations might be quite complex and difficult—negotiations between different Government departments are always difficult, because they always look after their own patch. However, if it is done sensibly and with the right aim, which is clearly to protect public health, I do not foresee any problem.
10:30I may take a different view from Peter on this, but I think that it would be really important for the Scottish food body to have its own research budget. It may have to respond to a particular need in Scotland to look at a particular problem, albeit that, from a microbial point of view, the situation is not caused by an organism that exists only in Scotland. Sometimes things have to be done quite quickly to get to grips with a problem and find out what it is. If we do not have our own research budget, it might be difficult to do that timeously.
For example, work was commissioned on the back of the Wishaw outbreak in 1996, and work had been commissioned previously in relation to similar outbreaks. Although particular Scottish issues were being considered and Scottish input was required to do the research, the results of that research applied internationally—they did not just apply in the UK but were of international importance. It would be important for the body to have a research budget on which it could call if it needed to do or commission research to inform its own policy.
I was a founder member of the Scottish Food Advisory Committee. One of the advantages of that committee was that, to an extent, it held head office in Aberdeen to account. We saw ourselves as independent members of that committee. We were part of the Food Standards Agency but we could ask questions that perhaps head office—well, I will say no more. We could raise issues and stimulate policy development.
One of the great advantages of the committee was that we met in public throughout Scotland—we went from Shetland to Dumfries—which was a useful way of communicating with the public. It might have been quite expensive, but committee members felt that it was a really important way of talking in public about issues, hearing people’s views and—because there were question-and-answer sessions—being held to account. If that committee is not to be replicated, it is really important that the board of the new body also has frequent interactions with the public, as well as having appropriate interactions with people in the Scottish Government.
I clarify that I agree with Hugh Pennington that food standards Scotland would have to have some budget for research to respond timeously to important projects for policy reasons. I am really arguing that I do not think that the body should be involved in co-ordinating or taking a lead role in directing research in the general area.
I think that it was Dr Wildgoose who last week raised the issue about the need to be very careful about that. Are you aware of, or have you been involved in, any work to ensure that we continue to link into those scientific committees at the UK level? What has been done to ensure that your concern is addressed?
I know people who sit on those committees, on which, as far as I am aware, there is still an opportunity for members of food standards Scotland to sit as observers. However, if we want to use those committees for what they can actively do, which is to respond to questions that Scotland may wish to have answered or to provide advice, the linkages need to be re-examined, because they were set up under the old UK Food Standards Agency and have not been re-examined in the context of the new world. If we want to ensure that we have formal arrangements under which we can utilise the committees, first to examine issues that are important to food standards Scotland, and secondly to provide outputs, we need to examine those linkages.
The bill gives us an opportunity to set up a separate Scottish committee. Is that contradictory? What would that committee do?
If we are talking about advisory committees on specific issues relating to scientific research, I see no point in duplicating the existing committees, because we use the experts across the UK already. If we are talking about a committee that functions a bit like the SFAC, that is a slightly different issue, because it would take an overall view within Scotland. That approach would still be possible, but it is not the same as research advisory committees.
I absolutely agree with that. The scientific advisory committees are the crucial ones that we want to have formal links with. The SFAC is slightly different, because it was engaged not in research but in public communications. It looked at issues in a broad way, slightly outside the box, but all the people on it were selected because they brought different strengths in relation to food.
I would like to see that sort of body existing in one form or another, just to get those people round the table at frequent intervals to advise the board, which will be busy with things such as running the organisation, to ensure that nothing is missed and that concerns are properly addressed. It would not be a scientific advisory committee, such as the advisory committee on the microbiological safety of food, which has quite a different role and which does extensive, in-depth studies of particular problems.
There is one important reason why it is important for the Scottish body to have input into the advisory committee on the microbiological safety of food that has not been mentioned yet. The committee looks in depth at particular issues, and issues may arise that are seen as more important in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. Therefore, it would be useful for Scotland to have that voice, to persuade the larger body to conduct an in-depth study using resources that might be beyond what the Scottish body can employ.
I note that the bill gives a permissive power to form committees, not a prescriptive one. My reading of the bill is that, if FSS feels the need to form a committee, it is free to do so. That is the expectation, rather than the bill prescribing set committees. Knowledge transfer across the UK, Europe and the globe involves finding expertise at the most appropriate level. We are talking about various committees at the UK and Scottish levels and about whether the witnesses are content for the bill to have a permissive, rather than a prescriptive, power. I simply want to know the witnesses’ views on the nuts and bolts of the bill.
I see heads nodding—that is fine.
That would make sense.
