Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Wednesday 26th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to address a couple of these amendments in a broad sense. Amendments 182 and 187 would ensure that all schools and colleges were vape-free and would require them to proactively implement policies as such. I draw here on my own experience from the Learn with the Lords scheme. I had a shadow from that scheme here in Parliament—a young woman of about 16 or so. She had been with me for about an hour when she said to me, in tones of total desperation, “I need a vape”. I confess that that is not something within my personal experience, and I am not entirely sure about where I took her, although it seemed an appropriate place and I did my best. But I think that we have to acknowledge that schools, colleges and other similar institutions will encounter people who have started vaping and are experiencing great difficulties with addiction to that vaping. I would want to keep it so that the school can make its own decisions on what is best for its own situation and its community, rather than trying to apply a blanket ban. We know what the ideal would be, but we have to think about the reality for head teachers and others who have to deal with that practical situation.

I also want to speak against Amendment 182A, which would allow vaping products in places where it is reasonable to expect that everyone present is over 18. I should declare another interest here. I must admit that I really do not enjoy walking down the street and getting a face-full of vaping fumes through no choice of my own. Many of the pubs, clubs and bars that are likely to be in this situation are already voluntarily vape-free. We do not want to force them to change the circumstances of what works for their patrons.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I shall start with Amendment 182A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, which replaces his withdrawn Amendment 180A. It seeks to specify that vaping should be allowed in locations where it is “reasonable to expect” that only people over 18 congregate. I believe this would limit the Government’s response under their powers in the Bill if future evidence emerged that action would be desirable. Given that parts of the Bill seek to limit any action that opens the way to under-18 vaping and to discourage those aged 18 to 24 from vaping, except as a smoking cessation tool, this amendment would appear to be in opposition to that objective, which I share.

I have commented before that many young people slip undetected into over-18 places—the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, has just accepted that that does happen now and then—so the amendment could undermine the Bill’s objective, which could be why the noble Lord has reworded it. However, many indoor settings already voluntarily designate their premises vape-free, and they may do so because many non-smokers find vaping as well as cigarette smoke offensive because of the smell. I am sure they would not have done that if it were bad for business. Any change in this situation would require further consultation, so perhaps that is what the Minister might say.

Going back to the beginning of the group, Amendments 181 and 184, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, seek to restrict the Government’s ability to act in future to three specific locations. I am glad that the noble Lord did not specify that hospitals should be designated vape-free, because vaping may be a valuable quit-smoking aid to patients. However, it does not seem to me that these places need to be specified in the Bill. There is going to be a lot more consultation, and I hope that evidence will come from the call for evidence.

Amendments 182 and 187, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, are unnecessary as schools already have the power to ban students bringing vapes on to their premises as they cannot have been obtained legally if the students are under 18. However, it is sad that many of them either do not do so or find it hard to enforce their ban, if they have one, for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has just mentioned. One has to have sympathy with young people who have managed to be hooked on nicotine so badly that they have to say, “I need a vape”, as she put it. I hope that schools in particular, where the pupils are under 18, will see it as their duty to discourage vaping among their pupils. In support of that, I would be sorry to see staff vaping on the premises because it is a very bad example.

There is a major problem with young people buying unlicensed vapes, some of which have been adulterated with THC or the drug spice, which is a dangerous development. The latter is particularly addictive and harmful, so I hope that schools would be active and vigilant on this matter. However, I think the Minister may tell us that more consultation is taking place on this issue, so I am content to wait for that.

I support the principle of Amendment 183, from the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, which would prohibit the Government designating mental health trusts as vape-free. We must recognise the use of vaping in mental health and smoking cessation, alongside treatment, so the trusts should be able to make their own decisions about vaping on their premises. I very much hope that the Minister will reassure us that the Government do not have any intention of designating mental health trusts as vape-free areas. For all those reasons, and those given in previous debates, I would not support removing Clause 138 from the Bill. The public strongly support their opportunity to go into vape-free places, and many businesses have understood that already.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly against all the amendments in this group. I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, about our understanding of heated tobacco products. I am drawing here, as I have been throughout Committee, on the excellent briefings from Action on Smoking and Health. I note its conclusion, that there is not currently good-quality evidence on the health harms of heated tobacco devices or their efficacy as a smoking cessation tool. Therefore, in that context, we need to be very cautious of the potential health impacts. The Bill as it stands is in the right place.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness. In Amendment 184A, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, seeks to exclude heated tobacco from the smoke-free generation objective of the Bill, to allow it in places where everyone is over 18. For this reason, and because of my lack of confidence that any location can be sure it is really only used by over 18s, I cannot support this amendment.

