Welcome back to the meeting. Item 3 is consideration of the Food (Scotland) Bill. We will be taking evidence on the bill in a round table this morning. My brief says that we should not do introductions in the interests of time, but I think that we will do introductions. We will go around the table and people should say briefly who they are and which organisation they are from.
I am the deputy convener of the committee, and an MSP for Glasgow.
I am director of the Soil Association in Scotland, which is part of the UK membership charity that campaigns for sustainable food farming and land use.
I am an MSP for Central Scotland.
I am the director of Food Standards Agency Scotland.
I am an MSP for North East Scotland.
I am the head of bargaining and campaigns for Unison Scotland.
I am the MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie.
I am public affairs manager with the Scottish Grocers Federation. We are the national trade association for the convenience store sector in Scotland.
I am the MSP for Edinburgh Western.
I am an MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife.
I am the director of the Scottish Food and Drink Federation. We represent food manufacturers large and small in Scotland and the rest of the UK.
I am an MSP for the Highlands and Islands.
I am group quality director at Tesco.
I am an MSP for the South of Scotland.
Thank you everyone. You are all most welcome here this morning. When we go to questions and answers, I will give priority to guests over MSPs. This is your opportunity to have your say and put your thoughts on the record. I will give the first question to Gil Paterson.
I have a very general question about the onset of food standards Scotland. What are the upsides and downsides of that body coming into being?
That is a fairly general question. Perhaps Mr Milne will go first.
One of the upsides is that the new food body will be able to be much more cognisant of the Scottish landscape. That does not come without risks that need to be managed, however. What has caused concern for people across the UK is the management of incidents that, by their very nature and the nature of the food business, need to be managed on a UK basis.
It has been clear right from the start that the chair and chief executive of the FSA and the Scottish ministers have recognised that and have given a commitment to work closely together. Service level agreements and memorandums of understanding will be drawn up to ensure that that happens. There are parallels in animal health, as animal diseases are managed on exactly that basis. We have no reason to believe that that commitment will not work.
It is also recognised that there is a risk—albeit a manageable one—to access to expertise in scientific committees and within the organisation. Again, that cuts both ways. We have expertise in Scotland in areas such as shellfish that is of use to the rest of the UK FSA. There are also areas of expertise that are held in London, Cardiff and Belfast to which we need access. That can be managed through the appropriate use of MOUs.
We support the creation of the body. We understand that there is a risk but, frankly, the arguments against having a stand-alone body in Scotland could apply to a whole range of devolved areas, particularly regulatory functions that are already devolved. It is particularly important that these functions be devolved because of the tie-in with the other matters that are already devolved to Scotland.
We also support the new body because we do not feel that the UK FSA always has the balance right between consumer protection, brand protection and the safety of the consumer. That has sometimes drifted too much in the way of meat producers and there has been less emphasis on safety for consumers. We hope that having a Scotland body will mean that we have a proper focus and we get the balance right.
Our main concerns are about ensuring consistency of advice, guidance and enforcement action, particularly around food incidents. We also have a concern about how the European dimension will be managed. Will FSA UK continue to be the lead body at the European level and how will it negotiate on behalf of Scottish businesses, particularly in light of the potential referendum result? The European dimension is an overarching issue that could do with further exploration.
We also support the creation of this new food body for Scotland. There are some potential benefits in how policy is looked at from the food perspective in Scotland, because it can be quite confusing. The new food body will give a chance to air where that policy is being set, and to make sure that we are properly linked up. It is not just about food and health; it is also about food and sustainability. The health of individuals and the health of our planet are linked and the new body is a good chance for us to look at what we can do better and at how other systems around the world work. For example, in Sweden it is normal to talk about healthy and sustainable food and to give advice on both those things at the same time.
We have shared successive Scottish Governments’ vision of ensuring that customers have food that they can trust. Scotland Food and Drink has been a tremendous boost to the industry and to consumers, including our customers, and nothing matters more to us than them. If we are thinking about how we ensure that we sell the best-quality products that are safe, taste good and are great value, what is proposed goes pretty much in that direction at the strategic and policy level.
The things that I would tick off as being achieved through the design are those that the architects of the FSA in London also contemplated, such as transparency and the fact that science and evidence will play a huge part in what the organisation does. It appears, on the face of it, to be proportionate and risk based. There are question marks over whether that will apply to some of the enforcement regimes, but that is the second-order problem. Another thing is independence, which will allow the body to stand away from the Government and so be trusted more by consumers and therefore our customers. That is all good news.
There are currently 11 or 12 advisory committees, and it will be important—I think that this is contained in the bill—that access to them is as good as it currently is for policy makers north and south of the border, both in relation to the work of those committees and in relation to the more acute problems of incident handling that others have mentioned. It would be good to know that, if there is an incident—let us hope that there is not one—consumers will be able to trust whichever body it is that gives them advice because the bodies will use the same evidence and take the same proportionate, risk-based approach.
