Food Safety Bill [H.L.]

HL Deb 18 January 1990 vol 514 cc741-98

3.28 p.m.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee. —(Baroness Trumpington.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]

Clause 16 [Food safety and consumer protection]:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hooper) moved Amendment No. 64: Page 12, line 18, leave out ("any class of food, or in food sources or any class of").

The noble Baroness said: The amendment has already been spoken to with Amendment No. 41. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 64A: Page 12, line 23, leave out ("(whether going to the fitness of the food or otherwise)") and insert ("(going wherever practicable to the fitness of the food)").

The noble Lord said: The amendment deals with Clause 16(1) which contains a provision that could be subject to misinterpretation. The intention of the words now appearing in brackets in the subsection is to admit the use of microbiological standards of varying types.

However, as the World Health Organisation report pointed out, since food which meets microbiological standards may not be safe to eat, in our view it would be better if the provision contained a presumption in favour of using the strongest regulations possible. If such a provision is not included, the paragraph contains a possible loophole in that there is no requirement to prescribe microbiological standards which seek the highest level of fitness of food which can be attained. However, Ministers may wish to offer an assurance that it is the Government's intention to use their powers to meet the highest standard available and that the wording in the paragraph is merely intended to enable flexibility in interpreting that aim. I beg to move.

Baroness Hooper

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, for his explanation of the intention behind the amendment. I can certainly give him the assurance that we intend to aim at the highest standards. However, I regret that I can not accept his amendment because the effect of it is unclear.

Exclusion of the word "otherwise" in line 23 would seem to aim to confine the power to make microbiological standards to the fitness of food only. There may be circumstances where one would wish to make microbiological standards for other reasons, as I believe the noble Lord acknowledged, particularly the quality of food. As an example, the microbiological standard ensuring the fitness of milk could require the absence of pathogenic micro-organisms which can cause milk-borne disease. However, other spoilage organisms could, if present, cause a deterioration in the quality of the milk during its normal shelf life. A microbiological standard covering quality aspects can provide protection to very young or very old, who are vulnerable people, as well as providing the general consumer with more assurance on quality.

In the light of those comments, I trust that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Gallacher

I may not have been a microbiologist at the start of today but I believe that we shall all be microbiologists by the end of today. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving me the assurance which I sought that implicit in the clause as now worded is the intention of the Government that the highest standards of food will prevail. I hope that that will go some way to satisfying the intention behind this amendment.

However, I shall look in detail at her reply because some of it was rather technical. I shall look particularly at the criticism she made of the drafting of the amendment. In the light of that consideration, it may or may not be necessary for me to return to this matter on Report. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hooper moved Amendment No. 65: Page 12, line 27, leave out ("or any class of food").

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Baroness Hooper moved Amendment No. 66: Page 12, line 32, leave out ("as to, and") and insert ("or prohibitions as to, or").

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Rea moved Amendment No. 67: Page 12, line 34, after ("descriptions") insert (", including health claims,").

The noble Lord said: This amendment relates to Clause 16(1)(e) which is intended to improve the protection of consumers against health claims for food or food products which may be misleading. I am aware that there is already legislation which covers some of the ground and the food labelling regulations of 1984 are useful.

The wording of this paragraph in its current form makes provision for further regulations controlling labelling, marketing, presentation and advertising of food. Health and nutritional claims could well be included in those categories but the words "health", "nutrition" or "claims" are not specifically mentioned. I think that they should be. Certainly the words "health claims", as in my amendment, should be mentioned.

The effect of nutrition and food additives on health is, as I think all Members of the Committee will agree, of increasing public concern. Scientific evidence relating nutrition to a number of our current major health problems such as atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease and cancer is becoming increasingly clear and consistent. That means there is a real need for new regulations on health and nutritional claims to be made and updated as necessary.

A health claim suggests that a particular food product may have a beneficial effect on health generally or on a specific medical condition. The latter needs particular scrutiny. For example, a recent advertisement which many Members of the Committee may have seen had as its caption: Worried about osteoporosis? Consult an expert". The caption appeared above a picture of a milkman delivering milk. In fact, the calcium in milk has no effect on established osteoporosis and the code of advertising practice operated by the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint about that particular claim. The advertisement was subsequently withdrawn but not until it had appeared all over the country. The firm concerned had no penalty imposed upon it.

I am not suggesting that health claims are necessarily bad. They can be extremely useful and can be used as part of a health education campaign. However, it is very wrong if they give false information. By including the words "health claims", I suggest that the Government would give themselves a useful opportunity to revise, improve and bring up to date existing legislation and regulations on a continuing basis to fit in with current and developing scientific knowledge.

If the noble Baroness feels that the words in the clause as it stands cover all the points which I have made and the Government intend to make regulations governing health claims, I should be most grateful if she would say so. How she says that will of course govern what I decide to do on this amendment.

Lord Colwyn

Before the Minister replies, many existing herbal, mineral, vitamin and other food supplements have medicinal health claims and effects which are known and universally accepted. I believe that the amendment is unnecessary as medicinal claims are fully covered by existing medicines legislation and food claims by existing food legislation. The words proposed would cause further problems for the much beleaguered food manufacturers and I hope that they will be rejected.

Baroness Trumpington

I imagine that whatever I say nearly always influences what will happen to an amendment. I was interested to hear the noble Lord. I agree entirely that Ministers should be able to regulate the use of health claims on food labels. However, I assure the noble Lord that that is already achieved by the present wording.

As it stands, the clause allows Ministers to regulate the descriptions which may be applied to food. It is well established that that covers all food claims including health claims. In fact the noble Lord's amendment could weaken the proposed power by casting doubt upon the interpretation of the word "description". While the word is not defined in any way, it is taken to be all embracing. However, if health claims were specifically mentioned, there might be some doubt as to whether other types of claim which were not specifically mentioned were also covered. Moreover, where the word "description" appeared in other legislation without reference to health claims, it would no longer be clear that such claims were covered.

The noble Lord asked me whether the Government were going to cover health claims. Some are already dealt with in labelling requirements. I should like to add that the EC is also about to introduce proposals on claims. I would say that the example given by the noble Lord was obviously wrong, and that it is for the Advertising Standards Authority to point out when false claims are made.

Lord Rea

I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. Her words reassure me to some extent. I shall have to scrutinise them more carefully when I see Hansard tomorrow, but I thank her very much for her reply. At this moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hooper moved Amendment No. 68: Page 12, line 34, leave out ("or any class of food").

The noble Baroness said: This amendment was also spoken to with Amendment No. 41. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 68A: Page 12, line 38, leave out ("necessary or expedient") and insert ("desirable").

