Exiting the European Union (Food and Agriculture)

Debate between Gareth Snell and Steve Brine

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

The instruments, which all concern food and feed safety, relate to those substances collectively known as “regulated products” and to animal feed hygiene and marketing. They are made under the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to carry out necessary amendments to the overarching food regulations so that those can continue to protect public health from risks that may arise in connection with the consumption of food. These are protections that our constituents would expect us to pass.

As the UK leaves the European Union, the Government remain committed to maintaining the high standards of food and feed safety and consumer protection that we enjoy in this country. As some hon. Members are aware, I have recently presented numerous instruments that will help to deliver a functioning body of food and feed law. I say “some hon. Members” because, by and large, they have been taken upstairs—so I like to think that today is a bit like me moving from BBC2 to the primetime slot on BBC1. The instruments will correct deficiencies in the regulations to ensure that the UK is prepared in the event we leave the EU without an agreement.

As with all the previous statutory instruments I have presented, I wish to make it clear that these instruments make no policy changes and that it is not our intention to make any at the present time. Similarly, they are crucial to maintaining the effective controls and standards that protect public health and consumer interests in relation to regulated products used in and on food and animal feed.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the Minister knows, in the ceramics industry contact with food is a huge part of the regulations. What assurances can he give to me that I can relay to the industry that should Europe change its own arrangements for contact rates and provisions—in other words, if our regulatory systems diverge—producers in this country that are in line with our regulations could still sell to the EU?

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Brine]

We have heard a number of well-made points, to which I am pleased to respond.

My dear friend opposite, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), often makes the point that it is late in the day. It is late in the day, but we did not say that all the SIs would be done a year ago. These are complex matters and we have to get them right. Whether they are taken now or next Tuesday is immaterial. The fact is that they will be done, as long as the House agrees to them today. It is important that they are done, because we need to make sure that the law is in the right state, as I set out in my remarks.

The hon. Lady asked about risk assessments, risk management and the loss of EFSA and its scientific expertise. Leaving the EU does not change the FSA’s top priority, which is rightly to ensure that food remains safe. The FSA has strengthened its risk-analysis process in preparation for EU exit. It has had significant extra funding this year of £14 million. That point has been raised by other hon. Members in respect of the FSA’s capabilities.

The FSA will undertake robust risk assessments and provide evidence-based risk management advice and recommendations on future food and feed safety issues. That is nothing new. The UK already produces independent risk assessments that are recognised internationally. The FSA currently undertakes a significant amount of the risk assessment and management work to maintain the high standards we expect.

The point about chlorine-washed chicken came up again, although the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) is no longer in his place. I have been clear about that point many, many times. Chlorine has not been approved and so cannot be used. Chicken that is washed with chlorine cannot be placed on the UK market. The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I have been very clear about that.

The lav—I nearly did it again! I meant to say the laboratory capability. Edit the record. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West made a very good point about having the laboratory capability to assess and validate the methods of detection with the same rigour that we have had at EU level. The bottom line is that the UK is developing alternative approaches to deliver the necessary functions that are currently provided by EFSA, the European Commission and other institutions, including the EU reference laboratory.

We will build on our capacity and capability to carry out those risk assessments and then to manage and control the food and feed safety risks. We already have the network of national reference laboratories in place that help to ensure the safety of our food and feed, and to prevent the entry and spread of infectious diseases in crops, livestock and feed. They are recognised internationally for their scientific expertise, and we are working with them to ensure that they are able to validate new analytical methods and ensure that they can mirror the scientific capability that we have.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West asked about novel foods. I am touched that she thinks that is the most interesting of the four SIs—it is a low bar, but I take her point. She asked whether the UK will maintain the existing process or conduct our own review and assessment. We will start from the list as it stands on exit day. As I said to other Members, there will be full convergence at exit day. Any applications will then be assessed by our UK risk assessors. To answer her question directly, the UK advisory committee on novel foods is the body that will perform the role. That body existed prior to 2015, when that was transferred as a Commission competence. It will be unfrozen and will again carry out assessments for the novel list.