In Amendment 185, the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, seeks to exempt heated tobacco from being banned in uncovered hospitality areas, which parallels an earlier amendment about vaping. As smoking gradually declines, the Government may very well seek to make further restrictions, as the public will almost certainly become used to the lack of nicotine products in their environments, and they may rather like that situation. Therefore, the Government must be free to use their powers in the Bill to respond to the public’s changing attitudes on these issues.

Removing Clause 139 would prevent the Government from designating heated tobacco-free places at all. Many businesses have done this already, and any evidence that these products are being used as smoking cessation tools is likely to decrease over the years as the number of smokers decreases. That would therefore not be a good reason to prevent the Government from acting if they saw fit.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will address just two amendments in this group. The first is Amendment 171 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who powerfully and clearly introduced it as a probing amendment to the Government while very handily timing her intervention to remind me that it is in this group and that I have attached my name to it. I thank the noble Baroness for that.

We might say that there are different sides in this Committee, but everyone has agreed that adult smokers need to be able to get the information they need that this is an effective way to stop smoking. That is what this amendment does, and I do not think I need to say anymore on that.

I want to address briefly Amendment 172A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, which is about restrictions on brand sharing. It is important to highlight why this amendment should not be part of the Bill. The process of brand stretching or brand sharing is something that we have seen the tobacco companies doing a great deal of. Mysteriously, expensive leather jackets, fancy sunglasses or even stationery suddenly start to bear various branding aspects—I will get to what those aspects are in a second—that just happen to echo that of a certain form of cigarettes. Governments very often find themselves playing a whack-a-mole game: if you try to ban this, then something slightly different appears and so on.

I particularly want to highlight the guidelines for implementation of Article 13 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control because this amendment very clearly goes against what that says. It notes that there needs to be an effective ban on all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. I think it is worth quoting this because it highlights the ways in which the WHO is trying to catch everything because it has to try to catch everything:

“Promotional effects, both direct and indirect, may be brought about by the use of words, designs, images, sounds and colours, including brand names … or schemes of colours associated with tobacco products, manufacturers or importers, or by the use of a part or parts of words, designs, images and colours”.


The Government need all the powers they can possibly have to stop the merchants of death sneaking round into little gaps in the legislation.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Northover’s Amendment 171 in this group, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. My noble friend has highlighted many egregious examples of the sort of advertising that the Bill needs to avoid through careful drafting. Her suggestion is explicit that advertising must not appeal to children, non-smokers or indeed anyone for whom these products are not intended, while ensuring that their core purpose as smoking cessation products is not impeded.

Amendment 171 would tighten up the wording of the Bill to achieve the Government’s intention. It would also future-proof it. We debated, on Amendments 195 and 196 from my noble friend Lord Russell, the need for reviews in the future, to give everyone the confidence that the Government will at least keep pace with—or preferably get ahead of—developments. We should include in those reviews any clever advertising and marketing intended to get round the Bill, as well as product development and emerging evidence of harms. Frankly, if the industry does not like it, it has only itself to blame because of its blatant and highly successful campaign to lure children to use its products.

On Amendment 161A, from the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, about the removal of “reason to suspect”—

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, we have not yet heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but I will speak briefly in opposition to the amendments just introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, particularly Amendments 175 and 179. I start from the point of view that the powers to extend smoke-free places in England, were Amendment 175 to pass, would be less than the powers in the devolved nations. As smoking prevalence continues to fall, there will clearly be an ongoing open discussion that appraises the evidence on smoke-free extensions and how best to protect public health and workers’ rights.

In August 2024, the Government indicated—well, apparently it was leaked—that they were going to extend these powers when bringing back the Bill. There was then a backlash, the Government U-turned and said that the consultation would focus only on schools, playgrounds and hospitals. That is disappointing, but we do not want to close down the opportunities and options for the future that would be available from this Bill.

Think about some of the other places that might be high-priority areas in the future, such as beaches. Very often, we experience big problems with litter and there are lots of small children on beaches. People have an expectation of fresh air there; that is one of the reasons why they go to the seaside. There are other places where exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke is particularly high. One example is transport hubs, but we can all think of other places where there are real issues and where we might want to keep the possibility of further extension open.