The noble Lord said: This amendment refers to Clause 16. The object of the amendment, again, is, in a sense, to test the views of Ministers on the interpretation of the clause. The words which intrigue us in that clause are those appearing at line 38, "necessary or expedient". Our feeling is that those three words might usefully be replaced by the single word "desirable".

The paragraph contains a reserve power for Ministers to make regulations introducing provisions with respect to food or commercial operations as appear to them to be necessary or expedient in the interests of food safety, public health or consumers. Our amendment therefore is intended to test the basis on which the Government would use their new power.

The paragraph leaves considerable discretion in the hands of Ministers who will determine what is necessary and whether action in relation to it is expedient. The word "desirable" would import a presumption in favour of action where food safety, public health or consumers appeared to be at any degree of risk from an activity which might otherwise be regulated. We hope that Ministers will be able to indicate that they can accept this amendment since it may be assumed that powers will be used wherever it is desirable to do so.

Finally, in favour of this modest proposition, perhaps I may say that as it substitutes one word for three words, it should be supported by legislators everywhere. I beg to move.

Baroness Trumpington

I am sorry, but I cannot accept the noble Lord's amendment. Clause 16(1)(f) already contains a comprehensive power which allows Ministers to make regulations wherever it is necessary and expedient to protect the public health or the interests of consumers. The Government will not hesitate to use these powers whenever it is necessary or expedient to do so. However, I believe it would be quite inappropriate to allow Ministers complete freedom of action whenever they considered something to be merely desirable. Who would say what was or was not desirable? Such a power would allow regulations to be made almost at a whim, even when they were not necessary.

Despite the fact that I am always in favour of brevity, I fear we shall have to leave the paragraph as it stands.

3.45 p.m.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

Before we leave what is desirable and expedient in connection with food sources, perhaps I may ask my noble friend a further question, again concerning the catering industry. In the Bill there appears to be a possibility that food sources will have to be designated on menus and other places where food is processed and served to the public. If that is the case, restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, public houses and other such institutions will be required to say how food had been processed. As it is, when you enter a restaurant, or even a sandwich bar, you obviously take on trust the source of that food. The ingredients may well have been organic, chemically sprayed, frozen, microwaved, pasteurised or even, in due course (depending on what happens later today), irradiated.

The concern of the catering industry in its broadest sense is that if such regulations were thought at any time to be necessary, expedient or, I am glad to say considered by most people as not wholly undesirable, this would have a major effect on a whole section of a large part of the small business industry. I should therefore like to inquire, before we leave this clause altogether, whether it is the Government's intention to incorporate regulations which would interpret the Bill in that manner. If so, that would be very worrying. However, if there is to be full and fair consultation, or if it is not the Government's intention to have such regulations, that would not be a worry.

I have not given the noble Baroness much warning of this question. If she is not able to reply to me immediately, I would not be in the least concerned; and perhaps she can either write to me or we can deal with it at a later time.

Baroness Trumpington

I am sure of the fact that we have given a commitment that we shall include the word "irradiation" on menus in restaurants. With regard to the various other aspects that could possibly be included on menus, it would probably end up by being difficult to see what one was intending to eat. However, we shall be reviewing the matter, and talking to restaurant owners and other interested parties.

We are reviewing labelling requirements in general, and until we have completed that review it would be impossible, apart from my firm commitment on "irradiation", to introduce definitive remarks in answer to my noble friend.

Lord Gallacher

I thank the noble Baroness for her response to this amendment, though naturally I am somewhat disappointed by it. The noble Baroness referred to the comprehensive power already scheduled in Clause 16(1)(f) and in effect assured me that Ministers would not hesitate to use those powers. To replace "necessary or expedient" with the word "desirable" could allow Ministers scope for being capricious and to that extent she has perhaps something of a case against the amendment as drafted.

Nevertheless, we must look at this question in some detail—perhaps also in the light of the intervention by the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery—because an aspect of this Bill which has hardly been touched upon and which concerns us is the question of enforcement in the catering industry. It covers a very wide spectrum. It is an area where food enforcement is most difficult to regulate. There is —and I say so with due respect to the noble Viscount —a bottom line mentality now in the catering trade, probably spurred by the competition of tourism. All of this might mean that the Bill needs to be stronger in respect of catering than it is in other respects. Nevertheless, we are not opening up that particular question at this stage, but it may be necessary for us to return to it later in the Bill. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 69:

Page 12, line 43, at end insert — ("1A) In making regulations under subsection (1) above, the Minister shall take all necessary actions to ensure that all food treated with pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, whether pre-harvest or post-harvest, be labelled as such.").

The noble Viscount said: There has grown up in recent times a great deal of public concern about the use of pesticides in agriculture and in particular about the residues left in food. More and more people are turning to organic produce. This may in some cases be an exaggerated concern, but nevertheless it is a fact. Those who take a particular interest in these things know that, in the absence of a tag stating that a particular vegetable or fruit has been treated with pesticides, it almost certainly has been so treated.

The Government say that consumers should have as much choice as possible. This amendment therefore merely seeks to support the wishes and the aims of the Government in giving the consumer as much choice as possible. This amendment seeks to fulfil that in one way. Nobody is saying that food which has been treated with pesticides should not be sold under any circumstances. If that came about it would create an impossible situation because the whole of our agricultural system is geared to that end at the present time. People should have the right to make an informed decision for themselves. The motivation behind our amendment is that at present people do not have enough information on which to base these important decisions.

To those who say that pesticide residues do not matter one can only say that a growing number of people show an enormous amount of concern about them. Labels already have to show the contents of tiny amounts of additives, colouring agents, emulsifiers and so on, and quite rightly so. Why then are the public not told that the food that they are buying may well contain the residues of products which have a function basically to destroy living organisms?

It has been argued —and it may be that the noble Baroness will continue to argue —that pesticides present no problem whatever. However, there are one or two recent cases that have been brought to my attention which show cause for concern. A confidential report was produced by MAFF's own advisers and, not surprisingly, it was not published. A report in the Guardian in the summer of 1988 referred to a health hazard to man which some pesticides are likely to pose. In a famous phrase the subject was referred to rather alarmingly as "bucket and shovel techniques" which are commonly supposed to be used to apply pesticides after harvesting. The report stated that as a result consumers may well be exposed to higher dosages than those which had been formerly suspected. Such residues could present a health hazard. We feel that some statutory control should be enacted to limit exposure to pesticides.

A television programme in the "Facing South" series revealed that in 1988 1,500 tonnes of tomatoes and thousands of lettuces had been destroyed because inspectors found that they had been sprayed only a day before harvesting. A report prepared by Friends of the Earth revealed that 43 individual pesticides were recorded as having been applied to glasshouse lettuces. One crop received 46 treatments involving four individual pesticides.

