Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I have a question about the GM aspect of these statutory instruments. I am not against them in any way, nor am I against genetically modified crops or food. It always amazes me that the public are apparently—people have done questionnaires on it—overwhelmingly in favour of genetically modified antibiotic chains for improved antibiotics, but they are not in favour of genetically modified crops which might save the environment because of the reduced use of chemicals.

In the light of the tendency of the UK public to be very suspicious of GM crops and food, it is vital that we take every precaution possible to ensure that there are no scare stories. I know these SIs are about genetically modified food, but you cannot have genetically modified food without growing the food in the first place. There are two concerns about GM food. One is the effect of such food on human health, which is what these statutory instruments are really all about, and the other is the effect of GM products on the environment. I may be behind the curve, and there are probably other statutory instruments coming or that have been and gone which put in place the correct processes for testing the environmental consequences of GM products. This statutory instrument is all about the Food Standards Agency, and I feel there ought to be an environmental element when we are talking about GM foods. Will the Minister let me know exactly what is happening on the environmental side? I should have declared an interest at the beginning as I chair the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, which looks at the environmental consequences of what we do on our land.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, should make a declaration. I refer to my entry in the register of interests as chair of Rothamsted enterprises, which is an agricultural research institute.

I thank the Minister for her introduction today, and I echo a number of the concerns and comments made by other noble Lords. We accept that these regulations are necessary to ensure that we maintain high-level consumer protection with regard to food and feed safety and to the legal framework that goes with that. As the Minister said, in the main these SIs make minor and technical amendments that will ensure continuity in the day-to-day legal requirements and obligations for businesses and public health bodies to act in the interests of the public. However, we have some concerns around the UK’s preparedness for the additional responsibilities in terms of resources and staffing levels, and the impact on business and industry and their preparedness to take on this extra work.

On the issue of food standards, it is clear that public safety, of course, has to be paramount and that any future changes to regulatory controls after the UK leaves the EU should provide the same, or an improved, level of consumer protection. As the Minister said, these regulations designate responsibilities currently undertaken by the EFSA to the appropriate domestic equivalents, including the Food Standards Agency in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and Food Standards Scotland in Scotland. In this context, we are concerned that, only last month, Secretary of State Matt Hancock criticised the Food Standards Agency for being “over-restrictive” and said that it needed to have a sense of perspective. This is the agency to which considerable new powers will transfer in these SIs. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify the Secretary of State’s comments and confirm whether the Government have full confidence in this organisation going forward, given that so much is resting on its shoulders.

There is an issue about resources, because between 2010-11 and 2016-17 the Food Standards Agency saw its budget cut by 26%—nearly £30 million—and lost more than 21% of its staff. The Minister, anticipating the question that she did not get from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about extra cash and extra staff. However, I do not think that the sums quite add up in the way that she would have us believe. The sums that she was talking about do not just cover the FSA’s responsibilities conferred by these SIs; it has a much wider responsibility for imports and exports and all the work that needs to be done at the borders. So only a proportion of that £40 million and £16 million will go into doing the food standards protection that is set out here. Can the Minister break down those sums a bit more and be more precise about what is being allocated to these particular functions?

There is also an issue with local authority responsibilities. Between 2012-13 and 2015-16 we saw a 22% reduction in the number of local authority food law enforcement officers. According to a 2015 survey by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, 47% of respondents said that resources,

“were only just adequate to provide a basic statutory service, left no contingency, and that any further cuts would compromise service delivery”.

What support is being offered to these bodies to help them adapt to and cope with their new responsibilities? Can the Minister reassure us that they do indeed have the necessary funding and staff to take on these additional responsibilities?

The noble Baroness said that extra staff were being recruited, and mentioned 140 scientists. I have been in many different discussions on SIs over the past few weeks, and in all of them it was claimed that extra responsibilities were being given to scientists and extra staff were being taken on to do this scientific analysis. It makes you wonder if at some point we are going to run out of scientists, particularly if we restrict the number of EU workers—who might be scientists—who would otherwise come here and help with that work. At some point I can see that there will be a crisis and we will run out of people who are prepared to do the work that we require them to do.

