Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Department of Health and the Department for Education have had discussions with supermarkets about the shortage in supply of fruit and vegetables.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Neither Department has had any recent discussions with supermarkets about any shortage in supply of fruit and vegetables. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is responsible for food supply.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Food Standards Agency concerning its plans to substitute regular food safety inspections with greater self-regulation by business.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Government continues to engage with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the development of its strategic regulatory transformation programme, Regulating our Future, which aims to design a tailored and proportionate system of regulation for food and feed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland by 2020 that reflects relative risk, reinforces accountability and delivers more for public health.
The FSA’s cross-Government engagement includes working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to ensure the future assurance model creates the right regulatory environment for business.
The FSA will set the system standards for the new assurance framework to ensure the very highest levels of consumer protection. Robust mechanisms will be in place to verify the integrity of data coming from regulated private assurance.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to educate pregnant women about the detrimental effects of air pollution on foetuses.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government has produced resources to inform the public and professionals about the risks of carbon monoxide (CO) to the foetus. Elevated exposure to CO can occur indoors due to malfunctioning appliances. Sufficient “test your breath” postcards about the risks of CO have been made available for every pregnant woman for the past two years. An online training module has recently been launched, to support midwifery teams to effectively screen all pregnant women for CO. An algorithm for midwives, to help diagnose CO poisoning in pregnant women and offer advice, was also updated this year.
More recently, a Foreword from the Chief Medical Officer for England introduced the report Every breath we take: The lifelong impact of air pollution which draws attention to the potential effects of indoor and outdoor air pollutants on the developing foetus, particularly the evidence for effects on premature birth and low birth weight. A copy of this report is attached.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether there are sufficient obligations on local authorities to inspect food production companies, and on retailers, to ensure that no food crime or mislabelling is occurring.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Food labelling rules are set at European Union level and provide a framework for mandatory information to be provided on food labels as well as ensuring that food information is not misleading. This Government has pressed for better information for consumers during negotiations relating to food labelling in Europe.
Food businesses are responsible for ensuring their products are safe and accurately labelled. The Government backs this up with risk-based checks carried out by local authorities. In addition, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs develops validated testing methods under its Food Authenticity programme to check for mis-description and fraud. These methods are used by public analysts and local authorities to support food law enforcement.
The majority of food law enforcement is delegated to local authorities throughout the United Kingdom who carry out checks of food businesses in their area to ensure compliance with food safety, traceability and labelling requirements. To support this, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) makes funding available to UK Enforcement Authorities for sampling and surveillance of food to help ensure risk-based, targeted checks on food products throughout the food chain.
The Government has set up the National Food Crime Unit to increase the capacity to identify, disrupt and prevent food crime. It does this in part by developing intelligence packages and passing these either to the police service or to a local authority to take forward the investigation.
Measures to co-ordinate food standards enforcement across Local Authorities are kept under continual review by the FSA to improve effectiveness of delivery, working with local authorities and trading standards professional bodies.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent research findings that magnetite, derived from pollution, can damage the brain, what further research they are funding into the health risks of air pollution.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department’s National Institute for Health Research is funding the Health Protection Research Unit in Health Impacts of Environmental Hazards, whose remit includes air pollution research. This unit is a partnership between King’s College London and Public Health England in collaboration with Imperial College London.
The Research Councils, funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, invest in a range of research into the health impacts of air pollution exposure in the United Kingdom and internationally. They also support research into the sources and processes controlling air pollution and how it can be better monitored and mitigated to inform integrated policies across health, the natural and built environments, transport and energy.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the National Food Crime Unit's budget and enforcement powers are being reviewed in the light of Professor Chris Elliott's recent comments that it does not have enough authority.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
In response to Professor Elliott’s 2014 review of the integrity and assurance of food supply networks, the Government established a National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) to give a focus to enforcement efforts against fraud and criminality in the food chain. The Government, in its response to the Elliott review, agreed there should be a review of progress and likely future need after two years. A copy of the Elliot review and the Government’s response is attached.
The NFCU reaches the two year milestone at the end of December 2016 with the review scheduled to be completed by that time. Work has already begun on the review, which is being carried out within the Food Standards Agency’s resources under the oversight of an independent steering group, made up of three external experts representing law enforcement, consumers and industry. Among other issues the review is considering the resources and enforcement powers available to the NFCU.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria they will use to decide whether the National Food Crime Unit should have direct enforcement powers.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The review of the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) will consider the following issues:
- Current and likely future reactive demand from food crime;
- Current and likely future proactive opportunities to disrupt and prevent food crime;
- Gaps between reactive/proactive demand and current response;
- The current and future role of local authorities, the police service, other government departments/agencies and the wider food crime response landscape, including the international response and cross border collaboration post European Union exit;
- Value for money of current and potential responses; and
- The current form and function of the NFCU, and whether this meets current and future demand.
In the first Food Crime Annual Strategic Assessment, the NFCU highlighted the limitations of current intelligence and reporting, and the difficulties in estimating the scale and impact of food crime. The review will therefore take these limitations into account when considering the current and future demands and opportunities, and make reasonable judgements where evidence is incomplete or lacking.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people were convicted of food crime following the horsemeat scandal in 2013.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The City of London Police investigation into how food products became adulterated with horsemeat led to three men being charged with fraud offences on 26 August 2016.
The charges follow a complex international criminal investigation that saw the City of London Police, which is the National Policing Lead for Fraud, working in partnership with the Food Standards Agency and Crown Prosecution Service, as well as law enforcement agencies from across the United Kingdom and Europe.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to legislate to make restaurants and food outlets display their hygiene ratings.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has responsibility for the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. The FSA has been monitoring the impact of mandatory display of ratings at food outlets in Wales and will look closely at the evidence from this. It is anticipated that proposals will be presented to the Government by the end of the year.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prosecutions for food fraud in the form of meat substitution there were in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Local authorities are responsible for prosecuting meat species substitution offences. Generally, these prosecutions are taken forward under regulations relating to the labelling and mis-description of food, rather than under fraud legislation. The Food Standards Agency has taken on the task of compiling a register of successful food law prosecutions and is just completing the first year of data collection on local authority food prosecutions. However, it does not hold definitive data on prosecutions for offences of this nature in the last three years.