Recently, in the United States, tests have been carried out on population samples. Detectable DDT related residues were found in the blood of 60 per cent. of the people tested though DDT had been outlawed in 1971. Despite assurances emanating from the Ministry and other quarters, besides what has appeared in the media and elsewhere, there are considerable doubts about pesticides in food among members of the public. The pesticides may or may not be a health hazard: I am not saying that they definitely are. However, what is clear is that a growing number of people wish to make a choice. They should be informed to an extent where they can make a proper choice. They cannot do that at the moment —a situation which my amendment is intended to correct.

In a survey carried out in the mid-eighties —I do not have anything more recent than that —86 per cent. of a sample of consumers in Britain said that if they had the choice they would pay more for foods free of the chemicals about which there is increasing concern. Since this majority is likely to increase rather than decrease I wish to give people the chance to have what they clearly want. I beg to move.

Lord Mottistone

I suggest to the Committee and to the noble Viscount that neither this amendment nor Amendments Nos. 70, 71 or 72 are necessary. More importantly, they are not appropriate on the face of the Bill. The matters involve detailed labelling issues and as such they are under discussion, or already part of, the EC food labelling directive. It is also relevant to say that currently a UK food advisory committee review of food labelling is taking place. That is where these matters should be dealt with. I do not believe that we should spend too much time on these amendments.

The Viscount of Falkland

Perhaps I may be permitted to respond to the noble Lord. I intended to make some remarks on that very subject in relation to the last amendment I shall move in this group. That amendment refers to the type of legislation being used and although I have no particular objection to discussing this on the present amendment what I have to say on the subject of irradiation will be dealt with in connection with Amendment No. 73. I shall wish at that stage to take up the points which the noble Lord has raised.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

In addition to what has been said there are other valid points that need to be made in support of the noble Viscount. The labelling situation in this country is unsatisfactory. The public are confused at the lack of standardisation. They want to follow recommended guidelines for healthy eating, for the prevention of heart disease, and so on. However, at the moment they do not have the necessary nutritional information on the food in shops on which they can base a choice. Also as the noble Viscount said, the public wish to be able to avoid substances in their food which may disagree with them.

Under present regulations and over quite a large area the public can avoid such substances. But there are gaps which are made more serious as new information comes to light. These gaps need to be plugged and I believe that that can be done. I am not convinced that we need to wait for the EC or anyone else. Some of the gaps are targeted in these amendments. I wish to say something about Amendment No. 69.

As the noble Viscount said, there is growing concern about the kinds of agent referred to in this amendment. Anything that ends with "cide" is in the business of killing. And that is not good for life. It is as unreasonable to believe that such substances do no harm to humans as it is to assume that acid rain only harms plant life. All these matters to which we are exposed add up. The argument that the doses are too small to do harm is less and less tenable.

There are well-documented cases of people who have suffered from exposure to these agents. I wish to amplify what the noble Viscount said. I have read that one independent review of scientific literature found that of 426 pesticide ingredients approved by MAFF, no fewer than 124 were known or suspected to have links with cancer, genetic damage, allergies or irritations of some kind.

The Select Committee in another place investigating pesticides and human health had some sharp things to say in 1987 about the degree of risk and the lack of official response to it. We believe that the Government's advisers are well aware of the potential danger from residues in food. They all add up to a cocktail of noxious substances to which we are increasingly exposed. It is right that consumers should be able to avoid any agents which they wish to avoid. That can only be achieved through proper labelling.

The Government accept the need to label food if it has been affected by irradiation, which is a supposedly harmless process. I hope that they will agree the need to label pesticides, fungicides and herbicides which have a potential for harm.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

Of course there is anxiety about these matters and both noble Lords are right to highlight it and to give illustrations. I do not know whether either of them has studied how food is created and what the implications will be with labelling of this kind. It would mean that every field that was sown with wheat for bread, with vegetables or potatoes, would have to be hoed by a row of people in a line. That is a slow business and it could be done only in dry weather. It would be enormously expensive. We are not talking about gardening in the back yard. We are talking about the growing of food for the nation. The price of food would escalate enormously. I do not know whether my noble friend has the figures but I am sure prices would increase by a factor of six, seven, eight, nine or ten if no weed killers were used in growing food. It would be enormously expensive.

We talk about choice and we are right to do so. In many instances in this Bill I quite agree that labelling is the way forward. But labelling every item of food which had been treated with a pesticide, a fungicide or a herbicide at some stage —when it was sown, while it was growing or after it was harvested —would mean that almost no foods without such labels would be available, except those which well-off people could pay for. It would put labelling into disrepute. People would begin to disregard it. It is not practical to do that at this stage.

I am sure that my noble friend will tell us about the way pesticides are tested and monitored. We must do everything we can scientifically to ensure that farmers do not put harmful substances on the crops. We all know that there comes a moment when something put on crops is proved to be harmful, but this amendment is completely impracticable. When noble Lords bring forward amendments of this kind they should think out the implications of their being agreed to. It is probably perfectly true that if one asked 86 per cent. of people or even a larger sample whether they would like to have something which has never met any of these chemicals they would say that they were willing to pay more, but they are thinking of paying 2p, 5p or 10p more. They are not thinking of the price of bread increasing sixfold or tenfold. I hope that the Committee will not accept the amendment.

4 p.m.

Lord Carter

It is important in discussing the amendment to consider the technical point of the status of the scientific protocols concerned in the measurement of residue levels. This is extremely important to manufacturers, farmers and consumers. The Minister will be familiar with the example of oilseed rape. The EC introduced a change in the subsidy rules which meant that there was a maximum level, measured in micromoles, of glucosinalates. This affected the subsidy. But there was no agreement about the way in which this should be measured. It is important for the Minister to explain to the Chamber—perhaps she may need to write to me afterwards —exactly how the Government intend to deal with the status of the scientific protocols in determining the levels of the residue.

The Earl of Radnor

I hope that my noble friend will resist the amendment. If I were cynical I think I would say to the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, that if he wants choice he can almost assume that everything has been sprayed in one way or another except those things he finds on the shelf which positively say that they have not been.

On a less facetious note, the impracticality of the suggestion must be borne in mind. I have only two suggestions to make in this connection. Let us suppose that a crop of wheat is sprayed for aphids soon before harvest. It then goes into the grain store and is mixed up with wheat that has not been sprayed for aphids. It then goes to the miller and finally goes into a loaf of bread. What labelling is one to put on the loaf of bread? Another example, more up my own street, concerns a pond of fish among, say, 200 ponds of fish. It has a little diffusion in the water to kill an external parasite. Trout are graded the whole time, so the treated fish are mixed with the untreated fish. The mixing and remixing process goes on until eventually they go to harvest, when they would be rather hard to label and identify. To put it crudely, this proposal is pie in the sky. I hope that it will be strongly resisted.

