Port Health Authorities

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I am delighted to have secured the debate. I do not think that the subject of port health and port health authorities has been discussed in the Chamber before; indeed, I do not think that most people—including, I suspect, some hon. Members—know what a port health authority is or does. Just as many people assume that a port consists of a quay, some cranes, some trucks and some men unloading goods from ships on to trucks, many people, if they consider the matter at all, assume that a port health authority is about health in ports. Well, it is not; or, rather, it is about much more than that.

Port health authorities are, to put it simply, the last line of defence—and a very thin red line at that—for the United Kingdom as a whole. They protect us from incoming disease in humans or animals, from contaminated food, and from dangerous merchandise that has, as we know, entered the country in the past with devastating consequences. They provide the first and last opportunity for a nation that lives on trade, mostly through ports, to be defended from such unwanted intrusions.

If infected or unfit animal products enter the country, that concerns port health authorities. If sick or infected animals enter the country, that concerns port health authorities, along with others. If there are aflatoxins in peanut cargos, that concerns port health authorities. The preparations to combat a world influenza pandemic that we saw a while ago are very much a concern of port health authorities. Standards relating to food imported from outside the European Union are a central concern of port health authorities, as are the standards and certification of hygiene and cleanliness on cruise, cargo and passenger ships. The disinfecting of ships in ports concerns port health authorities, and many other things do as well.

About 120 port health authorities, or branches of such authorities, undertake the task of carrying out what I think we all agree are vital national functions. That number includes not only coastal ports, but inland ports and airports such those that serve London, including Gatwick. They are maintained and funded by local authorities, but—for there is a but—they are maintained mostly by the local authorities in whose areas most of a port sits, regardless of the national or regional importance of the work being undertaken. There is no line in local government revenue support grant marked “port health”, and there is no weighting factor in formula funding that recognises the existence of local authorities’ port health responsibilities. As a result, local authorities shoulder the cost by charging council tax payers. Moreover, there is no national underwriting of any aspect of port health authority activity. A national association, the Association of Port Health Authorities, undertakes national co-ordination and pursues national activities relating to port health, but it is funded solely by the subscriptions of its member authorities.

Let me complete the picture by making two points. Local authorities have been and are scrupulous in funding the net costs of port health. I say “net costs” because although port health authorities can charge for a number of their services, such as the provision of health certificates for ships, by no means all their activities enable their costs to be recovered in that way, and, as I shall illustrate, the list of such activities is growing. Southampton port authority, in my city, provides an example. It covers: the container port, which is the second largest in the UK; the cruise ship terminals, which are the largest in the UK; general port bulk activity; the wharfs on the Itchen and Hamble; the military port in Marchwood; the oil terminals at Calshot; and Southampton airport. In short, the authority covers a complex of port areas and activities which are much more extensive than the area covered by Southampton city council and it undertakes nationally significant activity.

All that work—the activities of Southampton’s port health authority—is carried out at a gross cost per annum of £1.1 million and a net cost of some £300,000, and it is funded by the council tax payers of Southampton. Southampton’s port health authority has 13 staff, as well as administrative support, to cover all those duties and the movements in this vast port, and it is on duty 24 hours a day. It is very effective and very efficient, and it provides very good value for money. However, its duties continue to increase in scope and the new duties are mostly unfunded. So not only does the PHA not gain resources, but it has to cope with an ever-increasing work load with static resources.

An example of these new duties relates to regulation 669 from the European Union, which came into force on 20 January 2010. It deals with the inspection and, if necessary, the seizure of incoming non-animal foodstuffs, and all the new work that it involves is unfunded. Tony Baldock, the food quality inspector for Crawley borough council in Gatwick airport, is reported to have received a visit from EU inspectors last November and they expressed astonishment that no more resources were available to him to deal with the 2,600 extra consignments that he and his team were inspecting—indeed, this is true. In most other European countries the equivalent functions are resourced and undertaken on a national basis, but at Gatwick and other port health authorities all this work is done on the basis of existing and locally raised resources.