11:15
We have had a positive relationship with FSA Scotland across all its activities and we are keen to see that continue. In considering the scope and remit of the new body, it is important to take into account the nature of the food and drink manufacturing industry. Not all companies that sell food products in Scotland are based in Scotland, and food manufacturing companies that are based in Scotland export the majority of their products elsewhere, not least to the rest of the UK. Sales to the rest of the UK are a vital part of the Scottish Government’s food and drink policy, and it is important to be aware of the breadth and size of the companies that operate in Scotland, and particularly the small and medium-sized enterprise nature of the companies that tend to exist in Scotland.
With all that in mind, we would like a number of issues to be considered. The first and possibly the most important is the consistency of the approach to enforcement. There should be a proportionate approach that is consistent across the UK wherever possible, and the new food body should try to ensure, as Charles Milne set out, that appropriate mechanisms are in place for it to continue to liaise with other bodies and committees across the UK.
Someone else raised the issue of the voice for the industry in Europe. There are questions about how that will be achieved once the new food body has been established.
Tim Smith alluded to access to scientific advice, which is another issue. It is important that the new food body has robust, peer-reviewed evidence on which to base its decisions. FSA Scotland currently draws heavily on other committees and groups as part of the FSA in the UK, and it is important to ensure that those mechanisms still exist. With a broad remit, a new food body could represent many diverse stakeholder groups, so it is important to ensure that potential conflicts of interest are managed.
Last but certainly not least, the new body must be adequately resourced to ensure that it continues to fulfil the functions that it is established to fulfil.
Gil Paterson’s opening question seemed to tease out all the issues in the bill in one fell swoop. We heard that there are a lot of risks but there are opportunities as well. Do you want to come back in, Gil?
Yes. I have a question on the opportunities. Scotland has an enormously high reputation for safe and good-quality food. Will the proposals hinder that or add to the brand? Are they neutral or will they add to or subtract from the image of good-quality products from Scotland?
I see that Mr Milne wants to respond, but I ask Mr Smith to respond first, because during his answer I scribbled down something about opportunities from the quality of Scottish food, which links in closely with Gil Paterson’s question.
We have 170 producers in Scotland who produce 1,600 products for us, and we sell £2.1 billion-worth of Scottish produce across our UK markets. Nothing in the way in which the bill is shaped or in the way in which I imagine the body will work will do anything to slow that progress down—I cannot imagine why that would happen.
Colette Blackwell can speak for manufacturers better than I can, but what they will want is a clear line of sight to any new policies and plenty of time to think about any changes. Ultimately, however, I think that our producers—I hesitate to speak for them, but I will do so—will want a level playing field, clarity of purpose and an evidence base to back up what happens.
Since I wrote my submission, we have added another 10 producers to our list of Scottish producers, and I can only imagine that our business will grow with Scottish food and drink producers; I cannot imagine why it would not do so.
One thing that has not been mentioned yet is that the new food body will be charged with putting consumers first in everything that it does. That is very important, but to deliver for consumers we have to work closely with the industry. We can have all the policies that we like but, at the end of the day, it is the industry that produces the food. Consumer interests and industry interests align. Industry wants to produce safe food, which is what it says it is on the label. That is important for developing consumer confidence, thereby allowing industry to grow and underpinning Scotland as a land of food and drink.
I will give you two examples of where that has not worked in the past. In 2009, there was an incident where the export of white fish from the UK to Russia was banned as a consequence of a visit by their inspectors. More recently, exports of cheese from the UK have been banned by China, again as a consequence of visits by their inspectors.
It seems to me from talking to industry representatives that they want a proportionate, fair enforcement system. They want the reputation of Scotland to be underpinned by good and effective regulation. I believe that the new food body gives us the opportunity to deliver that.
Charles Milne made my case for me very well, and I will not reiterate that. The key is effective and proportionate regulation. Tim Smith’s point about engaging often and early with industry stakeholders is well made.
Having proper regulation adds to the brand. It is sometimes argued that the brand is all, but the brand is only good for as long as there is no scandal. If something goes wrong, as Charles Milne said, the damage takes years to get over. Our view is that the brand is best protected by having rigorous regulation.
Our concern in recent years has been about light-touch regulation. Your committee had a proposal put before it that there should be only a visual inspection of pigs, which means that tumours and abscesses are minced in without inspectors being able to cut the meat open and inspect it properly. In our view, that is a move to light-touch regulation. We know from the banking and other scandals that light-touch regulation is not the right way forward.
We are in danger of going off on a tangent about how we deal with pigs—I never thought I would say that at the Health and Sport Committee—but I suspect that Mr Milne wishes to come in on that point.
Yes, I do. It is worth mentioning that the current post mortem system that we have at abattoirs is based on one that is more than 100 years old. Science has moved on since then. I totally agree that we need appropriate regulation. Staff in abattoirs do a fantastic job under difficult and trying circumstances, but it is a matter of delivering what is right for consumers.