On materials and articles that are in contact with food, the hon. Lady made a point about recycling. She was referring to the requirements of Commission regulation 10/2011. That will be maintained, as I said in my opening remarks. The FSA works very closely with DEFRA, but the recycling remit lies with the Department and is not in scope of the amendments we are discussing today.

The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) is no longer in his place, but I will still respond to his point. He spoke about a food strategy to deal with the crossover between the Department of Health and Social Care and DEFRA. That point was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). I am the sponsor of the FSA as an arm’s length body. It works very closely with DEFRA, the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England, for which I am also responsible. We continue to take a co-ordinated approach on food to support consumer choice. Yes, the fourth SI on feed could as easily have been introduced by a DEFRA Minister, but as my hon. Friend knows full well, what we give to animals ends up in the food chain, so it ends up in my brief.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West touched on consultation. She is often rightly concerned about the impact on industry, which was also mentioned by other hon. Members. We carried out a full public consultation on the proposed approach to retained EU law in the food and safety space before we tabled the SIs. It was open for six weeks from 4 September until the middle of October. The approach we outlined proposed making a number of corrections to retained EU law under the powers of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The responses we received are all available on the food.gov.uk website. Generally speaking, of the 59 responses received, 82% supported or did not disagree in any way with the approach we proposed.

I said to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) that I would come back to ceramics. The ceramics legislation dates from a European directive of 1984. Why it has not been updated before now is a fair question and one that I have asked of officials. I can write to him with more detail without detaining the House. He will be interested to know that work is ongoing at a European level to revise the legislation in this space. The FSA has collaborated closely with the UK industry on the establishment of the new European limits. He may wish to follow that up and check it in his constituency, but I am sure that is the case. Obviously, we are importing the law—the directives and the directions—as they stand. Therefore, anything that was in train on exit, we would not import.

It was interesting to hear the reflections of my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth on how the FSA grew out of the BSE crisis. We should also remember, as I have said many times, that EFSA grew out of the FSA. That is the rock on which it built its church, in many ways. The relationship between the FSA and EFSA is incredibly strong, even though the legal position will change. Many of the people there are actually our people. I am therefore confident that as the ceramics legislation changes, we will have a strong voice around the table, even if, legally, we are not around it.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the Minister for that response. It will be heartening for some of the industries in my city, and I look forward to his letter. The issue that will be of most concern to them, albeit diminished because of his helpful answer, is that significant changes to the food contact regulations could affect the way in which they glaze their products through the use of cadmium or other elements. Whether that changes in the UK has an impact on them, but it also affects them if we lose step with Europe and have two operating standards for exports. I appreciate that that is more of a trade question than a contact question, but the two things are very much linked.

[Steve Brine]

It is a trade question, but ultimately if we want to trade with our biggest trading partner and our neighbours in the EU, we have to maintain those standards. We would not want to do anything to hobble our world famous potteries industry. I know that he agrees with that sentiment.

A lot has been said about GM food and feed. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) made that the kernel of her remarks. The laws around genetic modification were very high profile, perhaps due to Prince Charles’s interventions, back when I was at school.

Paediatric Cancers of the Central Nervous System

Debate between Gareth Snell and Steve Brine

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I will look into that. The late Baroness and I talked about exactly that subject. I do not think it is so much about ethics; I think that this must be clinically led. There is a great deal of debate in the clinical cancer community about the toxicity of concurrent treatments. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the costs, and the importance of supporting parents who must make decisions which are hard enough when people are making them for themselves.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) mentioned an all-party parliamentary group of which I was a member before I was a Minister. I take all-party parliamentary groups so seriously because I used to lead loads of them. I spent hours writing reports, and, dare I say, I wish that they were sometimes taken as seriously as I take such reports.