Lord Colwyn

I do not wish to prolong the debate but I feel strongly on this point. Only a small number of pesticides cause the greatest hazard to health. Although I may not be up to date with current regulations, I know it has been suggested that the three petrochemical compounds, the herbicide Linuron and the insecticides Chlorodineform and Permethrin, should be banned. The problem at present is that one cannot tell whether the product contains an excessive quanity of pesticide without this clear labelling obligation.

In May 1987 the Committee of the American Academy of Sciences thought that an incidence of 5.8 cases of cancer per thousand was a likely forecast for people consuming food which had been treated with these pesticides. There can be no better argument for selecting organically grown fruit and vegetables, particularly if they have some other seal of approval. Foods, herbs and spices imported from overseas are also often heavily contaminated and are rarely checked for pesticide residues. The laboratory equipment at our ports —I look forward to hearing whether or not the Minister can confirm this —is so outdated that it takes 10 to 14 days to arrive at a proper analysis, by which time the food is bad.

In view of the comments we have heard, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and hope that she will look favourably on the amendment.

Baroness Trumpington

I am most grateful to my noble friends Lady Carnegy and Lord Radnor for their helpful remarks and I was interested in the remarks of my noble friend Lord Colwyn. He mentioned en passant organically grown food. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, referred to choice. There is choice. A consumer can buy organically grown food, as marked in the shops. Perhaps I may remind him that there is as yet no test to prove that the food has been organically grown.

This proposal raises an important and difficult issue, although I believe it is unnecessary. Clause 16(1)(e) provides Ministers with wide-ranging powers to require or regulate the labelling of food. Ministers could therefore make regulations covering pesticide treatments. While Ministers obviously believe strongly in informative labelling, the issue of pesticide treatments is extremely complicated. It is currently being considered both by the EC and by the Food Advisory Committee. It would be premature at this stage to pre-empt the outcome of their deliberations.

I shall have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on the status of scientific protocols. We must be careful not to confuse or mislead the consumer. This proposal would have wide implications since it would mean that pesticides used at every stage of cultivation, even before emergence of a crop, would have to be shown on the label of the final product. Yet three-quarters of the volume of pesticides used in this country are herbicides —weed killers —which do not leave any residues in food.

A less sweeping approach would be to label only those pesticides applied after harvest. This is the approach adopted by the European Commission in a proposal relating to fruit and vegetables. Even this needs careful thought. Could it be enforced? The point raised by my noble friend Lord Radnor was a good one. Given that pesticides can be applied by a multiplicity of handlers at several stages of the food chain, one asks oneself whether it could be enforced. We must bear in mind that no one test determines whether or not pesticides have been applied. Instead, hundreds of tests will be necessary, one for each potential pesticide.

My noble friend Lady Carnegy asked how much the proposal would cost. Has the noble Viscount any idea? Has he contemplated the consequences for farming and the food industry of logging all uses of pesticides named in the proposal and tying them to the final product through the entire distribution chain? Certainly the Government will have to consider fully the heavy burdens such a requirement would place before reaching a conclusion.

Perhaps I may now reassure those noble Lords who are worried about pesticide residues in food. The Government carry out regular monitoring of our food, both home produced and imported, the results are published and they show that residues are at a low and entirely safe level. Moreover, pesticides can only be used in this country if they have first been approved by a rigorous statutory scheme which ensures the safety of consumers.

Finally, the noble Viscount referred to a confidential report of MAFF which was published in the Guardian. Perhaps I should say that he should have referred to what was said in that article.

The Viscount of Falkland

We have had a most useful debate on this subject and one which was refreshingly non-party political in content. I have listened with enormous interest to all the views expressed from the other side of the Chamber. Moreover, I take on board many of the points raised, especially those in connection with the difficulties. Of course I realise the difficulties in taking this process to its ultimate conclusion and I appreciate the vision of rows of ladies with hoes progressing down the field, as given by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour. I quite take her point.

However, by way of this amendment we are asking that all the necessary actions should be taken. Of course what is proposed is not easy; it is complicated. Further, my amendment may be imperfect and impractical. I am not a fanatic in these matters; indeed, I am probably one of the more cavalier people as regards my eating habits, since I have suffered food poisoning four times and have also had hepatitis. Nevertheless, I take seriously the concerns which many people have about the number of chemicals and residues which are left in food. I realise the difficulties in dealing with the problem. However, I shall not pursue the matter and propose to withdraw the amendment. I think that we have had a useful debate and I daresay there will be further such debates on the subject in the future. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the discussion. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

4.15 p.m.

The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 70:

Page 12, line 43, at end insert— ("(1A) In making regulations under subsection (1) above, the Minister shall take all necessary actions to ensure that the exemption from labelling requirements enjoyed by beverages where the alcoholic content is above 3 per cent. be annulled.").

The noble Viscount said: At this stage perhaps I may preface my remarks by putting forward my response to the interjection during the discussion on the last amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. Tedious though it may be, it is important that my amendments under Clause 16 should follow one another. Of course, there is a good reason for that process. We on these Benches feel quite strongly that such primary legislation —and not just that confined to this Bill —is often dealt with in a way which would be more suitable for secondary legislation. As I said when I responded intitially to the last amendment, and I say it again in connection with this one, I should have thought that it could perfectly properly be dealt with by the Government through regulation.

However, there are matters which we shall come to that are not best dealt with in that way. Indeed, I was interested to see today that there is a debate which has been tabled by a member of the noble Baroness's party who is a distinguished Member of this place, on the way that legislation is dealt with in this Chamber. That implies that there is a feeling, even on the other side of the Chamber, that too much importance is put upon the use of regulation to bring in matters of this kind and also more serious matters. I apologise if the process is a lengthy one, especially when we are hoping to finish the Committee stage of the Bill today.

I turn now to Amendment No. 70. It deals with the anomaly in this country where labelling requirements so far as concerns alcoholic drinks are not consistent with other labelling requirements. Over many years the Government have accepted that consumers have every right to know what additives are present in the food which they buy. The Food Advisory Committee has accepted that among a certain percentage of the population there is an undesirable reaction, whether it be serious or not so serious, to the additive tartrazine. I do not wish to delve any further into the chemistry of such matters, but leaving aside the question of whether that particular additive should or should not be allowed, at least those who suffer such reactions and those who know about such matters can make an informed choice and avoid buying products which contain tartrazine if they wish. However, no such choice is open to consumers of alcoholic beverages.