Both Dr Pravinkumar’s paper and Health Protection Scotland’s paper talk about research. In particular, Health Protection Scotland’s paper talks about further opportunities, but it did not specify what they might be. I am interested in that. Has Health Protection Scotland further thoughts about that?
Health Protection Scotland recognises a number of areas that relate to food in which it would be important to do further research. I do not think that that cuts across anything that has been said. A lot of those things need to be done nationally and internationally. I am not an expert in the area, but my colleagues talked about bacterial counts in food, for example—I am sure that other members of the panel would be able to speak about that more accurately. My point was that we do not want to lose that focus. There are still a lot of areas where significant research is needed if we are to protect the public’s health better, and we want to ensure that that research is not endangered in any way.
We also referred to research on unique challenges for Scotland. Professor Pennington has referred to particular food safety issues that might emerge in Scotland, but there are other issues, such as obesity and food poverty, that might come up, and we referred to such things when we mentioned further opportunities for research.
Dr Simpson raised a point about Scudamore recommendation 33, which is about official controls. I saw that as a red flag to the Government and the FSA to deliver official control laboratories, because the network in Scotland is creaking, and we are looking to join up the scientific services of the four official control labs. That point has still to be addressed.
That feeds into the question whether, if Scotland is going to have its own FSA, it is also going to have its own national reference laboratories or whether we will still use the laboratories in England. We still need to understand that—of course, such laboratories would also feed up to the European reference laboratories.
I have to say that I am finding it hard to reconcile the two views in the Association of Public Analysts Scotland paper. Over the past 10 or 12 years, the budget for public analysts has more than halved. You recommend the creation of a centralised national public analyst system instead of the system being under the control of local authorities, but local authorities themselves have said that they want to keep the individual bodies.
Professor Pennington has also pointed out that testing is going to produce a lot of negative results, and that things need to be focused. I am trying to get my head round the question of how much we should be doing on that, whether we should have a national system and Mr Beattie’s point about whether we need our own reference laboratories for everything or whether we should just rely on the UK national reference laboratories.
Local testing is useful, but testing on a national scale will allow us to buy larger pieces of equipment and to employ DNA sequencing and all the other new techniques that are coming through, such as the use of isotopes to establish authenticity and provenance. That work cannot be funded at local authority level. As you pointed out, sampling has halved, and laboratories are finding things difficult now that their funding is drying up. They need to diversify, but they are scrabbling around for money.
The point is that you do not want an emergency to happen and no one to be there to respond to it. We need a continual supply of work to keep up capacity and expertise and ensure that public analysts can respond to emergencies. The need to keep things ticking over is one rationale for having a national service.
The FSA is trying to pump-prime things by putting in moneys from its co-ordinated food sampling programme. However, the agency is also looking at feed, and none of the local authorities that I work with actually submitted any samples in that respect. In fact, they would not even take the free money that the agency was providing for that purpose, because the trading standards service did not have the capacity to deliver those samples.
Another issue is the reduction in the number of local authority officers on the ground who take samples, which means that that aspect is also being diluted. There are a lot of competing pressures, and a small local authority lab is going to be in a David-and-Goliath situation if it tries to keep on top of huge multinational companies such as Nestlé and Cadbury.
Does anyone have any comment to make on the back of that?
A proportionate risk-based approach should be taken, and access to specialist testing is absolutely crucial to prevent any negative impact when an outbreak happens that requires the rapid response that people expect.
From a microbiological point of view, I point out that, for a long time now, we have had reference labs in Scotland for organisms such as E coli 0157. Those labs, which sit outwith the Food Standards Agency, work well, but the proposed new agency needs to keep a very sharp eye on their funding, because they provide a national service. The slight bee in my bonnet that I have always had is that they should not only provide a reference and typing service in relation to organisms that have been isolated in hospital laboratories, but have a research function of their own. Indeed, it is quite wrong for a reference laboratory not to have such a function.
The point has been well made that the costs of providing services such as DNA sequencing have increased. The costs are coming down, but they are not yet at the level where they can be ignored and not be seen as substantial. I would expect the new agency to look at that issue as soon as it begins work and to ensure that an appropriate service is provided across Scotland—and that, if it does not think that such a service is being provided, it will say as much to the appropriate bodies.
10:45
My question is about research funding. Scottish research is well renowned for its excellence, and Scotland will continue to attract research funding and to participate in international research collaborations, regardless of what happens following the referendum on independence in September.
What opportunities will the new body have to lever in other sources of research funding, such as funds from the EU’s new horizon 2020 programme? One of the grand societal challenges that horizon 2020 seeks to address is around how we ensure sustainable food and feed security and safety.