A lot of the conditions that we currently examine are quality issues, not public safety issues. The purpose of the change in the regulation is to move away from quality inspection to safety inspection. What are the modern challenges? Salmonella, campylobacter and E coli are invisible organisms on carcases, so we will not pick them up by cutting into lymph nodes. We need to change the system to suit the challenge of the times.
I will talk about the work that we have been doing in Scotland in the past six months. In September, carcase contamination levels were about 4 per cent across Scotland. We introduced an initiative that, by March, had delivered a reduction of 50 per cent down to 2 per cent. That will make a difference to public safety, and it is being delivered by our inspectors on the ground. That has to be driven by science.
There is a difference of view on this matter. Our inspectors are clear. They say that there are many examples of inspection being carried out without inspectors being able to cut in. I agree that this is not hugely a health issue; it is a quality issue. However, we are talking about the brand, and quality has to be important, too. There are things that are now going into the meat process that the consumer, if they saw them, would not want to see in their sausages. That is the reality.
I will bring in Mr Smith. I might then move to another question—unless Mr Paterson wishes to come in with a supplementary.
I wish to broaden out the issue a little bit. I suggest that the trust that customers have in our brand, and therefore in the brand of Scottish food and drink, is only enhanced by having competent audit checks, safety analysis and so on, all the way through the supply chain. Many members of Dave Watson’s organisation are doing that work. My encouragement to them and to others is to continue to press to have their role.
The customers, who matter so much to us, have trust in a government body acting as a regulator almost as much as they do in the individual retailers and manufacturers, some of whom are represented around the table, who also do a good job. It is a complementary system.
Charles Milne is right about the science and the proportionality, but what matters to customers is the ability to trust the food that they are eating, and their knowledge that what is on the label is what is in the pack.
That was quite a nice comment on which to end that section of our discussion. The emphasis is not just on safety, but on quality, because that is where the branding opportunities come in.
The next question is from Richard Lyle MSP.
I should say that, after leaving school, I went into the grocery trade and was a grocery manager for 10 years.
The bill introduces new administrative sanctions for food law offences. In response to a question that I asked last week, William Hamilton, environmental health officer with Glasgow City Council, stated:
“Prosecution is not a great option, so administrative fines or fixed-penalty notices—call them what you will—would be a boon to us.”—[Official Report, Health and Sport Committee, 3 June 2014; c 5580.]
However, I note that some of our witnesses today, particularly those from the Scottish Food and Drink Federation and the Scottish Grocers Federation, are not in favour of new sanctions. Do the rest of our witnesses agree with our previous witnesses that the new sanctions in the bill for food law offences are a positive addition to existing sanctions, and, if not, why not?
I suspect that we will get some definite replies to that question.
Of course, when I say something like that, no one puts up their hand. Who wants to go first?
You will not be surprised to learn that we are in favour of the new sanctions or that, as the union that represents environmental health officers, Unison can say that our members welcome the new powers. You have only to look at how few prosecutions there are in Scotland to realise that there is an issue here. The issue itself is not largely about regulations—we have lots of those—but about enforcing them. At the local authority end of the business, there has been a 17 per cent cut in the staff working in environmental health departments and a 13 per cent cut in professionally qualified EHOs. The reality is that we are not inspecting food premises at the rate at which we used to inspect them.
An MSP once asked me whether we should introduce the European system and ensure that every restaurant posts its inspection report on its door. I replied that we could but it would be fairly pointless, given that for most restaurants the reports would be two years out of date. At the end of the day, you can have all the regulation you like, but if we do not have the resources to allow inspectors to do their jobs, it will not be very effective.
Of course, the bill contains a proposal for requiring inspection reports to be displayed in every outlet.
The bill proposes a number of legal measures, the first of which is the food hygiene information scheme that has just been referred to. The local authority’s inspections are converted into what you might call a score on the door that says whether the premises have passed or whether improvement is required. At the moment, businesses can display the certificate if they choose. I am pleased to say that 31 local authorities in Scotland currently administer the scheme and that, by the end of the month, all 32, including South Lanarkshire, will be in it.
The argument is that by having better regulation and making it mandatory to display certificates you are allowing consumers to make a choice and putting pressure on businesses that require improvement to up their standards. Wales is introducing legislation that makes the display of such notices mandatory, as is Northern Ireland, and we will have the opportunity to look at the issue in future. As the power in the bill is an enabling one, we would need to have further consultation if we chose to go down that route. In summary, though, I support the measure.
The second legal measure in the bill relates to food authenticity, which is an issue that came to light with the horsemeat incident. It became apparent that a number of our food safety measures are not replicated for food identity, and the idea behind the proposal is to bring those things into line and give us powers to seize and, if necessary, destroy food that is not what it says on the tin.
As for the notices themselves, it has been pointed out, quite rightly, that many local authorities do not seek prosecutions. It is another tool in our armoury but in my view we need the appropriate tools for the right circumstances to ensure that we can take effective action against the businesses that are not playing the game or abiding by the rules. That would reduce the burden on the very large number of businesses that trade responsibly.