It is in all-party parliamentary groups that a lot of good work goes on in the House. Opposition Members, who are not in government at this time, have a huge role to play in moving the dial. The smart Ministers are the ones who say that they do not know everything. The lines that the civil service gives them are often great, but they are not the be-all and end-all. I see APPGs as a brilliant and rich vein of knowledge for me, and I learn a lot from them. So yes, I will look out for my hon. Friend’s work in Together for Short Lives.

My constituency contains one of the best children’s hospice trusts, Naomi House and Jacksplace. My heart goes out to the child hospice movement and my respect for it is ample, and what Together for Short Lives does to represent that movement is incredible.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

There is also a fabulous children’s hospice in Stoke-on-Trent, the Donna Louise Trust, which goes above and beyond its remit to support not just children with life-limiting conditions, but their families. Most children’s hospices depend almost 100% on charitable giving and fundraising to undertake such work. Should not we, as a society, be considering that, and should not the state have a role in helping to provide the service when it is needed?

[Steve Brine]

There is a role for the state, but the hospice trust in my constituency told me many times that the last thing it wanted was to be 100% reliant on the state. It does not want to be an arm of the state; it enjoys its charitable status. I remember taking delegations from Naomi House, and from the sector, to meet David Cameron when he was Prime Minister, and I think that we could do a lot better in relation to the specialised commissioning of these services. It is still too confusing and too confused, and still too patchy from clinical commissioning group to clinical commissioning group. We are determined to do better in that regard.

Before I went off on a tangent, I was talking about awareness of childhood cancers, which a number of Members mentioned. We must improve awareness of cancer, full stop. I am very proud of Be Clear on Cancer’s “blood in pee” campaign, which is part of my brief. However, as someone who has young children, I know that the challenge is striking the balance between educating children about the warning signs of cancer and frightening them about a risk that is relatively low at their age. My motto would be that the best must not be the enemy of the good.

A number of Members will know about the work of the Teenage Cancer Trust and CoppaFeel! The hon. Member for Bristol West certainly does, because of the work that she has done in relation to breast cancer. Coppafeel!—I still think that that is the best name for a charity that I have heard since I have been doing this job—is run by Kris Hallenga, a brilliantly brave young lady who has terminal breast cancer. It ran a superb cancer awareness campaign in schools, about which I have talked to secondary schools in my constituency. It is sensitive and evidence-based, and pitched very appropriately.

I recently took both those charities to discuss their campaigns with the Minister for School Standards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb). As the House will know from a statement made by the Secretary of State before the summer recess, the Department for Education will be consulting on its health education guidance until 7 November. I encourage charities, all-party parliamentary groups and parents to put forward their views on how we might go further to educate children about cancer. That is critical if we are serious about prevention, which we are.

Let me end by putting on record my tribute to the NHS doctors, nurses, support staff and charities, and our colleagues in the wider cancer community—Team Cancer, as I call it—who work so tirelessly every day to ensure that our constituents, and thousands of children like Cian, benefit from the support and the expertise that give them a chance of recovery and a full life. They are true heroes. They are the ones who will oversee the potential for huge progress in the next 10 years on the cancer diagnosis, treatment and support that we hope to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Snell and Steve Brine

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

Along with concerns about workload and, for example, indemnities, pensions are an issue that older GPs often bring up with me. Ultimately, it is a matter for Her Majesty’s Treasury. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) raised a similar issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time last week, and the Chancellor was on the Bench to hear it. I am sure he will read the report of these exchanges, too.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Stoke-on-Trent we have some fabulous GPs, not least the wife of the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), but too many people present to A&E because their primary carer is not up to dealing with the workload. That means that the A&E is over-logged so fines are levied on the hospital. What is the Secretary of State going to do to make sure that when hospitals pick up the slack from GPs, they are not subsequently fined by clinical commissioning groups for missing targets?

[Steve Brine]

We are going to integrate primary and secondary care properly through the new models of care—for instance, extended access is important in that. The new multidisciplinary teams—for example, I have talked about pharmacists working in primary care—are not only about providing the plaster when the cut happens, but about preventing the cut in the first place. The prevention agenda is very important.