Will food standards Scotland have a crucial role in identifying areas for future research around diet, nutrition and obesity, which we have already discussed, working with key partners in academia, on the industry side and among other research institutes? The key issue is around the other sources of EU funding that we could lever in.
I agree with you entirely: Scotland is one of the best places in the world to do research and it always punches above its weight. It exploits funding from the European Union very well, and I can see great opportunities for Scotland coming through the horizon 2020 funding. The lead for that research will come primarily from academics. I would not argue that the new body should co-ordinate research, but it should have a definite role in trying to influence what research is done. That is where we would need to have a forum in which food standards Scotland could have an influence on the sort of research that should be taken up. That would influence the academics with regard to the funding that they may seek, within Europe or elsewhere.
If there is support for research from industry or Government, that makes research applications even more compelling. That is how it will work. If food standards Scotland can present its ideas and take them through some forum in which they can influence the direction of research—in Scotland or beyond—that will be very good. It will certainly be helpful in focusing academics on what they view as the key priorities.
Professor Pennington has mentioned the functions of the FSS board a number of times. We have heard comments from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in particular, about the size of the board and the suggestion that the minimum number of three members is not enough. What are the witnesses’ views about the size of the board, and who should be on it?
I chaired the RSE committee that came up with the recommendations. We felt strongly that the minimum size was a bit on the small side for the board, although we did not want it to be too large.
The board will not necessarily be representative, but it will have a fundamental representative nature, with people coming from completely different areas of expertise and background knowledge, representing consumer interests and so on. We thought that three was a bit on the small side for getting those interests represented on the board, considering what the board members could contribute to the way in which the organisation runs. Our concern was to have that breadth.
There is an incredible array of problems to address. Some of them are much more simple to resolve. We have done quite well with regard to some of the microbiological problems, including Salmonella enteritidis; we have a vaccination programme for chickens, which works quite well. However, with some of the other bugs that I am interested in we are no better off than we were 10 years ago in relation to the levels of human infection. Some of the infections concerned are very serious. There are some incredible problems around nutrition, too, involving poor or inadequate diets, as well as the superabundance of food.
There are some connections between those problems, but many of the links are not straightforward when it comes to finding answers. That is why we feel that, philosophically, it would be much wiser to have a larger board than a smaller one.
What about membership of the board?
The individuals will represent those particular areas of expertise and their personal qualities will be important. They will have to have shown already that they are able to fight their corner, to put it crudely, with regard to influencing nutritional policy.
One important issue that arose when I was on the Scottish Food Advisory Committee was how we could persuade the public to act on something that everyone—even the public—knows is good but which no one is doing anything about. That is a common interest. One example is obesity, as everyone knows that being overweight is not good for your health, and another is the need for people to wash their hands. How can we persuade people not to eat too much and to wash their hands? That can be difficult, so we need members on the board with the wisdom to communicate such things to the public in an effective way that delivers. Otherwise, the body will just be a talking shop.
Should there be any industry representation on the board?
I do not think that industry is all bad, but there would be an issue with the body’s credibility if it was seen to be getting close to industry, even if it was doing so for the best reasons. One must remember that many parts of industry do not want to have food problems associated with their products. I have had heads of big supermarkets speaking to me just before a board meeting that is held in public about the problem that they have had with an outbreak. They are desperate, because they do not want their brand to be destroyed or damaged by that sort of thing. They have a vested interest in protecting their business rather than necessarily in protecting public health.
I do not think that having board members who are clearly associated with industry would be a particularly good idea. That is not to say that we might not have senior officers on the board who have substantial industry experience, but we should not have people with current experience.
Hugh Pennington has just said that brands are desperate to try to hide what they may have uncovered themselves in order to protect their brand. Does that not run counter to the idea of the industry looking after its own testing?
I am slightly more catholic in my views. I certainly agree with Hugh Pennington on the size of the board. The membership must be greater than three, because we need appropriate representation in the new body of the key elements of what goes on, but the board must not be so large that it cannot take decisions.
With regard to representation, I feel strongly that the food industry, although it is lambasted for a lot of health problems, is the vehicle for improving public health. It is important that we engage with the industry to achieve that aim. I do not think that a single member from the industry would be able to subvert the whole board. In my view, we should engage with industry and have a member on the board, because that will be a positive statement to the industry that it can have an influence but not the sole say.
I agree with what has been said, as it certainly makes sense. I agree that three would be too small a number, but we do not want the board to be too big because it would—from my experience of sitting on boards—become unmanageable.
Returning to our earlier discussion about the opportunities that relate to broader public health, the agency needs to move beyond health protection issues to address the nutrition and obesity agenda for Scotland, and link in with health inequalities. There is potential for the body to make a big difference through some of the work that it might focus on.
