HL Deb 03 June 2003 vol 648 cc134-5WA
Baroness Byford

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether any local authorities have reduced their budgets for food hygiene enforcement work; if so, which ones; and whether there is correlation between any such reduction and an increase in food poisoning cases in the area concerned. [HL2907]

Baroness Andrews:

The information requested is not held centrally. It is for individual local authorities to set their budgets for food law enforcement work from funding received through the revenue support grant. It is for each authority to ensure that it can meet its statutory obligations and the agreed standards of food enforcement work as set out in the Food Standards Agency Framework Agreement on Local Authority Food Law Enforcement.

Under this agreement, the Food Standards Agency monitors and audits local authority work on food law enforcement, but not the budgets. For 2001, the agency identified 20 local authorities with unacceptably low levels of food law enforcement activity, or for not making any returns. Seventeen of these gave resource issues as part of the reasons for their results.

The agency is not able to link budgets for food law enforcement with levels of food poisoning cases.