Finally, our medical understanding of the impacts of so-called passive smoking and second-hand cigarette smoke is growing and increasing all the time, and heading in only one direction. I note, for example, that just in the last week a major veterinary provider told pet owners to be aware of the impacts of passive cigarette smoke and vaping on pets. Our understanding of the impacts in this kind of area just keeps growing and growing, so we should not close down the possibilities in the Bill.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak first to my Amendment 176. As the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, said, his Amendment 178 does something very similar. As I have often said, policy should be based on evidence, so this amendment seeks to tease out exactly what evidence the Government plan to use when designating a new area as smoke-free.

The Government have already said that their consultation on further smoke-free areas will focus on schools, playgrounds and hospitals. It is fairly clear that areas in and close to schools should be smoke-free, in the same way that local authorities now have powers to prevent the opening of new fast-food outlets near schools because of the health dangers of much of their sales.

However, some playgrounds are very large and it is possible that a parent waiting on a bench for a child, well away from the play equipment, may want to smoke a cigarette—if they are of legal age, of course. Although it would set a bad example, it would be hard to understand the level of risk to the children playing; it would depend how far away they are. As for hospitals, many of them have already designated their grounds as smoke-free, although it has been hard to enforce. Many of us will have seen people smoking outside St Thomas’ Hospital, underneath the “No smoking” sign. Many hospitals have distinct outdoor smoking shelters. The matter is complicated, which is why my amendment probes the Government on the criteria they will use.

On the other hand, Amendments 175 and 179 seek to specify in the Bill the areas that can be designated as smoke-free. This could restrict the Government from acting in other areas in future. Obviously, we want the same rules in all parts of the UK, to save confusion. There are several reasons why the Government should not be limited in this way, and they must bear in mind the different circumstances that prevail in different areas. For example, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned, there are many children on beaches, and discarded cigarettes are a real litter problem, according to coastal local authorities. As she said, transport hubs may also come into focus, because of the crowded conditions in many of them, especially at certain times of the day such as rush hour. We think the Government need flexibility on this issue. Indeed, somebody might be more affected by second-hand smoke in a transport hub than at the far side of a very large playground, which is why I would like to see an evidence test.

We do not support Amendment 177 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, as the Government may want to restrict smoking in uncovered hospitality areas in the future. However, if they do so they will have to explain the reasons why, and we could debate it then. The fact is that the prohibition on smoking in indoor hospitality venues has proved very popular with customers and landlords alike and has certainly not had a damaging effect on footfall or expansion of the sector. The same might apply to uncovered hospitality areas in the future, if they are considered for the ban.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 193 in this group is also in my name. I say again how pleased I am that the Labour Government have broadened the eligibility for free school meals. However, much still needs to be done, particularly on the quality of the meals and the enforcement of the standards, which needed reviewing anyway—that was the subject of Amendment 190, debated last week—and to ensure that all eligible children get their meal. In recent years the whole issue of school meals has been left to flounder, despite their importance to children’s health, and I am pleased that the Government are now picking it up again.

Amendment 189 calls for an annual review, with the results to be laid before Parliament, of the barriers to all eligible children receiving their free school meal, and clarification of how many eligible children are missing out. The review must assess how many children are eligible, under whatever the current threshold is, and how many would be eligible if the threshold had been uprated since 2018. It must also assess how many would be eligible if the threshold were to be set at £20,000 per year after tax. Because of the inequalities that we know about, the review would have to cover regional and demographic disparities in take-up rates and the financial and educational impact on schools and local authorities, bearing in mind that a child on free school meals currently brings the pupil premium with him or her to the school for education purposes. That set of reviews would give us more information about how the system was working and would form a very useful underpinning for the development of policy in future.

Amendment 193 would ensure the auto-enrolment of all children eligible for free school meals and expand eligibility even further than the recent change to households whose income is less than £20,000 per year after tax. That would be yet another step in the right direction. I know that the Secretary of State, in making the recent announcement that all children in families on universal credit will be eligible for free school meals next year, claimed that this simpler system will make it easier for families to register. However, it is still not the same as auto-enrolment, and schools as well as families are losing out because they are losing the pupil premium that comes with FSM.