I mentioned the issue of aflatoxins in peanut imports. Aflatoxins are essentially a virulent fungus that can come into the country with peanut imports and it can cause liver failure if it is released into the general retail environment and infected nuts are consumed. It is essential that port health authorities carry out inspections for aflatoxins and, if necessary, prevent these imports from coming into this country, but no funding is provided for such inspections. Of course, port health authorities also carry out preparations and operations concerning emergencies such as the world avian flu virus, as well as inspections for radioactivity in food coming in from Japan, but no funding is provided for such work either.

The picture—I believe I am giving a fair picture—shows that even under conditions of extreme budgetary strain, local authorities are not sacking staff and making net funding reductions in port health authorities; they are acting very responsibly as far as their enforced local charges are concerned. However, there certainly are no new resources available to deal with new demands and requirements, and port health authorities, including Southampton’s, are operating increasingly stretched round-the-clock cover under progressively more difficult circumstances. That thin red line for all is being kept in place by efficiency savings, additional work rosters and responsible but difficult funding decisions being taken by local authorities in specific places.

In short, we face not an imminent catastrophe or collapse, but the skin being stretched tighter and tighter across the fabric of the service. For example, we face having future foot and mouth threats being dealt with by hand-to-mouth methods, and that is not ideal. This is not a recipe for all of us to sleep easy in our beds knowing that all will be well for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, as I have mentioned, because the funding and underwriting decisions are taken authority by authority, and locality by locality, no national co-ordination takes place, even when that would have obvious advantages—for example, a ship inspection database could help to avoid inspection duplication. The exception to that funding approach, as I have mentioned, is the APHA, which attempts to fill the breach with the few thousand pounds it gets in subscription from its member authorities. It is sometimes described as taking national action on corner-shop resources.

The problem with all this—at national level at least—is that the existence of all these duties and the degree to which they are overloading our present system is not recognised. Indeed, it is salutary to reflect that a recent report, the Rogers review of national enforcement priorities for local authorities, completely failed to notice or record the existence of port health authorities as a local authority function. Perhaps part of the issue is one of departmental responsibility and awareness. Does port health come under the Department of Health because of its public health implications, the Department for Communities and Local Government because of its locational and funding concerns, or perhaps the Department for Transport because it concerns ports and airports? That is not entirely clear in some circumstances and, perhaps for that reason, it falls between the cracks in the pavement.

If I have been able to bring to the attention of the House the existence and scope of, and difficulties facing, port health authorities, I hope I have achieved a little, but I believe we should be looking to move matters forward more urgently as far as port health is concerned. We should not proceed for the long-term future hoping that particular local authorities will be able to find the share of the funding not taken up by others. We must not cross our fingers and hope that, somehow, those officers in post now will exponentially absorb new duties and responsibilities so that our dinner tables and public health concerns can remain protected. I believe we should do more.

I am delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) in his place to answer the debate, as I had been given to understand that it would be answered by the Department of Health. I am sure that he is equally delighted to be here and it is good that he will be able to reflect on the issues I have raised as far as the DCLG is concerned. Some might see this as an additional burden placed on some particular local authorities, whereby funding has to be found from within that area but goes towards activities that, I think we will agree, are nationally significant or at the very least regionally significant in their benefit and that are undertaken on behalf of us all.

We need at least to make allowance in the funding formula for the existence of port health alongside introducing mechanics to ensure that the load on local authorities is fairly shared to reflect the national importance of the function. That is a consideration for the DCLG. I cannot say I am completely optimistic that such a change in formula will immediately come about, but I would hope consideration of what it means to run a port health authority, the responsibilities on the shoulders of local authorities and the difficult circumstances that local government is in will be taken fully on board by the Department.

We also need recognition of the need for national support for public health co-ordination of port health at a national level, perhaps through providing support for the Association of Port Health Authorities to carry forward national co-ordination work. That is perhaps for the Department of Health to consider, and I hope that the Minister will convey those thoughts to his colleagues in that Department when the opportunity presents itself. Above all, I want port health to work to the best possible benefit of us all, not just for my city. It is incumbent on us all to think how best that can be secured.