Finally, I support the provisions in the bill on feed legislation.
11:30
The purpose of the food hygiene information scheme is to provide accessible information for consumers, so that they can make informed decisions. Some thought has to go into the best way of doing that, and we believe that consumers relate to the approach that is taken in the current scheme.
On food authenticity, since the original incident that sparked the discussions on the matter, there have been a number of reviews, including the Scudamore review in Scotland and the Elliott review in the United Kingdom. All those reviews have acknowledged that the food industry works hard to deliver safe and competitively priced products, but we need to recognise that, regardless of complexity or risk, every supply chain is at risk and we must work collaboratively to address some of the issues.
We have recommended a whole-supply-chain focus on prevention of fraud, as part of which we have produced a five-step guide to protecting businesses from food fraud to inform companies of the questions they should be asking and the steps they should be taking to ensure that they are not victims of fraud. It is important to remember that companies want to do that.
We have a number of incident prevention and technical committees that assess what is happening elsewhere, and we also support the concept that came out of the Elliott review of a Government intelligence-sharing hub. Such a hub would be facilitated by Government, which is the most effective repository of information on all the issues that can lead to food fraud and similar incidents, and it would work with trade associations, which could feed into and off such a hub to ensure that we have the best access to horizon-scanning data to identify where such fraud might come from in future.
I have the privilege of knowing that successive Governments in Scotland have led their local authorities in this work in an exemplary manner and that the 32 Scottish local authorities do a very good job, particularly on the ground through the hard work of the various enforcement officers.
We want proportionate and evidence-based enforcement, which I suspect all of us would say is pretty much what we have at the moment. As you would expect me to say, nothing matters more to us than being able to say that what is on the label is what is actually in the pack. Internally, our organisation and our manufacturers will also point to very robust testing regimes, the outcomes of which let us know not only how stringent that work is but its importance to our customers.
My sense is that the food hygiene information system, at least as it is already being applied in Wales, helps customers to make choices in areas where previously they might not have thought too carefully about hygiene standards—in other words, in catering establishments rather than in retail outlets.
As for authenticity, I think that Colette Blackwell has covered the ground very nicely. Only when you understand the whole supply chain and have made it shorter and more transparent can you get a clear sense of where the risks might lie, and it is the outcomes for our customers that we will be contemplating when, as we hope, we work with the Scottish Government, the proposed new food body here and others on formulating how all this will work in practice. We are certainly keen to help where we can.
On food authenticity, testing regimes are a very important tool in the toolbox but they are not the whole answer. We need to strengthen our supply chain assurance schemes, which might, of course, be independent of the new body, and the new body must acknowledge and support not only organic schemes but the many other schemes to help with that aspect.
Mr Lyle is quite right to say that we are not particularly in favour of civil penalties. I should say that, in taking that position, we very much have smaller independent retailers in mind.
It might be a bit idealistic of us, but we hope that the establishment of the proposed new food standards agency will provide an opportunity to develop a spirit of partnership between retailers and enforcement authorities.
In our submission, we mentioned the development of primary authority partnerships. I might say a bit more about those later, as I think that it would be helpful for the committee to be aware of them. Perhaps there could be some read-across between different committees and the different Scottish Government departments that are taking primary authority partnerships forward. The partnerships have the potential to offer retailers and businesses that operate in more than one local authority area the opportunity to develop new and constructive partnerships that are based on guidance, information and advice rather than on, potentially, the imposition of new civil penalties.
That throws up a couple of issues that I want to discuss. However, Richard Lyle asked the question. Do you want to follow it up, Richard?
I welcome Mr Lee’s comments. Having been a grocer, I know that there are many excellent grocers in Scotland—by the way, I am not looking for a job at Tesco. I was also previously a councillor. When, as a grocer, I worked with EHOs, I found that they wanted to work with us and came in to give us advice. They could be hard if they so wished, but most of the time they worked with us, and I hope that the Scottish Grocers Federation will embrace the new law.
Before we move on to another question, I have a supplementary question on the same theme. The bill contains a duty to report breaches elsewhere. I am keen to get a flavour of whether, in your view, breaches are reported now, without there being a statutory duty to report. I take on board what Colette Backwell said about how companies, producers and retailers can spot food fraud and how they can be the victims of it as well. However, does the duty in the bill to report any breach that is discovered fit in nicely with Richard Lyle’s comments?
Richard Lyle also asked about the proportionality of the fines, which came up during last week’s evidence session. If a breach was discovered not within the supply chain but in a local Tesco store—I mention Tesco only because Mr Smith is sitting at the table—any fine that Tesco received would be, proportionately, minuscule compared with the fine that a small grocer would receive for something similar. We must ensure that the fine system is proportionate and that, as Mr Lyle said, the local authority enforcement agency works in partnership with local businesses instead of being there just to fine them.
