Brexit: Food Standards Agency

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Lord raises an important issue. However, it is important to distinguish what the Food Standards Agency is responsible for and what it is not. It is responsible for making sure that food is safe. Nutritional value is a different responsibility that accrues to the department and to Public Health England, and we have taken many significant actions, including reducing sugar content in drinks and food, to make sure that precisely the issues he is talking about are dealt with.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, given the increased monitoring at slaughterhouses, both through CCTV and the presence of meat inspectors, is the Minister confident that the FSA has the capacity to train sufficient inspectors to ensure that the meat which arrives on supermarket and butchers’ shelves is fit for human consumption so that we can avoid the CJD and salmonella outbreaks of the past?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The Food Standards Agency has the resources, the expertise and the powers it needs to make sure that it can guarantee safety, as the noble Baroness has described.