I have a reaction to certain wines. They happen to be cheap and red. I do not wish to malign Italian restaurants, but usually such wines are to be found in those establishments. I do not know why I get a headache and a feeling of irritability—which, I should add, I do not have now—but it seems to me that it is not the alcoholic content because I do not drink a lot of it. However, there is clearly something in the wine to which I have a reaction. In my view many people suffer such reactions.

I am not myself a beer drinker, but I am told by those who drink beer that headaches are suffered by people who drink beer but that this does not often happen in respect of German beers. That suggests, since German beer is generally free of additives, that it must logically be because of an additive in our beer. Therefore, for one reason or another many people are becoming extremely sensitive to what they buy and are not quite sure how to go about it. Thus there is a kind of hit and miss activity among consumers.

I am also told that there is a pretty high level of additives in beer. Moreover, colouring matter which I understand is derived from caramel —which is an E factor —is permitted in beer. I am informed that the level is two-and-a-half times that permitted to be put in bread. There is also another important point in this connection. I refer to the increased public awareness of additives in food which was discussed during the debate on the last amendment. It has led to consumer pressure for a reduction in the number of additives. This has been successful and has not been to the detriment —at least I do not think so—of the quality of the products, nor has it affected their profitability.

However, I do not think that any of us knows what reductions have taken place as regards additive levels in beer and wine, if indeed there have been any. So far as I know this situation has persisted for some time. In my case I still suffer the same reaction if I am foolish enough to drink certain red wines in Italian restaurants. People are denied the relevant information to which I think they are entitled. Therefore, in moving this amendment I am seeking to assist them. There is no doubting the fact that people are allergic to certain ingredients. Moreover, they have to go through a long and painstaking process to find out what substances affect them. It seems that alcoholic drinks quite often contain the guilty factor in this connection.

Again in this respect I suggest to the noble Baroness that the exemptions so far as concerns alcoholic drinks are not logical. They do not conform to the Government's expressed views about giving choice to and satisfying the interests of the consumer. I beg to move.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

So far as concerns alcoholic beverages, in my view it is just as important that they should be labelled as anything else that we eat or drink. As has already been pointed out, it is a handicap to people who react adversely to drinks not to be able to tell whether their problem is the alcohol itself or some agent put in by the manufacturer or, if they find out, not to be sure of avoiding the drinks that make them ill.

I shall digress for just a moment. It is interesting to note that one of the pioneers in food allergy in this country, Dr. Richard Mackarness, who wrote the well-known book Not All In The Mind, has recently been working in Australia on alcoholism, which he often finds to be a manifestation of allergy —that is, a craving for the substance to which you react. He has discovered that people react to individual brands of beer or spirits and therefore he has to know which brand they habitually drink. With whisky it may be the grain that is the trouble. People allergic to wheat or corn can have trouble with Scotch Rye or Bourbon. There is not a great deal that they can do about that.

When it comes to the less essential activities about which we are talking —it is good to note that the Government are now outlawing colourings in table wines, for which we are grateful —the customer needs the full information. If he receives it and does his sums, the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, will find that after two pints of stout he will already have exceeded the daily recommended intake of caramel colouring E 150.

I have heard a whisper that with the amendment we may be pushing at a half-open door. I hope that I am not misinformed about that and that the Minister will look favourably on this logical step in our labelling laws. I support the amendment.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

First, even if some of these ingredients or additives were mentioned on wine bottles, I do not believe that most consumers would be any the wiser. Secondly, I should be happy to advise the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, outside the Chamber on his wine consumption so that he can improve his habits.

Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone

I wonder whether it has occurred to those who tabled the amendment that there is an increasing consumption of low-alcohol and no-alcohol beverages which are called wine and beer. Reading the amendment, one must of course remember (must one not?) that those beverages are not made in the ordinary way without alcohol but in the ordinary way with the alcohol and the alcohol is then taken out. If the amendment were accepted in the form in which it is drafted, one would have all the bad E factors in low-alcohol and no-alcohol wine and low-alcohol and no-alcohol beer as one would if they were fully alcoholic. I should rather take my poison with the alcohol.

Lord Colwyn

I am sure that that is a cogent point. If, for example, one is an asthmatic and sensitive to sulphur dioxide, which is E 220, commonly used in wines, beer and cider as a preservative, one has no way of telling whether it is present or how much there is. People with other allergies cannot tell whether a drink contains something that they do not like. It is almost impossible for an analyst, without great expense, to see that such products contain only permitted ingredients, because there is no yardstick on the label with which to compare the analytical data.

Recent tests by the Dutch consumer organisation and by Which? magazine found that many wines were near the maximum permitted limit. If one drank a quarter of a litre (two glasses) of white wine or one-third of a litre of red wine (about three glasses) one could exceed the acceptable daily intake. Unless there is the safeguard of labelling on alcoholic drinks, disastrous and dangerous episodes such as the Austrian wine scandal are certain to happen again. The Committee will remember that the contaminant was diethylene glycol, which can improve the flavour of cheap wine; and 0.33 cc daily of that contaminant is a potential hazard, and 100 cc is fatal.

There is no reason why responsible manufacturers should not voluntarily tell us what is in their drinks, and I urge the Minister to accept the amendment.

Baroness Trumpington

It has been a most interesting debate. This type of detail is inappropriate for the Bill. It is in any case not possible for the United Kingdom unilaterally to make the changes proposed since food labelling legislation in general, and the labelling of wines and spirits in particular, is harmonised throughout the European Community. The Food Labelling Regulations 1984 applied to alcoholic drinks, although those exceeding 1.2 per cent. ABV (alcohol by volume) are currently exempt from declaring ingredients and those of 10 per cent. ABV or more, together with wine, cider and beer in bulk containers, are exempt from date marking.

The European Commission should shortly be making proposals to require ingredient listing, including additives, of alcoholic drinks. We shall give those proposals careful consideration, taking account of the views of interested parties. I know that consumer groups are keen to have such requirements. I understand their concerns. The Community has already said that alcoholic drinks of 10 per cent. ABV and above should be exempt from the date-marking provisions. There is logic in that exemption. The Committee will undoubtedly be aware that alcohol is a well-recognised preservative. I therefore hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, and the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, will feel able to withdraw their amendment in the light of those explanations.

The Viscount of Falkland

It has again been an interesting debate. I sense a pleasing invitation from the noble Viscount opposite which I shall gladly take up. He will introduce me to expensive wines which have no after-effects. I feel remiss for not having mentioned no-alcohol and low-alcohol beers, being myself vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Alcohol Services Group. It is right that to remove the alcohol and leave all the things about which we are complaining would not be satisfactory. I take on board what the Minister has said. I shall take back this matter and look at it, but at this stage I should like to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 71:

Page 12, line 43, at end insert — ("(1A) In making regulations under subsection (1) above, the Minister shall take all necessary actions to ensure that any product which contains mechanically recovered meat be so labelled.").