Richard Lyle asked specifically about the proportionality of fines and the duty to report, but I do not feel that those issues were teased out in the answers.
I do not quite have the answer to the question. For our members, the issue is very much one of consistency across local authorities. For example, a lot of our members—very encouragingly—are now developing relationships with genuinely local suppliers, whether they are butchers, bakers or whatever. Some of our members have an arrangement with a local baker, and the local authority allows them to have an open display of bakery products—bread, rolls and whatever. That is very popular with customers and goes down incredibly well. However, some of our members in other local authority areas tell us that they are being told that that is an infringement of health and safety rules and that all bread products must be packaged. For our members who operate across Scotland, that causes a lot of hassle and anxiety.
There must be consistency. Whatever we have, it would be hugely helpful if there was consistency across Scotland in relation to the civil penalties that are being introduced and enforcement activity. We have a big issue with different approaches being taken to food health and safety in different local authority areas, and we hope that the bill will address that.
I am keen to help with this one if I can. We enthusiastically support the Scottish Government’s approach of primary authority partnerships because that seems to work more effectively. That is on the enforcement side. The vast majority of activity by food officers and enforcement people who go on to manufacturers’ and retailers’ sites is advisory. They are doing a great job in helping people to do the right thing, which helps our customers and everybody else’s.
The requirement to notify almost slipped past me, because it is just so obvious that such a thing should be a requirement. It usually happens on a Friday afternoon, as Charles Milne will tell you, but it means that there is a clear sense of direction in the handling of any potential concern, whether it concerns fraud or food safety. In my experience, our suppliers do what our customers want them to do and act in a timely and proportionate manner. Anything that changed that would be concerning, but I do not see anything in the spirit of the bill that could be a risk, if we follow the track of having a clear primary authority-type approach.
That is helpful. We are scrutinising a specific bill, so we keep trying to bring the discussion back to the detailed scrutiny of the bill.
The problem with the duty to report on food standards relates primarily to the broad range of issues that can be covered by that duty. At one end of the scale, there are extreme cases in which someone may have adulterated food with something that they should not have used, and at the other end there are cases of mislabelling caused by a printing error or some other issue arising on the production line. The question in the latter cases is how such issues would be managed by those who are enforcing the regulations. Will there be a light-touch approach to genuine mistakes that have arisen through no fault of the individual responsible? What approach will be taken in cases of reckless mislabelling and repeated failures to comply?
An issue that we want examined in more detail is the extent to which there will be guidelines and guidance for local authorities and environmental health officers—or whoever is to implement and enforce the regulations—as to what stance they should take.
Last week, in partnership with the FSA, we ran a workshop for SMEs in Scotland on the new regulations on food information for consumers at which two things struck me. First, small companies often do not really understand what is coming over the hill at them, so they need a lot of support, however things turn out, to understand what is happening, how to implement new legislation and what the penalties will be. Secondly, those who were ahead of the game and had started to explore some of the issues arising from those regulations were saying, for example, that they had received three pieces of conflicting advice from the same local authority. Consistency of approach is key; we must not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
We support the duty to report. Inspectors and regulators need all the help that they can get, so it is important that everyone in the chain has that responsibility.
We are not opposed to primary authorities. When we gave evidence on the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, we pointed out some of the challenges that primary authorities present, particularly to smaller local authorities and particularly in areas such as environmental health and trading standards, as some local authority departments can be very small indeed and have small numbers of professionally qualified staff. The right authority must be identified, and it must be properly resourced.
Our view is that consistency is probably best achieved not by top-down regulation by Government, but by local authorities coming together with the industry and producing national frameworks. That is the way forward. Our members are keen on a partnership approach. Last year, we did a survey of environmental health officers, and one of the things that they were particularly concerned about was that, because of the pressure on their time and the reduction in resources, they were having to give up educational and preventative work, inevitably focusing more on the policing function. The worry is that, if they do not have time to do educational and preventative work, they will focus simply on being policemen.
You will not be surprised to hear that we strongly support the reporting duty. I hear what Colette Backwell says about proportionality, and I reassure her that the incidents that we are aware of are dealt with on a risk-assessed basis. I envisage that any duty to report will be treated in exactly the same way. We would not take the same action over a serious health concern as we would over a labelling issue. That is how I envisage it working.
However, the duty is important for a number of reasons. The first is obvious: companies or individuals might not report an incident to begin with, which could result in potentially significant public health issues.
11:45Secondly, we regularly receive reports in which we are told that a company in Fife or in Highland is doing something but the individual will not tell us which company is involved or provide any details that allow us to take action. The duty would enable us to get the information.
The duty would also address a third issue. We have recently had examples of companies that reported but delayed doing so until the economic impact was minimised. Delaying a report until the best-before or use-by date allows the product to go through the market to the consumer, whereas an earlier report would have prevented it from reaching the consumer.