The evidence to the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee was clear that there are many children who would become eligible, under whatever threshold, who may not get their free school meal, such as it is, and that there are many children in poverty whose parents struggle to pay for a hot meal for their children. These parents or families, eligible but not registered for FSM, often send the child to school with a packed lunch of dubious nutritional value—we were given several examples—not because they do not care about their children’s health but because they cannot afford the price of a decent packed lunch or a hot meal. It is these unregistered families, and those just above the eligibility threshold, who suffer the most from regulations.

Free school meals, and breakfasts, are one of the most important levers that the Government have to ensure that, however poor the parents, however lacking their cooking facilities at home, whatever kind of food desert the family live in, the children can get two healthy meals every school day—if they also get a free breakfast—to ensure that they grow up strong and a healthy weight, with no rotting teeth and no wrong food preferences to take through life and make them susceptible to obesity. I hope the Government will agree with these amendments, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, Amendments 191 and 192 are in my name and are closely related to that already introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for offering her support to my amendments.

Amendment 191 is essentially a different way of getting to the same intention as Amendment 193. We are aiming to get auto-enrolment so that every child who is eligible for free school meals gets them, and surely that is something that the Government want to do. I have no particular opinion on whether Amendment 191 or Amendment 193 is the best way to do it; we can debate that after this point, although I would love to hear the Government say, “We want to do this and we’re going to do it, so you don’t have to worry about this on Report”.

The best stats on the previous form of free school meals, before the Government’s recent extension, showed that up to 250,000 children, or about 11% of those eligible for free school meals, missed out because it is an opt-in process. That is a point that my honourable friend Ellie Chowns in the other place has already highlighted, so I will not go through it in great detail. However, I will note that the Fix Our Food research programme showed that it is children from non-majority communities and lone-parent households who are more likely not to be registered for free school meals despite being eligible. Inequalities here multiply themselves time and again.

Reasons the charity give for this include parents struggling to fill out the complex forms, language barriers or that there may be a simple lack of awareness. There may also be stigma around free school meals. I hope the Committee will join me in saying there is no reason why there should be, but the practical reality is that we know there is. I also note that the Greater London Authority has put resources into auto-enrolment, showing that it is possible to make a difference, but around the rest of the country that is not available.

I come back to my point about stigma, because Amendment 192 would extend free school lunches to all primary schoolchildren in state-funded schools. I will quote a question that was put to me by a year 7 pupil from Lordswood Boys’ School in Birmingham this morning—and, no, I did not put him up to it; it was not prompted in any way. Some other questions identified me as a representative of the Government and I had to correct that misapprehension, but he simply said to me: “Why don’t we get free school meals?” That is something that shows a really high level of awareness. People feel the inequality and suffering that has come from the lack of those free school meals.

Amendment 192, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has kindly backed, would not actually help that year 7 boy. This is me and the Green Party going for the moderate, middle-of-the-road option, because Green Party policy is free school meals for all school pupils, which would help that pupil in Birmingham. What we have here is simply an amendment for all primary school pupils, and part of the reason for that is the example from London of how positive it has been.

I note that an evaluation of this has been conducted already to see what has happened. There has been a lived-experience evaluation by the Child Poverty Action Group and an implementation evaluation as well. This policy, unsurprisingly, was really popular and had a very high level of take up—between 88% and 90% across three school terms. Among the positive outcomes, 84% of parents said it had improved the family budget. One-third of parents said that the policy meant they had less debt. Three in five parents said they were able to spend more money on food at home as a result. We talk so often in your Lordships’ House about our broken food system and how it is so difficult to get a healthy diet.

There are more positives. More than half of parents thought their child was trying new foods as a result of being exposed to them at school. This is the kind of thing we might not think about, but more than half of parents said that it saved them time in the morning that they had been forced to use making packed lunches. We all know that can make a real difference to families. More than one-third of parents thought their children were concentrating better in lessons as a result.

This is a moderate challenge to the Government to look at what has been achieved in London. We know the levels of inequality between London and the rest of the county. Let us break down that inequality and make it better, at least for our primary school pupils.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 117, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Tyler and others. The decision on where a child is cared for in the system is crucial to the child’s life, so we should listen to children with care experience. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, it may affect their ability to keep contact with wider family and friends, and other factors were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Meston. It will make a difference even to their ability to keep in contact with a teacher who they might trust—that can be quite important in children’s lives. It can otherwise be very disruptive to their education if they are put a long way from where they previously went to school. As we know, children with care experience usually have less of a chance to get good educational qualifications than other children, and that has an effect on their whole-life chances.

