Food Hygiene Rating Scheme

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, there are points when you prepare something and then somebody stands up and says it all and slightly better than you were going to say it, so it is an easy task to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—something I have managed to do throughout the time we have been in the House together. Sometimes I did not admit to it but, on this occasion, I am quite prepared to do so.

This is basically about making knowledge public. You have done a test, you have found out what is going on and you let the public see. That is what we are talking about here, as far as I can see. It is possible that I have missed something, but that seems to be the essence of it—making sure that at a glance you can tell what is going on. There is also the issue of letting the public know what the scheme means. I think a bit of effort needs to go into this. If you get a rating of 1, you may not know that is a bad score so possibly a bit of information is required. You need to know that it is 5 you are aiming for, not one, but that is a small quibble that can easily be corrected. You need to make sure that people know at a glance what it means.

The advantage of certificates being on display, as the noble Lord pointed out, is that it shows you have kept your kitchens clean, done your job and shown basic competence and you deserve a pat on the back and a small commercial advantage for that. Consumers have a right to know that, although they may prefer the chilli at the kebab shop down the road, they are playing fast and loose with their digestive systems—so let us let them know. This is not the nanny state; it is merely giving information about work that has been done. There is a very simple and good case for doing that.

Let us look at the wonderful example of Rutland. It is not a big county. I have this image of people wanting a sandwich and taking a short walk or driving for two minutes across the border because they have come to Rutland to enjoy the views but it is not recommended that they buy a sandwich there. It is ridiculous that somebody does not simply let the general public know when the work has been done. If there is another way of doing this easily and cheaply, I look forward to hearing about it. This is about taking information we have and presenting it. We have a scheme that seems to be working well. It is not offending anybody terribly. The overwhelming majority of the country is using it in a form which is easy to interpret. “Devolution can work” seems to be part of the subtext to what the noble Lord was saying. If we can get this going, we will make our lives a little easier and better and reward those who have done things properly. This is not a terribly difficult thing to do or something that will rock the world. It will make this a slightly easier and safer place to go and buy a sandwich at lunchtime. Surely, if we can walk away with that, it is a pretty good day here.