HC Deb 08 March 1990 vol 168 cc1095-9

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Food Safety Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

  1. (1) any remuneration or allowances payable to the chairmen of tribunals constituted in accordance with regulations made under the Act;
  2. (2) any expenses incurred by a Minister of the Crown by virtue of the Act; and
  3. (3) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment. —[Mr. Sackville.]

10 pm

Mr. Ron Davies (Caerphilly)

You were in the Chamber, Mr. Speaker, for the earlier part of the debate and you will have heard questions being raised about the £30 million. Paragraph (3) of the money resolution refers to any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment. I assume that that is a reference to the additional £30 million. I think that I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Health for his statement that it will be new money. I want to press the point further because I am not sure that we have had an adequate explanation.

The part of the preamble that deals with the financial effects of the Bill says: The additional cost for local authorities is likely to be of the order of £30 million a year from 1991–1992 onwards. This will be taken into account in next year's Revenue Support Grant Settlement. That means in effect that, when the Treasury and the Department of the Environment, in consultation with other Departments, are assessing the total acceptable expenditure on which the revenue support grant is based, they will have to give different weightings to different expenditure heads. For example, if Parliament, under the new Environmental Protection Bill, gives additional responsibility to local authorities in respect of environmental protection, additional weighting will be given to that expenditure head. I assume that equally in the case of the Food Safety Bill additional weight will be given to the heading of environmental health protection.

That is different from providing new money. The Bill does not say that new money will be available; it says that consideration will be given to it. That means that additional weight may be given to that expenditure head. But if lesser weighting is given to, for example, refuse collection because the Government consider that privatisation will lead to savings, that will mean that the Government will assess a lower level of expenditure for the year that the Act is in operation than for the previous year when it was not in operation. Taken with the impact of expenditure cuts, it may mean that, once the legislation is in operation, local authorities will receive less money, even though they have extra responsibilities.

The Minister may be able to clear the matter up. He may be prepared to give us further information. I shall put specific points to him and hopefully we can then complete the rest of the business with expedition. Can he explain why the second paragraph on the financial effects of the Bill does not read: "The additional cost for local authorities is likely to be of the order of £30 million a year from 1991–92 onwards and an additional sum will be added to the Revenue Support Grant settlement in respect of that expenditure"? We would know precisely what that meant. It would mean that the Government have calculated that the additional cost will be £30 million and that the money will be provided. The preamble does not say that. Can the Minister explain why?

Obviously the Minister has had discussions with local authorities and has done a calculation. Can he tell us how much of the £30 million will go to county councils for trading standards enforcement and how much will go to district councils? If he has done a calculation and knows how much it will cost, he must have some idea of the burden that will fall on the counties and on the districts, because both will have additional responsibilities under the Bill. Can he tell us the division between trading standards officers and environmental health officers?

Thirdly, will the Minister give an undertaking to explain this matter? During the past couple of days I have spoken to many local authorities and local authority associations. Frankly, they do not have a clue about how the money will be provided or distributed. They know that they will have additional responsibilities, but they do not know whether there will be any new money or whether the money available will be so allocated that the authorities that, at present, have a lower level of service will use it to bring themselves up or authorities with a good level of service will be penalised because they already meet the standards.

Will the Minister give an assurance that he will meet the Association of County Councils, the Association of District Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and COSLA and explain to them precisely what will happen, what his calculations are and how the money will be allocated and distributed? If the Minister can give some satisfactory answers, we might not have to push this matter to a vote.

Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are debating the money resolution and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) has raised matters which are directly relevant to it. There is no Treasury Minister on the Front Bench to respond to those points, a number of which directly relate to the Treasury's responsibility—particularly the allocation of money in terms of the revenue support grant for future years, of which the £30 million is a part. What Treasury authority has the Minister who is to reply to this debate to make his response? Will he be unable to answer the points made by my hon. Friend?

Mr. Speaker

Who the Government put up to answer the debate is not a matter for the Chair.

10.6 pm

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. David Maclean)

Perhaps I can help the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), although that I feel he was trying to make bricks without straw. I found it extraordinary that when the statement was made that the £30 million would be taken into account in the revenue support grant, he and other Opposition Members asked whether that was new money. When, in winding up the debate, my hon. Friend the Minister made it quite clear that it was new money, the hon. Gentleman sought to get even greater promises and commitments from the Government.

The hon. Gentleman asked why we expressed the issue in the Bill in that way. That is the normal way in which we always express it. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is the problem."] I do not know why hon. Members suddenly want us to break new ground in this Bill. We have made the commitment and chosen to express it in the time-honoured formula, and I am content to do that.

As for how the money will be carved up between the district and county councils, it is far too early in this financial year to come to a firm conclusion now. We have calculated what we think is the appropriate amount of money for the extra responsibilities that the Bill will entail. Of course, through the normal revenue support grant rules, we shall have discussions with the local authorities nearer the time, to go through the details of the matter. It would be inappropriate of me to make any comments or commitments on that tonight, when we are some time away from implementation.

Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro)

I understand the Minister's problem, but surely the real problem is that one would assume that some estimate of how the money was to be divided among the various authorities would have to be made in order to make the calculation. It is hard to understand how the calculation could otherwise be made. Will the Minister also respond to the question that I asked during the debate: how much allowance has been made for setting up the new facilities, which is a different cost from the on-going cost?

Mr. Maclean

We have made no calculations—[HON. MEMBERS: "That is the problem."] Let me rephrase that. The calculations for which the hon. Gentleman asks and the issue of how we shall disperse the money are, at this stage, premature. We have made calculations on the cost of implementing the Bill's details. We have been thorough in those calculations and consulted the local authorities involved. Nearer the time, we shall again consult the local authorities.

My colleagues in the Department of the Environment, who will carry out the normal consultation processes with the local authorities, will discuss with them how the extra £30 million—the new money that my hon. Friend described—will be allocated towards the different responsibilities which the Bill will entail. The Government may make the calculation that the additional costs are £30 million, but the local authorities may decide to spend that money in a different way.

Opposition Members would not find it acceptable for the Government to dictate to the local authorities exactly how that money should be spent. We can allocate money and make calculations under various headings, but if local authorities decide to use that money for other measures, we have no real power to do anything about that.

Mr. Martyn Jones (Clwyd, South-West)

If the £30 million—which has somehow been estimated without making calculations—is new money, will the Minister assure the House that no local authority that has functions under the Bill will receive less money in the next financial year than it has in this financial year?

Mr. Maclean

What an extraordinary question to ask at this stage. My Department, in conjunction with the Department of Health, introduced the Bill to improve food safety. We have calculated that, because of the increased powers that we are granting and because of the improvements that the Bill will make, there will be a requirement for additional resources. We have made the firm commitment of an additional £30 million, which will be taken into account in the rate support grant.

It is inappropriate for the hon. Gentleman to ask me at this stage—many months ahead of the calculations on the full extent of the £5 billion that will go to local government —how it will be allocated and what the allocations will be to individual councils. In preparing the Bill, it has been our duty to calculate the additional resources that will be required. In my opinion, we have done that job exceptionally well.

Although Opposition hon. Members may carp about it now, I was at the press conference when the Bill was launched and I saw the expressions on the faces of those who did not think that there would be any money for enforcement. I saw the look of pleasure when they heard about the £30 million that they had not expected. It is late in the day for Opposition Members to pick holes in it now. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has given a clear commitment about the £30 million and there is nothing that I can usefully add to what has been said.

10.11pm

Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle)

rose——

Mr. Speaker

It is the Minister's reply, but I shall call the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Martlew

The people who were at the press conference with the Minister must have been naive. This sort of thing has happened before in local authorities—it is called funny money. The Minister announces £30 million for health, and then says that he is allowing 5 per cent. for inflation—but inflation is running at 8 per cent. Surely there is a better way to allocate resources to local authorities.

There should be minimum standards, with the number of environmental health officers in local authorities set by the Government. There is another word for those people —the food police. Their job is to police standards in various authorities. We should have a system similar to that for the fire brigade, where the Government lay down minimum standards and the number of environmental health officers to be employed in each district. That must be carefully calculated, as in some districts, such as mine, although there are no major restaurants or cafes because it does not have a tourist industry like that in Blackpool, there are many food processing plants that need to be policed carefully. Therefore, my area should have a greater allocation than some of the suburban London areas, where there are many restaurants but not many food processing plants.

There are varying standards. Some authorities—mainly Conservative authorities—have only a few environmental health officers. Others, such as my authority in Carlisle, have high standards. It would be wrong for the Government to allocate more money to Conservative authorities—which, in the past, have neglected food safety and environmental health—at the expense of authorities that have taken an interest in health over the years.

I am deeply worried that, next year, we shall be listening to the Minister saying, "We gave the district health authorities and the county councils an extra £30 million and they did not spend it on that."

First, by next year, there probably will not be the correct number of environmental health officers available. Secondly, as they have already this month, other Ministers will come to the Dispatch Box complaining about the level of the poll tax. There will always be a temptation not to spend the money on environmental health, but to use it to keep down the poll tax. The Government are always saying that local authorities are overspending.

I do not believe that the £30 million will be enough. There are not sufficient safeguards to ensure that it is spent on environmental health workers. The Bill will be a failure because there will not be the resources to implement it.

10.15 pm
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro)

It is worth saying that the Minister's response was deeply inadequate and that should be on the record. I referred earlier to the difference between strawberry flavour and strawberry flavoured, and I said that there were strawberries only in the latter. This is calculation flavour rather than calculation flavoured. The Minister cannot explain how the Government came up with a figure of £30 million. I have no objection to guesstimates, but the Minister should say that it is a guesstimate rather than a calculation.

Question put and agreed to

Resolved, That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Food Safety Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

  1. (1) any remuneration or allowances payable to the chairmen of tribunals constituted in accordance with regulations made under the Act;
  2. (2) any expenses incurred by a Minister of the Crown by virtue of the Act; and
  3. (3) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment.

  1. FOOD SAFETY BILL [Lords]
      2. c1099
    1. WAYS AND MEANS 34 words
    c1099
  2. WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE 75 words