The noble Viscount said: Mechanically recovered meat is produced by putting animal bones into a special machine which pulverises them. The bones are stripped of all meat and gristle. Great pressure is used, and the result is commonly called slurry, a word which conjures up unpleasant pictures. The meat is completely unrecognisable as meat. It is possible for bone fragments to slip through the process. We feel that the produce should be labelled as such for various reasons, the main reason being that it is a change from the way meat has been traditionally prepared.

Before the advent of the technology and the use of such meat, the residues would have gone to what is popularly known as the knacker's yard. The resulting slurry, as is suggested, is broken down so thoroughly that it is often biologically unstable, with consequent possible nutritional implications.

I can give an interesting illustration of the position which my amendment addresses. Shropshire County Council believes that the EC food labelling directive requires mechanically recovered meat to be labelled. In a test case in 1988, the county council took Mr. Bernard Matthews, trading as Matthews Norfolk Farms, to court on that issue and won at Telford magistrates' court. His products now bear a label which states that mechanically recovered meat is included. Other companies argue that that decision does not apply to them. They have clearly obtained an advantage which might be deemed to be unfair.

The Government continually claim that their policies are based on true, accurate and informative labelling. In those circumstances, I should not have thought that they could have a great deal of objection to my amendment. I beg to move.

4.30 p.m.

Lord Colwyn

There have been regulations governing meat products since July 1986 and there is a list of the parts of the carcass which may not be used in uncooked meat products. But the unacceptable, uncooked bits are permitted in cooked meat products. I shall not list the bits, as that may put Members of the Committee off ever eating a pre-cooked meat pie again.

However, there has to be an argument for manufacturers to tell us just what parts of the animal are used and how much. The true nature of the ingredients is disguised in taste and appearance by the use of flavour enhancers such as monosodium glutamate. Responsible food manufacturers are now labelling the fat content of meat products voluntarily, which I gather is opposed by the EC. I do not see why, in deference to the many pie manufacturers who use the finest ingredients, the contents of a meat product should not be clearly labelled.

Lord Lyell

Can the noble Viscount please enlighten me and many other Members of the Committee? How does he reconcile what he said in support of his amendment about, I think he called it, slurry —that is the bones and, I presume, the interior of bones, which would include marrow and other such products —with meat? He and I and perhaps all other consumers in your Lordships' House would understand that. I quite understand "meat products" since many of the items that might have been mentioned by the noble Viscount —for instance bones, crushed products and the attractively named slurry —might go into such forms of meat products as pate and other substances.

What the noble Viscount mentioned as recovered from bones in crushing and other similar processes would not appear to me, or, I suggest, to other Members of the Committee apart from the scientific experts like my noble friend Lord Colwyn, as meat, let alone mechanically recovered meat. Can he possibly enlighten me?

The Viscount of Falkland

I do not think that I can enlighten the noble Lord. I have taken the trouble to ask experts to explain to me what happens. To the amateur and the layman it is a fairly stomach-turning description of what happens to meat of this kind. Probably the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, was on the verge of telling us about it but withdrew.

As I understand it, what happens with this process is that the bones are stripped of all meat that is not used for other purposes. The process is very efficient. The marketing of meat nowadays is a sophisticated business; it has to do with colour, presentation and so on. The meat which is not used, which often includes gristle and other substances such as bone fragments —I mentioned that in passing and rather wish that I had not —is made into what is described as a slurry for want of a better word. It is known in the trade as mechanically recovered meat. That is all I can say to the noble Lord. I shall go again to my advisers when I feel strong enough, get a full exposition and tell the Committee what I have discovered.

Baroness Trumpington

Once again I believe that this kind of detail is inappropriate in the Bill. In any case it is not possible for the UK unilaterally to introduce specific labelling rules on MRM since food labelling legislation is harmonised throughout the European Community.

Clause 15(1) strengthens the existing general provisions on misleading labelling by making it an offence to describe food in a way which, is likely to mislead as to the nature, substance or quality of the food". In addition, the food labelling regulations require precise names to be given both to the food and to the food ingredients to enable them to be distinguished from products with which they might be confused. Any treatment has to be declared if its omission would be misleading.

I believe that these provisions should ensure that products containing MRM are not labelled misleadingly. I recognise the concerns that have been expressed and I am extremely grateful to both noble Lords for not going into the details. I shall continue to keep a close watch on this area. However, MRM is a substance that is perhaps better dealt with by an industry code of practice rather than by regulations. I understand that trading standards officers and industry representatives are currently in the process of drawing up guidelines on the labelling of MRM. I hope therefore that the noble Lords will feel able in the light of this information to withdraw their amendment.

The Viscount of Falkland

I have learnt something from this exchange as I hope other Members of the Committee have. I do not intend to press the amendment. This is a new situation which needs to be examined both by the Government and those who seek to tighten up safeguards. For the time being and under those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 72:

Page 12, line 43, at end insert — ("(1A) In making regulations under subsection (I) above, the Minister shall take all necessary actions to ensure that frozen foods be clearly labelled to provide information in respect of use-by dates, and defrosting and cooking times as recommended by the retail producers.").

The noble Viscount said: The Government have correctly recognised the behaviour of the modern consumer and the way in which he or she cooks food. The manner in which that is done is very important for maintaining its safety. If more people cooked food in the correct way I suggest that there would be less trouble and fewer cases of food poisoning. The person who cooks is the last line of protection. I welcome the production by the Government of a very helpful booklet which attempted to emphasise good cooking practices, as in other areas they have produced useful booklets for doctors on alcohol and so on.

We know that far too much food on sale contains potentially dangerous bacteria. Some of it is inevitable but much is a result of the failures which take place further down the food chain. Proper cooking can be expected to eliminate the vast majority of bacterial problems. In another place the Minister used a phrase which I liked very much in these days of modern language: everything should be cooked until it is piping hot throughout. That may be a trifle poetic for modern usage; there may be a more scientific description which would please some people. However, I like "piping hot". I know what it means and I hope that young people know what it means. The trouble is that people do not always cook food thoroughly and they suffer the consequences.

Often a simple failure to follow instructions is dangerous. Curiously enough I am told that women, who traditionally in our society have cooked the most, follow the instructions least. Men tend, maybe because they are new to it, to follow instructions to the letter. But sometimes the instructions which they need in order to cook the food properly are just not there.

My amendment talks of frozen food. One of the most common frozen foods is chicken, which has been very much in the news during the past 18 months. We learn, and most people know now, that some 60 per cent. of specimens of this bird show the presence of salmonella. I believe that chicken is one of the most common causes of food poisoning. When I recently went to India for the first time, as somebody who is sensitive in this area I avoided all chicken and had no problem at all. That is purely anecdotal to my case.

