Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Knight of Weymouth

Monday 29th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Whitty. I, too, am a former Minister at Defra, although we did not manage to coincide: I came after my noble friend moved on to other things. The points that he makes in his speech and through his amendments are important. On looking at the Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances, I see that the intention is for it to become a committee of experts working directly to the department. At one level, the difference between having it as a non-departmental public body or having it internalised within Defra looks fairly finely balanced, if the same people are providing advice on the same sorts of things to the same Ministers. Indeed, I note from the website that the secretariat to the NDPB is within Defra anyway. On all those levels it might not make much difference. I would be interested in the Minister’s response as to how much financial saving might be made in terms of these changes to these two committees so that we can judge whether that is part of the motivation.

In the end when I looked at it and tried to understand why these changes were thought necessary for Defra, like my noble friend I concluded that it must be something to do with the arm’s-length nature and the independence of the scientific advice. In that respect, this is a very important principle around whether or not that scientific advice should be independent of any other interests within the department. My experience from a year within Defra is that there are considerable, highly vocal, well organised interests that exercise Ministers and it is helpful at times to be able to have that independence.

By way of illustrating it, I refer to a story not from this country but from India around what happened to the vulture population, which collapsed by about 95 per cent in a very short period. As a result of having very few vultures to feed off the carcasses of cattle that were left out for the vultures because of the cultural issues in India around cattle, there was a population explosion of feral dogs in India—about 5.5 million more than usual—because they had this free food to sup on. And as a result of more feral dogs, more people were getting bitten. It is estimated that just under 50,000 more people died of rabies in India because of this explosion in the feral dog population. Meanwhile, others suffered from leopards attacking urban areas because the leopards expanded in population in order to pursue the dogs. In the end people were obviously concerned as to why the vultures had died. It came down to the improper use of chemicals—of diclofenac, the anti-inflammatory drug that was being fed to cattle by farmers, perfectly innocently, but which caused instant renal failure within the vulture population. It is the most extraordinary example of how an ecosystem can work and have an impact on a human population as well as on biodiversity, and indeed it is a fantastic example of the importance of biodiversity to us wherever we are in the world. But it is equally an important example of how agricultural vested interests should be kept separate from analysis of chemicals and pesticides.

I am not suggesting we might have that scenario playing out here, but you never know. I put it to the Minister, in using that example, that independent scientific advice at arm’s length is lost at a cost. If he could tell us what the saving is, if that is the motivation, then I am sure we would be very grateful.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, my noble friends have set out very well the argument against the abolition of the Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides.

I compare the proposed abolition of the two committees with the recently announced cancellation of the Food Standards Agency. To a non-scientist like me, such abolition can only mean that in future people’s diets in schools and elsewhere will be more controlled by the burger manufacturers. Ours is the second most obese country in the world after the United States of America, but that situation looks like it will only get worse rather than better. If the Government’s intention in abolishing the committees is to have less government and to allow the industry to take its course, there will clearly be a risk that the manufacturers of these products—nasty or otherwise—could populate any committees that the Minister may create with academics who are funded by their companies. There is a great danger that we could end up in a similar situation to the one that both my noble friends have outlined.

The independence of such committees is absolutely fundamental. I hope that the Minister can give us confidence that their scientific independence will be preserved. As I have said, the precedent of the Food Standards Agency is extremely important. People will probably only get fat and die sooner without the FSA, whereas the abolition of these two committees will probably have a much more urgent effect. However, a similar principle is involved. I look forward to his comments.