Health and Community Care Committee, 21 Jun 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 21, 2000

Official Report 220KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

Moving on to agenda item 7, I welcome the Deputy Minister for Community Care, Iain Gray. We are grateful to the minister and his team for coming a little later than planned, because of our earlier delay.

We are discussing an affirmative instrument of subordinate legislation: the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) (Orkney) (Scotland) Order 2000 (SSI 2000/192). If members would like to ask officials about any points of clarification, they should do so now.

As no members wish to ask questions, I invite the minister to make a short statement on the purpose of the instrument.

The debate concerns an emergency order banning the catching of certain species of shellfish. It is not unusual for the committee to consider such orders, but this one has some differences and I shall draw members' attention to them. The order applies to the waters in Scapa Flow in the Orkney islands, and it came into force at 16.00 on 14 June 2000. It prohibits the fishing of mussels, scallops, queen scallops and ensis—or razor clams as they are more commonly known.

The key difference between this order and many of the other orders that the committee has considered is that this one refers not to amnesic shellfish poisoning but to paralytic shellfish poisoning. PSP toxins have been detected in the shellfish at levels that are significantly above the European agreed safe level, which is 80 mg per 100 g. Some levels that were detected were as high as 159 mg per 100 g, twice the acceptable level.

Since 1990, emergency closure orders in those waters have been an annual occurrence. Although I expect that people in the shellfish industry will be disappointed by the imposition of the order, I think that they will not be surprised.

I move,

That the Parliament's Health and Community Care Committee in consideration of the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) (Orkney) (Scotland) (Order) 2000 (SSI 2000/192) recommend that the Order be approved.

Do any members have questions for the minister?

You said that imposing such orders has become an annual occurrence. I assume that Godfrey Howard and his team, the people who are researching amnesic shellfish poisoning, are also conducting on-going research into paralytic shellfish poisoning. Is that the case, and what steps are being taken? There is a lot of concern about when the end of the problem will be in sight for shellfish industry.

Yes, it is the same department that is conducting the research. A number of research programmes on toxins in shellfish are under way, covering ASP, PSP and the third one, DSP or diarrhetic shellfish poisoning. The Scottish Executive spends around £600,000 each year on research and monitoring. Two new research projects were instigated earlier this year, so research is continuing.

To deliberately misunderstand the question—

Surely not.

On the question of when the end might be in sight, I know that Duncan Hamilton is aware that the orders have become an annual occurrence. It is worth pointing out that, in previous years, those orders have stayed in force until about October, so the same could be true of the order that we are considering today.

Is the monitoring regime carried out with the same regularity as that for ASP?

Yes, it is. The results are distributed every week by fax to all the fishermen's organisations. There is also a hotline number and the information is available on the Food Standards Agency website, so monitoring is conducted and reported regularly to keep the industry informed.

The question is, that the motion in the name of Iain Gray be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

That the Parliament's Health and Community Care Committee in consideration of the Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) (Orkney) (Scotland) (Order) 2000 (SSI 2000/192) recommend that the Order be approved.

That brings today's meeting to a close. I thank members and the minister for attending.

Meeting closed at 12:36.