Food Safety (Hansard, 16 April 1996)

§ 9. Mr. Viggers
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what scientific evidence he takes into consideration in making recommendations on the safety of food products. [23472]

§ Mr. Dorrell
In developing food safety policy, the Government take expert advice from a wide range of sources, including a number of specialist advisory committees.

§ Mr. Viggers
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that he is advised by a range of committees made up of individuals who are pre-eminent in their field? Does he agree that, if we were to contemplate moving to a system as in the United States which has the Food and Drug Administration, it would not be possible to replicate the quality or the dependence of the advice that the Minister currently receives?

§ Mr. Dorrell
I agree with my hon. Friend that the Government are right to continue to rely for advice in those important fields on independent experts gathered together in advisory committees. I think that the country and all hon. Members on both sides of the House would be well served by respecting the scientific eminence of the people who serve on those committees and by accepting the basis of the science that they offer. If they do that, they have that approach in common with every reputable scientific opinion that has been expressed about the latest row about bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

§ Mr. Simon Hughes
Does the Secretary of State accept that there is now a real concern that we should look again at the way in which advice is given about the safety of drugs and food, and that the American FDA experience is a good one? If he is not prepared to commit himself to that, will he at least say that, in future, appointments to committees, such as the important ones to which he has referred today, will be the result of widespread consultation and cross-party agreement, so that they cannot be regarded as either partisan or as excluding perfectly proper alternative views which are relevant to the debate?

§ Mr. Dorrell
Such appointments already are subject to extensive consultation, not on a cross-party basis, because these questions do not lend themselves to party-political opinions, but within the scientific communities from which the scientists are drawn. Furthermore, the public has the extra safeguard that not only is the membership of such committees drawn from an extensive range of opinion within the scientific community, but each of the committees makes it clear that any scientists with an opinion on the issues within the competence of the committees are invited to put their opinions to the committees. Therefore, recruitment to the committees is open as well as the opinions that the committees themselves examine.