Health: Organic Food

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to wind up for the Opposition on this very interesting debate. I am conscious that many noble Lords in the next debate have great experience of the land and farming, and I wonder that they have not found the need to intervene. I always welcome debates in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Taverne. He is a rationalist—he has argued for many years in your Lordships’ House about the need for evidence-based policy—and a debunker of myths. I have to confess to him that at my home we have a fortnightly visit from an organic farmer in Herefordshire, delivering boxes of organic food to the urban dwellers of Birmingham. It is quite expensive but I feel quite good about it. I do not think that it is particularly to do with health; it is to do with the fact that it is rather nice to meet the farmer who has actually produced the food. I say to the noble Viscount that although Northumberland is rather a long way away, if he were to deliver boxes in Birmingham he would be sure of an equally warm welcome.

The noble Lord started with a view of the Department of Health that I took to be a mite critical. His perception was that the department is neutral on evidence-based medicine as opposed to alternative medicine. I am interested in the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, to that. My experience is that the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health works very hard to ensure that there is evidence, so I was quite surprised to hear what the noble Lord said. Surely the problem for the Department of Health is that alternative medicine is a fact of life. Many people want to receive it. As long as there is some regulation, I cannot see the problem with it. My question for the noble Baroness is whether the department has a policy on clinical commissioning groups commissioning alternative medicine for NHS patients. That is a relevant point on which to respond to the noble Lord.

As this is a Department of Health issue, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, may recall that when the National Institute for Clinical Excellence was formed by the previous Government, in addition to being asked for pronouncements on which medicines or treatments were clinically and cost effective, NICE was also asked to look at treatments that had been found not to be cost effective and clinically effective. One has to face up to the fact that many treatments in health globally have not been proven to be effective. It would be good to know why NICE has made such little progress on advising the health service on which treatments it should phase out.

It is also interesting to debate pesticides. To a certain extent there is a parallel with the debate on the contribution of medicines. I am always struck that in the health service medicine is seen as a budget that always has to be contained and held back. There is a perception that increasing staffing and buying new medical equipment are good things, but that the drugs budget is always a matter of concern. If noble Lords look back 50 to 100 years, they will find that major advances in health outcomes have come from medicines. We need to be careful before we demonise the pharma industry and what it seeks to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, says that organic food and the claims for it should be seen as a kind of religion, impervious to scientific evidence. On the use of pesticides, he says that there is very little evidence of harm if they are used in small doses—although I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, challenged him on that to a certain extent. We are not able to debate this as such because the noble Lord does not have a right to reply. However, while I fully accept his point that there is little or no evidence that the quality of food is improved if it is organic, he did not mention the environment. I would have put a question to him on that; perhaps I can tempt an intervention.

[Lord Taverne]

My final point was very much concerned with the environment: the last thing we want is a less efficient form of farming that makes inefficient use of good agricultural land, which is vital to the environment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

That is a very fair point, although I hesitate to debate those issues, given such an expert audience. However, he would surely also accept that there is some evidence that some of the farming methods that have been used have been damaging to the environment. In that sense, those who would argue in favour of organic food surely have a point in saying that it can have a positive contribution. I suspect, whatever we say today, that those who like to have organic food will continue to want to enjoy it. We should not get in the way of consumer choice in that sense.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

The word “environment” covers a lot of ground, but the specific issue that has been raised by critics of factory farming in the United States is the significant loss of biodiversity. I understand the point about the use of land made by the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, but the fact is that progressive loss of biodiversity is a serious matter. It is being contributed to by farming. I hope the Minister can confirm whether biodiversity is part of the Defra programme. In Britain, where there is a lot of organic farming or no farming, there is much greater biodiversity. I see that in Devon, where I often go.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point. I realise that the noble Baroness is principally speaking for the Department of Health, but I hope, in her winding-up speech, she will cover some of the environmental impacts as well, because we have to look at the evidence in the round. I welcome the debate, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, will continue to come to your Lordships’ House with such entertaining issues in the future.