I will ask about the financial resources that will be available under the bill. Is the resourcing adequate for the new authority? Many people are talking about it taking on some health prevention work. Will it be sufficiently resourced to do that as well as look after the standards of produce and the safety aspects that the Food Standards Agency already covers?
The objectives of the bill as set out in the policy memorandum are extremely challenging. They are not only to make
“sure food in Scotland is safe”
but to ensure that people’s
“diet and nutrition”
enables them to live
“longer, healthier lives”.
That, in itself, could require a huge amount of work and you are absolutely right to flag up the fact that, if considerable work is required, resources have to be provided to do it.
The financial provision as laid out in the financial memorandum is probably adequate for the functions that the FSA currently undertakes, but there is a discussion about the new food body’s future scope and the potential for it to take on further work. If further work and further responsibilities are allocated to it, suitable financial provision must be made.
I do not disagree with that, largely. Our concern on resources relates not only to the FSA but to local authorities, because the FSA has only one part of the role.
Our concern about the FSA is that, if resources are tight, people will inevitably start to think about cutting costs. Over a number of years, the UK FSA has had a track record of pressure to cut costs. One of the methods of doing that has been to deregulate by transferring the responsibility for meat inspection from the independent meat inspection by FSA staff to contractors or directly to the meat producers.
I welcome Tim Smith’s comments about Tesco’s concerns that regulation must be seen to be independent. If a meat inspector is employed by a meat producer, their approach to inspection will be different from that of a Government meat inspector who is employed by the FSA, who has a degree of independence. Inevitably, there is pressure on people who are employed by a company, not only from the company but from other staff working in the plant. An independent inspector does not have that pressure.
Our concern is that, if the new body is not properly resourced, we will carry on down the road of cost cutting and, in effect, deregulation, which will mean that we lose the independent nature of inspection, which is important for the Scottish brand.
I will make two points. The first builds on Charles Milne’s point about extending the scope of the agency. In May 2013, when the establishment of a new food authority was first mooted, there was a lot of discussion with stakeholders about a large number of fairly meaty—if you will pardon the pun—additional responsibilities that could be given to the new body. It is obvious from the bill that the decision has been taken for that not to happen, but it is not clear where the additional resources for such functions would come from should they be given to the new food body in future. We are keen to have some clarity on that.
The second point relates to hidden costs. FSA Scotland is currently part of FSA UK and benefits from the synergies that that brings—the committee structures, the research that is commissioned and access to other bodies. All that is available within a structure that comes at no cost.
Once the new food body is established, how will it access those sources of expert advice, research and evidence—all the things that are fundamental to delivering a strong and effective food standards agency? Will that access come at a cost? If so, have those costs been considered? It is not clear from the bill that those costs have been actively considered.
We have submitted our comments on funding issues that relate to the new food body to the Finance Committee. Unfortunately, that was done after the Health and Sport Committee’s call for evidence, but we would be happy to share those comments with you, if that would be useful.
That would be helpful.
What additional funding would be required? Has work been done to look at the parts of the new organisation that will need to be set up and which will not benefit from the UK organisation, such as human resources and finance functions? It would be useful to have an idea of those costs, because they will be incurred regardless of whether the new authority takes on new functions.
Corporate support is costed in the financial memorandum. The UK advisory committees are for the UK, so the new food body in Scotland will have access to them. An example of how that will work comes from what happened when responsibility for nutrition transferred from the FSA to the Department of Health. The FSA used to take advice from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition. After the responsibility transferred to the DOH, Scotland continued to have access to that committee’s expertise and was still able to ask appropriate questions of the committee. That model will apply going forward.
Scotland has its own research budget and it is part of the UK research programme. I see that continuing after the new food body comes into being. That has a parallel with what goes on with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in relation to animal health. There is an annual get-together to co-ordinate programmes—to ensure that they are complementary and that there are no gaps and to get as many synergies as possible. When Scotland manages its own research budget, it will also have more opportunities to leverage additional funding.
The main concern that I have flagged up is that if, as is set out in the papers, we bring in additional functions from local authorities or elsewhere in relation to nutrition or other matters, we will need to identify what those responsibilities will involve and what resources will be needed to administer and deliver them. We will need to cost that and ensure that those resources are provided.
I have three points to add to what colleagues have said. It is inevitable that the fixed costs for Scotland alone will be significant, to the point that they will need to be identified and have protected resources. The new body will need its own systems; some of them will be shared for a while and some will not be shared.
What would work best for us, our customers and our producers would be knowing with certainty that the most important priorities, which the FSA and FSA Scotland lay out clearly now, will be protected. That relates to a point that Dave Watson made. If the new body is about protecting consumers and ensuring that, when they buy food that derives from Scotland, they can trust it, enshrining protection in the bill would be helpful.
There will always be priorities that are not things that would just be nice to do, but nothing will be more important than food safety. It is important to protect the regimes that others might be more worried about than I am, because they concern other supply chains.