Clearly action is needed to eradicate the salmonella in the first place. I acknowledge the very determined way in which the Government are approaching the problem. But surely what we can do now and where the Government should show the way is to ensure that frozen foods show the use-by dates rather than the sell-by dates. They should clearly show the manufacturers' recommended defrosting and cooking times. I beg to move.

Baroness Trumpington

One cannot repeat too often the fact that food should be properly cooked right through. The words "piping hot" are as good an instruction as the words "reheat frozen food". Chicken in particular should always be thoroughly cooked. As a good housewife, I know that.

I recognise the need for frozen foods to carry any defrosting or cooking instructions. However, a general provision requiring this to be printed on the label where necessary is already contained in food labelling regulations. While frozen foods are among a very small group of products currently exempt from date-marking rules, the latest changes to the Community labelling directive will remove this exemption and frozen foods will be required to carry a best-before date. This change will be implemented in UK legislation shortly. As food labelling legislation is harmonised throughout the Community, we cannot deviate from EC rules or act unilaterally in this area. I am satisfied that the purposes of this amendment are already covered in legislation and I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

The Viscount of Falkland

I thank the noble Baroness for that response. We have well aired the subject. All interested parties are taking steps to obtain further knowledge on it. I am sure the Government have all these matters well in hand. This matter will be carefully watched by consumers in the ensuing months and years. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

4.45 p.m.

The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 73:

Page 12, line 43, at end insert— ("(1A). Any regulation made under subsection (1)(c) above which relates to irradiation shall only be made after —

1. (a) a diagnostic test has been established to determine whether or not food has been subject to irradiation;
2. (b) an independent scientific review has been conducted into the effects of irradiation on pesticide residues and other toxins in food, vitamin content of food, food additives and food packaging materials, and the results thereof published.").

The noble Viscount said: I am relieved to be able to say that this is the last amendment that I shall move in this group. I view this amendment as the most important one in the group and it is the reason that the amendments standing in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, are presented in the way that I have explained.

The issue of irradiation is perhaps the most emotive one in this matter of food safety. It turned up in the debate on Second Reading and there is a good deal of uncertainty in the Chamber about it, let alone on the streets outside the Palace of Westminster and world-wide. I do not wish to explain in too great detail the subject of irradiation, mainly because the Select Committee of this Chamber has produced a report on this subject. The report is a good and interesting one, as is usually the case. It will be discussed shortly.

I wish, however, to give some of the background to my thinking to explain why I have drawn up this amendment in the way I have. It is necessary to give a short definition of irradiation at this stage. I can do no better than take a sentence used in the report of the Select Committee which gives a succinct definition of irradiation. I think many people are unsure of what irradiation is. The report states: Ionising radiation is a form of energy. The energy is transmitted into food by the application of gamma-rays from a radioactive source or accelerated electrons or X-rays from a machine".

I need go no further. That is the technology of the matter. Some people refer to it as soft nuclear technology. It is not new technology; it has been used for a number of years but in exclusive areas. In recent times people have wished to improve standards of food safety within the seemingly widening area of food poisoning. For this very laudable reason Her Majesty's Government have decided to pay attention to this new process and give the consumer the choice of having irradiated foods.

Irradiation has considerable effects on food. It kills a lot of bacteria. However, irradiation is in its early days and the public and scientists are becoming increasingly concerned —not only the British public but the public around the world —about the possible effects of irradiation. No one is saying at this stage that the treatment of foodstuffs by the level of radiation that is used is unsafe. The level of radiation is quite safe but we are concerned that the changes which take place in the molecular chain within the food could have effects that we are not yet fully aware of.

Experiments which have taken place recently in Canada, India and the United States show the effects on animals of eating irradiated foods. It will possibly horrify the Committee to know that in India experiments were carried out on children suffering from malnutrition. Staple foodstuffs were treated by the irradiation process over a period of weeks and given to the children. In the Indian experiment scientists refused to continue the experiment after seven weeks as they had noticed that important chromosome changes had taken place. It was claimed that that effect was due to the falling nutritional values of irradiated food.

No one denies that that occurs. I am told that the vitamin content of irradiated food can fall by as much as 30 per cent. Often it is necessary to supplement irradiated food with added vitamins. That is by the by, but the interesting fact is that after a cautious acceptance of this process in various parts of the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few countries, there has now been a turnaround in the scientific viewpoint. Scientists no longer have the confidence in irradiated foods tha1 they once showed I suggest to the Committee that Her Majesty's Government still show that confidence in irradiated foods.

Last night a programme was broadcast on Channel 4 in which concerns were expressed by various scientists from around the world on this subject. Admittedly it was an edited programme, and perhaps the government spokesman on the programme would not have made the remarks he did in the presence of other people. He probably did not know what was in the rest of the programme. However, if the noble Baroness will forgive me, I must say that the programme was an example of a phenomenon which occurs so often these days in government circles whereby anyone who disagrees with the Government's present view is regarded as either cranky or a troublemaker. I do not think that the scientists who spoke on that programme or those whom I have quoted from in the various papers that I have are cranky.

A professor is carrying out long-term experiments in this country by adding different bacteria to foods and putting them through the irradiation process. His concern is increasing daily. I get irritated by the way people are lumped together and told that because they disagree with the Government they are not acceptable in some way. This has happened to doctors, to bank managers recently and certainly to Conservative Members of the European Parliament. Now it appears that scientists who disagree with the Government's view on irradiation are viewed as troublemakers or cranks. We are used to that and we can brush that kind of thing aside. However, that was my concern when I replied to the question put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone.

Lord Mottistone

I specifically did not address this amendment when I spoke earlier. My question to the noble Viscount related to an earlier amendment.

The Viscount of Falkland

I apologise to the noble Lord if I was wrong; I thought that he referred to the whole group of amendments.

It seems to us that at this stage it is inappropriate to proceed with a process such as this which has implications for safety and about which concerns are growing daily. In recent laboratory experiments in the United States, which I am happy to say have been carried out on animals, it has been shown that irradiation of food fed to laboratory animals, mostly rats, has produced very alarming results, such as the death of complete litters of rats.

It is far too early to say whether or not that has any real meaning. But it seems to noble Lords on these Benches to be no reason to go ahead. Nor is it a reason to suggest that this particular process can be offered to the consumer as an option for the treatment of foods generally or for it to be introduced through regulation.

If the process is to be introduced in that way we feel that the least that we can do is to ask the Government to accept my amendment, which seeks two specific safeguards. One is that a diagnostic test should be available so that food which has been irradiated can be detected. Nobody is suggesting that there will be widespread chicanery in this country. However, there have been several well-recorded cases of shipments of food, mainly of shellfish, which has not passed health requirements being taken to irradiation plants in Holland and then shipped to another port and sold. That is why the current slang for putting a vitiated product through the process is "Dutching" the product. There are several well recorded cases of that procedure.