As my noble friend says, it cannot be left to the Secretary of State under the title of “such other persons”. The category of those most directly affected by these regulations must be named in the Bill, and it is vital that children have the confidence that they will be heard. The slogan, “Nothing about us without us”, is very apt in this context.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Since we are forming a set for Amendment 117, I will stand up now, having attached my name to it, and will focus chiefly on that amendment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has stolen my starting line with her final line: nothing about us without us. I first used that phrase in a debate on rather similar amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. I think that your Lordships’ House and the country are increasingly coming to realise that we have to listen to children far more.

In this context, I will cite an interesting case from the past week, where a 14 year-old who had been tricked by his parents into going to Ghana took his parents to court. The Court of Appeal ruled that he should have the right to come back to Britain, as he wanted to do. That is an interesting court case that shows how, generally, our legal system is starting to listen more and more to children. It is important that our legislation does so and that that is in the Bill.

This raises issues that I will come back to on a later group, but the basic point about the regional care co-operatives is that they will take decision-making further away from local authorities. People have been studying this, and the care review evidence group, for example, said that

“care will need to be taken that these structural reforms do not dilute local accountability mechanisms”.

Making sure that children are actually heard in the making of regulations is in some way a counterbalance to the risk that quite a lot of experts have identified in taking this approach.

Food and Feed (Regulated Products) (Amendment, Revocation, Consequential and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Monday 10th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in following the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I echo her concerns about the labelling of GMOs, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer on that. I am afraid that I somewhat disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, regarding the rights of the nations of these islands. They surely should have the right and ability to say that they want healthier food and the right to set higher standards for food than England may choose to.

Coming to the general point, I find it a little surprising that we have heard considerable celebration about reductions in red tape at a time when there are grave concerns among the public about the safety of our food supply, particularly the impacts of ultra-processed foods, which contain many of the substances that will be covered by these regulations, and in a society that has huge problems with the overall level of public health. Surely it is better to have so-called red tape than for people to become ill as a result of the food that they buy without knowingly putting themselves at risk.

As the Minister set out so clearly—I thank her for that—there are two chief changes here. The first is to remove the requirement for reauthorisation for certain products every 10 years. These are products that have previously been identified as high risk, which is why they are on the list: feed additives, and food and feed containing GMOs or smoke flavourings. We are taking away actions to monitor products that have been regarded as high risk. Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, we are removing parliamentary scrutiny by not requiring SIs. Building on what she said, will there be an accessible list somewhere that can easily be found by Members of the House and members of the public?

When we do not have the automatic 10-year authorisation, what will happen when an issue arises? I do not think that this has been covered very clearly at all. How will the Government alert the House to that issue? We have seen this happen in many areas before, and I expect that NGOs and researchers in universities would come to an individual Member of the House and they would have to batter away at trying to establish the issue, how big it is and what is happening. However, we and the NGOs have only limited capacity. How will the Government keep us and the public informed about what is happening when this starts to be an issue?

I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for a very comprehensive piece of work on this SI. It is seven pages of quite detailed scrutiny, which contain a considerable number of expressions of concern. The committee is concerned that the Explanatory Memorandum did not fully explain the mechanisms to detect and monitor the risks in absence of a renewal process, which essentially addresses the issue I just raised about how we know.

Some of the discussion is about what happens in the testing of products if technology and our understanding change. We are in a period of rapid, massive change in our understanding of the operations and the biology of the human body. I have talked in other contexts about microbiotoxicity, where products impact on the human microbiome. That is a sentence that would not have made any sense 10 years ago, which reflects how fast our understanding of human biology has changed. We are just starting to get into understanding the virome—I recently hosted an event on phages—the bacteria and fungi in our body and how they interact with viruses and food. It is a very complicated and fast-moving area.

I have focused on the Food Standards Agency, which has a total of 1,582 members of staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the Minister has said, it is struggling with the number of applications that it is getting and, essentially, it does not have enough staff. If that is the case and there is this flood of new applications, how can we be reassured that attention will be given to things in that “Already done, don’t really have to think about it” pile, particularly when there are so many other biosecurity risks facing our country?

I declare that my comments have been informed by Beyond GM. It highlights that the Government Chemist, which is part of DSIT and hosted by the Laboratory of the Government Chemist—which is now, curiously, a privatised organisation—

“expressed the view that the renewals process”

needs to make sure that it has

“necessary scientific checks on the currency of validation methods”.