That leads us to suggest that there should be someone on the board with a strong public health background who can bring that experience to the agenda by identifying not just the obvious opportunities, but some of the less obvious ones to improve Scotland’s health and reduce inequalities.
The Glasgow effect is something that we do not talk about very much, because it does not fill us with any great pride. I would like to see someone on the board who has experience of that kind of complicated issue—someone with that particular expertise. That should be a public health person who sees across the piece and sees how difficult the issues are, and how they clearly relate to other health issues.
We heard that the new body should have a very strong relationship with health because many of the issues, such as alcohol policy, overlap with health. I think that the RSE said that we should look at whether the new body should have input into that; it is bound to have an input in terms of fraud, because of the fraudulent sale of things such as vodka.
I agree that the public interest is crucial, as is a focus on the particularly Scottish problem, which I call the Glasgow effect. That is unfair to Glasgow, but I lived in Glasgow for 10 years and I know what the problem is. It is still there, and it is still writ large.
Willie Hamilton and Professor Pennington covered in part the issue of food fraud. What sanctions should there be for food fraud? Would you like to see more sanctions for food law offences, Mr Hamilton?
Yes—again, I paint myself as a rather draconian enforcer here. Over a number of years, I have been pressing for a slightly more user-friendly regime of fixed penalties, which is a quick and easy method of approaching enforcement.
You mentioned food fraud. The only recourse that we have, even to relatively low-grade food fraud—a lot of it is very low grade—is prosecution. We have big problems with prosecution because the court system just does not support it. We suffer probably more than most, because we do not have the critical mass that would enable the court system to work in our favour.
Prosecution is not a great option, so administrative fines or fixed-penalty notices—call them what you will—would be a boon to us. I am familiar with the arguments against such measures—that they could be seen as fundraising—but I believe that the bill would deal with that. Any funds that were raised would go to a central pot, so it would not be seen as a money-making exercise for councils. That is the way to go. The system should not be draconian; it should be preventative.
The majority of food fraud that we encounter in Glasgow concerns the substitution of meat and fish. It is done on a relatively low scale, primarily to save money. It is food fraud—of course it is—but is not in the same league as the horsemeat issue that we saw last year. It does not justify pursuing cases through the court and criminalising individuals, small butchers—very often in the ethnic community—and restaurants that substitute beef for lamb or whiting for haddock.
There is a need for a more streamlined, non-criminal sanctions regime, which would benefit us all, including the industry to a great extent. The industry calls for a level playing field, and we could deliver that better with a slightly more flexible system.
I have experience of a butcher who killed some people with his bad meat. He was also selling what he said was Welsh lamb but was actually New Zealand mutton, but he was not prosecuted; that was an incidental thing. I agree that we need a better way of sorting out the fraud problem, which is probably quite common.
Such fraud is not like the horsemeat problem, in the sense that it would immediately come up if we started testing on the basis of intelligence; it is a small thing, but perhaps quite common. Of course, one must remember the Shetland fish issue, which was on a grand scale, but that clearly needed forensic accountants rather than anybody else to bring the prosecution.
11:00
In your experience, Mr Hamilton, what is the average fine when something is found to be wrong in someone’s premises?
I am probably not the best person to ask, because my authority’s policy is largely to avoid prosecution, for the simple reason that it has become incredibly ineffective. For example, we have one case for food hygiene offences that has been pending for well over two years. We have not heard a thing about it for several months, and it might not even come to court now—it has rather disappeared into a hole in the ground. We do not see that as an effective method of enforcing food law and protecting public health. I understand that the public might require or request prosecution to happen, but it is not really in our best interests, and I do not think that it is in the public’s best interests, for that to be the main thrust of our actions. I am sorry, but I do not know what the average fine would be these days.
Would you welcome any changes that would prevent the frustrations that you sometimes feel?
Very much so. There are certainly measures in the bill that will deliver that.
I have a brief question that relates to my colleague Richard Lyle’s line of questioning. Mr Hamilton has given useful evidence in relation to the need for fixed-penalty notices in the bill. He has given a fairly strong reason why they should go to a central pot rather than back to the local authority, which is so that there are no conflicts.
My question is for Mr Hamilton, as he is involved in enforcement. I must admit that I know very little about the use of fixed-penalty notices, but if a family-run fish and chip shop, which is the business’s only outlet, is found to be substituting whiting for haddock and is given a fixed-penalty notice, the burden of that notice would be far greater than the burden for a business with a chain of 20 outlets across west central Scotland, which might have been caught doing that in only one of its outlets. Can fixed-penalty notices take account of the scale of the business network, or would there be a disproportionate effect on smaller retailers, producers and outlets? I wonder whether that has been done before. It is always dangerous to ask a question when you do not have a clue what the answer will be. I would want to ensure that the measure would have a proportionate effect on the industry.