I have a final observation about access. Charles Milne made the sensible point that Government bodies can share access to committees. I encourage more boldness and suggest that the new body will want not just access but influence. Some issues will be more important in Scotland than they are in other parts of the United Kingdom. The new body will need to ensure that those priorities are met with the same enthusiasm as applies now.
That is helpful. I would like to ask a supplementary, but Rhoda Grant asked the initial question. Would she like to ask anything else?
No, thank you—I am happy with that.
I will refer again to Tesco, Mr Smith, simply because you are sitting here. A suggestion has been made in evidence that large retailers may test what they know to be safe, rather than what might be risky. I am not saying that that is the case, but there can be an affirming testing process. We see that there is a food chain in place, we think that the process is done very well and we decide to test it. That validates what we think we already know, rather than taking a risk-based approach to testing. I am not saying that that is the case, but such suggestions have been made.
There is also the idea of full disclosure, where there can be commercial issues. The more testing a large supermarket or manufacturer carries out, the more breaches will be found, by definition—that is the world we live in. Reputational damage could come through reporting on that, but that would be important information for informing food standards Scotland, or the FSA currently, in relation to partnership working. I would be grateful to know how comfortable you would feel if there was a duty to share the testing process, and to hear any information that you have regarding what the balance is.
I know that you are here to speak for Tesco but, in more general terms, is it your view that tests validate what people already think is safe? To what extent is there a risk-based approach to testing?
I am happy to clarify what others might have thought we do.
The people concerned did not mention Tesco; it is a general theme.
Considering things from a customer perspective, let us go back to the events last year concerning horsemeat. We were already very much taking—and we strengthened—a risk-based approach to our auditing regime, our testing, our sampling and our surveillance, according to a simple two-dimensional grid of likelihood and impact. If a product had the potential to cause harm to human health if it was badly handled—for example, a ready-to-eat sandwich—or if there was a high likelihood of that happening, because we had intelligence to suggest that, there would be more work going into that area.
To date, we have 5,300 DNA tests up on our website, which display what we have tested, why we have tested it and what we have found. We took that view, which relates to your point about transparency, because we thought that, if there were two things that would make consumers, our customers, feel more comfortable, the first would be knowing that we were doing that and were bringing that testing result to them, and the second would be for that sampling surveillance testing regime to act as a deterrent to those who might possibly be tempted to do the things that happened during the horsemeat situation.
We were already doing that. We were already taking a risk-based, proportionate approach. Our investment has gone up substantially since that time, as it has proved easier to identify the risks as we have shortened our supply chains and made them simpler.
The important aspect is that, even if we were not disclosing that information to our customers before, we are now. That pre-empts any need to do that with a regulator—but we did that anyway. That would be a normal part of our daily, weekly and monthly regimes. We are happy to share any of that information with the proper bodies.
That is really helpful. Mr Milne, is that your experience? Is the sector as a whole doing that? Is Tesco being a bit more progressive than some other retailers in that regard?
I would find it hard to believe that industry would deliberately look at samples that it knew would be clear. That is an awful lot of money to waste. Industry would certainly want to underpin its knowledge of and confidence in the food and the ingredients that it buys.
On the subject of overall surveillance, having access to industry sampling and an open and transparent sampling system is a tremendous benefit. That is just one layer, however. We need industry to sample, and we also have a co-ordinated sampling programme for local authorities across Scotland to underpin that, for verification.
The Food Standards Agency is developing advice for ministers on what a world-leading food surveillance system would look like. The lessons from that exercise will be pertinent to the new food body.
12:00
Before I come on to my question, I point out that I previously served on the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee and I would suggest that Scotland’s food and drink is the best in the world. Most companies and grocers—such as Tesco, Asda and Morrisons—check their food daily for the dates and so on.
I put in a plea to the EHOs, because I go into my little local shop and love to select my rolls in the morning. I hope that you do not create a situation whereby rolls have to be covered, because that would make it likely that apples, pears, bananas and everything else in grocery shops would have to be covered.
My serious question is that, given that FSS should have a structure that enables it to provide a service for all food and drink manufacturers, who should be on the board? Should the board be made up of people from the industry or people who take a great interest in the industry?
What should the FSS board look like and how do you feel about the bill’s provisions on that?
The critical issue is that anybody who observes the new body would be able to detect the single purity of its independence. That means that, although the voices around the table would need to be drawn from industry, from consumer bodies and from a whole range of academic and scientific backgrounds, when they sit round the table and debate a specific issue it would not matter where they came from, because they would add an independent clarity of purpose and hold the executive to account.
It is important to understand that it makes policy making a lot easier and implementation more straightforward when there is expertise round the table that adds value. If a huge amount of the work that goes on in the next few years is about changes in meat regulation in Europe and how that might be applied in the UK, it would be strange, would it not, if there were no bodies or individuals around the table who could bring to it expertise on the matter, as long as—given that there is transparency and openness—it is clear to anybody looking in that they are acting in an independent manner.