This is not just the biology changing but the understanding of our testing.

Finally, I offer a reflection on what we have seen happen in so many areas of public safety related to chemicals. Teflon is not a food additive, although it is an additive that has been unintentionally put in our food. PFAS were discovered in the 1930s; by the 1970s, companies including DuPont and 3M were aware of the risks and hid them. It was only in the 1990s that regulators and the public started to become aware of them. We have to be aware that we cannot trust giant multinational companies to declare to the Government and identify when a problem first starts to emerge. This has to be done by people acting for public good, not for private profit.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, this SI does two things. It removes the requirement for 10-yearly renewals of regulated product authorisations and removes the requirement for regulated product authorisations to be prescribed in secondary legislation, instead allowing them to come into effect following a ministerial decision, presumably based on appropriate advice from the FSA.

As is not unusual, and as has been mentioned before, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in its 17th report of this Session, was critical of the Explanatory Memorandum. The efforts of this hard-working committee, which I admire very much, have filled in many of the gaps; however, I feel that it should not have been necessary for it to do this had the department provided a fuller and more helpful explanation of the protections. Is it not for officials to predict the concerns that might arise about new regulations, explain why the Government feel that they have been addressed and put that in the Explanatory Memorandum?

The Government assure us that the changes are intended to simplify the authorisation process and would create

“a more streamlined and effective regulatory regime”.

They cover three regulated product regimes: feed additives; food or feed containing, consisting of or produced from genetically modified organisms; and smoke flavourings. I believe that all these product groups may be subject to new evidence of health or environmental effects—either benefits or dangers—as time goes by. The FSA and the FSS have responded that they

“would continue to assess products at initial application stage to authorise them as safe to be placed on the market, and would maintain their powers to carry out safety reviews of authorised products already on the market at any time if new evidence or risks emerge”.

The words “at any time” are key, because they mean that those organisations do not have to wait 10 years to spot and assess a problem. This is reassuring.

However, as we have heard, Beyond GM was concerned that, in future,

“greater emphasis would be placed on the FSA’s post-market monitoring activities to ensure new evidence and risks are detected before harm occurs”.

I am familiar with the FSA system of horizon scanning in another context. It is thorough, gathering intelligence from international regulators, global networks and its own scientific advisory committee for horizon scanning. It also keeps abreast of analytical methodology and has a well-used incident reporting mechanism. As we speak, revocations of authorisations due to safety concerns reported through this mechanism have generally been actioned outside of the renewal process—in other words, it has not had to wait for 10 years. Can the Minister assure us that the FSA has sufficient resources to keep up this level of horizon scanning and subsequent action? I am clearly not the only Member of this Committee with concerns about this; the same submission from Beyond GM had concerns about it as well, in the light of recent budget cuts and staff shortages.

The FSA responded:

“An evidence-based review system will ensure already authorised products are reviewed based on risk and new evidence, rather than on a fixed timetable”.


This new risk-based system may well be a response to budget cuts, but it could also be justified by the fact that there is no point in wasting precious staff time on reassessing products that have consistently been found to be safe—and I mean “consistently”; one reassessment may not be enough in this field. Can the Minister tell us which of those two options it is? Of course, we might not have needed the Minister’s explanation if the EM had been more helpful.

There were submissions suggesting that GMOs should not have been treated in the same way as other products. The SLSC’s report contains the FSA’s explanation of the additional measures that are in place when GMOs are authorised initially and of how monitoring occurs post market approval. This includes the responsibility of the businesses—the producers, or the people putting the food together—to supply annual reports to the FSA and the FSS about environmental and any other risks that were not predicted at the start of the authorisation. Is the Minister confident that these reports are always sent and are complete? There may be vested interests in not having them complete.

There was a response from the Government Chemist, as we have heard, which was interesting. It considers that the renewals process, which is now being removed, provides important and necessary scientific checks on whether laboratory-based validation methods for GMOs remain current. In other words, it was not about the dangers of GMOs themselves but confidence in the laboratory procedures which assess them. The FSA response says that it will be relying on businesses, which will continue to be required to notify the FSA and the FSS if they have any new information which might affect the suitability of a validation method. Can we rely on businesses to know that and to report any concerns? Given that science is developing so fast in the world of biotechnology, is the Minister confident that we have a regular means of ensuring that we have the best, most up-to-date and accurate methodology, without having to rely on businesses telling us or on this being looked at every 10 years?