Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure consistent enforcement of food hygiene certification standards by local authorities in England.

To support food law enforcement consistency, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) publishes a Food Law Code of Practice. This provides statutory guidance to local authorities on how to meet their legal obligations as regulators of food law.

The FSA operates the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme in partnership with local authorities. The scheme protects public health by publishing a clear rating to indicate how compliant a business is with food hygiene law.

To be an effective incentive, the scheme must be operated consistently. The FSA expects all local authorities to operate the scheme in line with its guidance. The FSA monitors local authority compliance and will intervene when evidence suggests a lack of consistency. The FSA coordinates regular consistency training in which all local authorities are expected to participate.