There are existing schemes under legislation such as the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which enables local authorities to serve notices. To be truthful, little consideration is given to the capability of businesses to cope with the costs. If a fixed-penalty regime or anything of that sort were to be introduced in food law, it would certainly have to be robust. Local authorities would have to be called to account and would have to demonstrate transparency, accountability and proportionality. There would also need to be a clear code of practice to cover the means by which notices would be served. Perhaps there would be a sliding scale for the level of fines. I certainly take on board the point that there is potential for such a system to be disproportionately punitive.
I am not saying that there should not be fixed penalties—I am just trying to work out what the impact would be for various businesses. Your answer has been helpful.
A review is happening in Europe just now of, to use the jargon, regulation 882/2004, on official controls and funding of them. At one stage, the review talks about taking action only with businesses that are over €1 million in size. It also talks about the number of employees in the business. If, say, the limit is 20 employees, what if there are two people in the kitchen who do not comply? Alternatively, if it is a hotel, would all the cleaners be included? I presume that the lawyers have looked at the bill to ensure that it will not cut across what is coming out of Europe. Additional penalties and offences might come out of Europe through the review of regulation 882/2004.
That is a new one on me, so thank you for giving me that information.
The committee has been out and about hearing evidence, and we had an evidence session last week and are having one this week. There are lots of opportunities in the bill, but I am still a bit uncertain about what the outcomes will be, particularly when I hear the evidence that we just heard that lots of powers and regulations will still come out of Europe—that is not going to change.
Powers of inspection lie with local authorities, but we do not know whether that will change. I heard yesterday from a local meeting that local authorities and health and social care partnerships are worrying about whether the health service or the local authorities will carry the health message. We heard evidence last week that the labelling regime, over which we already have powers that have not been used, could be slightly different.
As I asked last week, what is the point? What will the bill’s outcomes be? Will the bill help us to tackle obesity, for example? Will it give us a new focus on E coli and other Scottish health problems? I want someone to tell me that the bill will make things better.
Can I give you a simple answer? The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. It will depend entirely on how well the new body works. In essence, it will be very similar to what we have already. The body will have a few more powers here and there and will be able to take a few more powers here and there, too. However, at the end of the day, it will be down to how well the body works. The composition of the board will be very important. We need to get the right people on the board to get the message across and sound a drum whenever necessary.
There are other big issues that are not and could not be addressed in the bill, such as local authority funding. Enforcement is done by local authorities, and the new body will have a role in ensuring that they are doing their work properly. However, it will be dependent to an enormous extent on how other people are comporting themselves. That issue is of critical importance. The same applies to the public analysts. We need to have a system across the country that is fit for purpose, and the new body will have a big role in keeping that going. That is why it is important that the body has very good, robust relationships with the Scottish Government so that if it sees a problem, it can appraise the Government of it, even if it is a problem that the body itself cannot do anything about. For example, it can raise the issue of ensuring that we have the right enforcement structure and that local authorities are appropriately funded and have the appropriate numbers of staff.
I gave evidence to a Welsh Assembly committee on the back of the public inquiry that I did on the South Wales E coli outbreak. I raised the question of local authorities and enforcement because there were problems with that. There were problems in other areas throughout the system, including the meat hygiene service and the procurement of food by the education authorities.
There are major opportunities for the board of the new body, but there are also major hazards. If the body does not have the right board calling the shots in the right way, the right level of funding and the right level of support from Government, we will not be as good as we are at the moment. I will leave it on that slightly negative yet positive note, in the sense that there is a way forward.
I think that we all agree that to have the opportunity we need a new body.
We have reached the end of this evidence session. We have the witnesses’ written evidence, but if you feel that there are other areas that we could have touched on this morning, you have the opportunity now to leave us with a last thought. If you are on your way home and something comes to mind that you feel that the committee needs to take into consideration, please email us. Robbie Beattie has a last word.
It is a follow-up to what Hugh Pennington just said. You are asking the new food body to do more with less. It can be seen from the budget that you are depending on FSA UK putting some money back up to Aberdeen. There are a lot of imponderables there and you are asking the new body to do more. The challenge is how to do more with less. Is that possible, or does the new body need to be funded adequately to do the job?
We will examine that in future evidence sessions. Thank you for your attendance and the time that you have given us this morning, which is very much appreciated.
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