I support what Tim Smith said. The important issue, given that FSS will be a consumer-facing body, is that consumers have confidence in the agency and in its board. The independence point is well made and is very important. There needs to be breadth on the board to cover all the bases, if you like, and a knowledge of the industry that provides food to consumers must be captured in some way on the board and, indeed, within the organisation.
Those comments are all very sensible. The independence point is key. I add that food is such a cross-sectional issue that, to reflect the work of FSS, we will need people who understand health as well as the environment and the social implications of food and our food sector.
I reassure Richard Lyle that, given the cuts in environmental health, it is highly unlikely that anyone will visit his corner shop. I suspect that Tesco probably has more time focused on it, on a proportionate basis. He should certainly not worry about whether his rolls are covered. The more serious point is that there has been a big cut in the amount of food sampling that is done by environmental health officers, so that is another area in which there is a problem.
Of course, the board has to have a balance of expertise, but one point that we made in our submission was that the bill does not mention staff governance, which we have developed in other public bodies in Scotland. In the NHS and elsewhere a staff governance framework has been introduced and that has involved staff representation on the board. Frankly, the bill is almost entirely silent on the subject of people—you would think that food inspection was done by robots, not by people, but as it is done by people we would like to have seen a little bit more about staff governance in the bill, including provisions on staff transfer and other issues that seem to have been missed out.
Could some of those issues be picked up in guidance?
It could. Such arrangements usually have a statutory requirement saying something like, “There shall be a staff governance framework” and secondary guidance then picks that up. All that we are looking for in the bill is a general statement on staff governance; the detail could be left to secondary legislation.
Mr Lyle asked a good question. At the risk of making it a crowded table, it would be useful if retailers could be represented in some way, to bring their expertise and knowledge to bear.
The bill does not deal only with the appointment of the chief executive and the top-tier committee; it also has a permissive power to establish various committees, as the senior staff see fit. Does everyone have to be represented at the top table—I do not like that language—or could there be roles for other committees and for stakeholder groups, such as an industry reference group or food producers’ reference group? The same question arises with every subject that we ever discuss in committee. You would have to build a table the size of the Scottish Parliament to get everyone around it who wants to be on the board of the new FSS, so could a system of committees be a way of ensuring that those who are not at the top table can have some form of representation?
I see a few heads nodding. Would anyone like to comment?
There is no doubt that committees work well, but they are primarily advisory and the decisions are taken at the top table, so what is really important is that that top table has the breadth and balance to properly represent all the stakeholders involved, and to ensure that there is an appropriate challenge at the top table, so that when proposals are made there are people who can say, “Hang on. That is not going to work.” That applies across all aspects of the agency’s work, not just in relation to industry.
Thank you. I just wanted to ask the question, because the same issue seems to arise with everything that the committee has ever scrutinised. There is always a clamour to be at the top table.
What is the ideal size of the board in numerical terms?
That is a very good question, because we might say six and then find that 20 groups want to participate. To make it fleet of foot but still appropriately representative, how big should the board be?
Any takers? Everyone is silent.
The only thing to say is that there are so many different areas of expertise that you cannot realistically expect all of them to be represented on the board. The type of people who are on the board must be questioning and they must put the consumer first, but they must also have access to information from the executive and more broadly, to inform their decisions. I agree that you do not want to make the committee too big. You need a reasonable mix of expertise on the committee, but if you make it too big it will become pretty unwieldy.
That is more of a politician’s answer than a politician would give.
I would like—
I am sorry, but I should let Tim Smith comment before I bring you back in.
Independence and putting the consumer first have been mentioned a number of times by witnesses, including me. If in doubt, go for that, because science and evidence gathering, people who understand the science and the industry, and retailers, manufacturers and the whole supply chain will need to be represented, but if consumers are to trust the body it must be seen as independent and it must feel as if the people on whose behalf work is being done are represented round the table.
Thank you, Mr Smith. Richard, I apologise for cutting you off.
That is okay, convener. I have been cut off by better people than you.
Why does that not surprise me?
I agree with Mr Smith and I know why Mr Milne gave that politician’s answer. I understand that you are leaving Scotland and going to Australia, Mr Milne. I am sure that everyone round the table wishes you well and thanks you for your work with the Food Standards Agency Scotland. Given your expertise, can you not just tell us before you go how many people should be on the board?
Mr Milne, feel free to answer that—or not, as the case may be.
An appropriate number. [Laughter.]
I suppose that one of the most important things is that Richard Lyle’s morning rolls are uncovered, and if we can achieve anything today perhaps we can achieve that.
I thank everyone for participating in our round-table discussion. As always, we are conducting on-going scrutiny, so, as our convener, Duncan McNeil, would say at this point, if you think of something that you should have mentioned, put it in writing and send it to us. I am not soliciting further comments from witnesses, but we do have a tiny bit of time left. However, as I see no indications that people want to put anything on the record at this stage, I shall take that as a resounding mandate to close the meeting. Thank you very much.
Meeting closed at 12:10.Previous
Health Inequalities: Equally Well