There is also the issue of how quickly people can be trained. If we are recruiting new staff, these are quite hefty responsibilities. People cannot drop in and start on day one with a full range of skills. Again, a lead-in process will be required. Can the noble Baroness say how quickly she thinks the 140 scientists will be up to speed and fully operational?

In the public consultations, local authorities raised concerns about the need for them to update legal references in official documents and online. They said that it would take significant time and effort. They also raised concerns about the need for additional activities for local authorities and port health authorities that may arise from these and other functions. They suggested that the payments for this extra business should be on a full cost recovery basis or funded by the Government as a completely separate entity to avoid additional financial burdens on local authorities. Can the Minister confirm how the Government will fund the extra work for local authorities? Is it intended that they will meet the full additional financial burden that will rest on their shoulders, particularly in the event of a no-deal Brexit—where, as I am sure we all appreciate, there is lots of scurrying around and extra money being spent on preparedness for that eventuality?

In terms of resources, an enormous amount of expertise obviously rests at the European level. What ability will we have to carry on sharing the intelligence of European bodies to make sure that we can still tap into their scientific knowledge and skills, either formally or informally, so that we do not have to start everything from scratch again? Will there be ongoing arrangements with the EU for monitoring, collecting and sharing data, and reporting mechanisms? That would obviously be in our interests. Which bodies will be able to scrutinise the performance and delivery of our UK arrangements? This work would otherwise have been done by the European Commission. What assessment has been made of their capacity to take on this work? If we are not careful, as we have said in other scenarios, the UK will end up marking its own homework without an independent source of scrutiny to oversee it.

I turn now to novel foods. As the noble Baroness said and the EM sets out, under EU regulations, any food not consumed “significantly” prior to 1997 is considered a novel food. The novel foods regulations before us ensure that we will retain the requirement for a pre-market safety assessment before being placed on the market. This is done, quite rightly, in the interests of safeguarding public health. The pre-market safety assessment examines a range of issues to establish whether consumers would be at risk if they consumed the novel food, how high the level of risk is likely to be and how, if a risk is identified, that risk would be managed. Can the Minister elaborate on how this will be managed domestically after exit day? Who will carry out the pre-market safety assessments? Again, will there be independent scrutiny of such assessments? Moreover, will the risk analysis err on the side of caution given that, when it comes to food, there could be serious public health implications if we do not get it right?

I shall move on. The next SI covers animal feed and, as the noble Baroness said, establishes a procedure for authorising the placing on the market and use of feed additives; it also sets out rules for the supervision and labelling of feed additives and pre-mixtures. Both noble Lords who spoke raised particular safety concerns here again. We all remember what happened when BSE broke out. We had not got feed additives right, so obviously there is a cause for huge public concern about this. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly mentioned testing new additives fully before they are placed on the market. Again, can the Minister explain how it is perceived we will go ahead as regards testing and what the mechanism will be? Who will be responsible for overseeing it and ensuring that all those feed additives are tested thoroughly and appropriately?

I turn now to the materials and articles in contact with food SI. It sets out to ensure that wrappings do not transfer their contents to food in such quantities as would endanger human health. That includes the constituent parts of recycled plastics. There is mounting scientific evidence that plastics are harming our health as well as the environment. Most of our food containers, from bottles to the linings in aluminium cans, plastic wraps and salad boxes, are made using polycarbonate plastics, some of which have bioactive chemicals, like bisphenol A, known as BPA. These manmade chemicals leach from our containers or wrappings into the food and drinks they are holding, especially when they are heated. The regulations retain the restrictions on the use of BPA in varnishes and coatings intended to come into contact with food. However, some campaign groups, as the noble Baroness may know, have called for a full ban on the use of BPA in food packaging. What assessment have the UK Government given to banning BPA entirely and do they have any plans to consult on this? The authorised list of substances permitted for use in food contact plastics is generally updated several times a year. Who will now undertake this and do they have sufficient resources—we are back to resources, of course—to be able to do so?