Baroness Trumpington

Will the noble Viscount tell me where the information on those well-recorded cases is to be found?

The Viscount of Falkland

I do not want to detain the Committee. I have pages of cases here. I could provide them to the Minister outside the Chamber or if the Committee will bear with me I could do so now. I have several examples of such cases. For the convenience of the Committee I suggest to the noble Baroness that when I respond at the end of the debate I produce that information for her.

Baroness Trumpington

Does the noble Viscount not even have a heading to indicate where those reports come from? A report is usually produced by somebody. I do not ask him to read the reports but just to give the sources.

The Viscount of Falkland

I have the sources here and, if I may, I shall produce them when I rise to speak later.

The concern about the need for the diagnostic test is growing. It would have the effect of deterring those who feel that they can treat foods in that way. The marketing of food worldwide is a sophisticated business. A diagnostic test would allow us to be absolutely certain whether or not food imported into this country or into any country had been irradiated.

The second part of the amendment stems from the fact that we feel that it is not desirable at this stage to proceed with the introduction of irradiated food until there has been an independent scientific survey. One of the characteristics of the recent history of the process has been that, almost without exception, the studies worldwide which have approved the process have been held behind closed doors. The studies which have shown cause for concern about the process have been public inquiries in the majority of cases, and action has been taken as a result of that concern.

We shall have every opportunity to debate the matter more thoroughly when the Select Committee report is debated soon. At this stage I should like to emphasise that we are most concerned that there should be a diagnostic test and an independent survey before the Government think of introducing or furthering the future of the process and bringing it nearer to the consumer. I beg to move.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

The question of irradiation of food is probably the most contentious issue in this area at present. There is a huge amount of unease about it among the public as well as an accumulated distrust of official assurances over a wide range of environmental subjects. For that reason it is only right that there should be full discussion of the pros and cons during the passage of the Bill. That, among other things, is what the amendment sets out to achieve.

Before dealing with the arguments I should like to say a few words about the brief which has just been put out by the Ministry. In that respect I echo some of what the noble Viscount said when moving the motion, although he was speaking about the television programme.

I should describe the brief as a hectoring and evangelical document. Whenever I see that degree of over-the-top enthusiasm for some new process about which there is scope for genuine debate I smell a rat. I take exception to being told that my main objective is to "maximise public alarm". I can tell the Government that three important independent committees, not none, have recently doubted the complete safety of irradiated food. Ironically, the heading to the section in the brief which makes those charges uses the words "bogus arguments". Enough of that for the present.

We do not seek to ban irradition. We say, please do some more work on it; tell us what you find before bringing forward any proposals for further debate. We say that for the following reasons. I feel that I must go into some of them here even though there will be further opportunities to consider them when we debate the Select Committee's report in two-and-a-half weeks' time.

There are a number of doubts which the majority of scientists agree have not been resolved. The chief doubts are listed in our Amendment No. 73. As the noble Viscount said, the fear is of the chemical changes which irradiation produces in food, with the attendant dangers to long-term health to which the British Medical Association continues to draw attention. Effectively, in those cases irradiation has the status of a multiple unknown additive.

Vitamin loss is another worry acknowledged by all, but I believe underrated by many. Not only will there be loss of vitamins but also of amino acids and essential fatty acids whose exact role is still being explored by researchers. Those losses will be additional to the losses caused by other processes and by prolonged shelf-life.

There seems to be no agreement on dosage. As always, different countries have widely differing standards. Our proposed 10 kilogray limit is 10 times what the Americans allow. What is safe? We clearly do not know for sure. It appears that the dosage which is effective in doing its job alters the taste of the food, sometimes even for the better. In that case how can you tell what it is that you are eating, and how fresh it is?

Significantly there is argument about how effective irradiation is in destroying what it is intended to destroy. Some hazards it can eliminate; others, like certain viruses and toxins, it cannot. It seems that none of the recent and much publicised outbreaks of food poisoning would have been prevented by irradiation. There is uncertainty about what it can kill just as there is about what it can create.

In view of all this —and I could have gone into some of these points at much greater length —it is very hard to see how the weight of evidence for the safety of this process can be described as "overwhelming" —the word used in, among other places, your Lordships' Select Committee report which has just appeared. In my view the word is contradicted in the same paragraph, paragraph 142, by the call for further research into the specific areas set out in our amendment.

In spite of what may be claimed, there have simply not been the studies on whole populations which would enable one to say with confidence that there was no long-term risk to health. The number of people who have actually been exposed even to a limited range of irradiated foods throughout the world is quite small, and in that sense the process is still experimental. If this is true in terms of research into food processes —which seems to be the frame of reference adopted here —it is even more true in terms of mainstream medical research where, for example with new drugs, far stricter criteria apply.

This is why I prefer the stance adopted by the BMA, who quite, clearly state: We simply do not have the toxicological and epidemiological data with which to formulate policy on this issue. One would wish that by now this precautionary approach had become the norm in this country, and that the gradual greening of the Government —which is much to be welcomed —would include a swifter process of learning the lessons of environmental rashness of the past. After all at one point the weight of evidence for the safety of thalidomide was thought overwhelming.

Opinion polls have shown that the great majority of consumers do not want irradiation. Interestingly, the more they know about it the less they want it. The movement is towards food that has been interfered with as little as possible. The same is true in Sweden, among other places. There, above all, what the pople want is their food fresh. The response of the Swedish Government is to say, "If people want their food fresh, they shall have it fresh. Irradiation and freshness do not go together. We will therefore not allow irradiation".

The response of the British Government is quite different. Can they be surprised when people say, as increasingly they do say, "Whose side are you on?" The least that the Government can do is to meet public opinion half way along the lines of the present amendment. I am surprised that the Government should think that they can represent consumers' interests better than, for example, the Consumers' Association, who of all people has a brief for consumer choice but who put the safety of the customer first.

It is a seductive argument to say, as one eminent retailer says, in support of the Government's view, "We want to extend consumer choice by giving our customers the chance to buy irradiated food if they want it." Consider the following scenario. The choice is given. Some customers avail themselves of it. Ten years on a few of them get ill, and some maybe die. After another five years, research begins to link these illnesses with irradiated food. There is then a major reassessment of the safety question, as there has been in the past with lead, asbestos, DDT, X-rays, smoking, the contraceptive pill, and nuclear power. What will that retailer —and what will the Government, for that matter —say to those consumers, or their relatives, who exercised their choice in good faith? "I am sorry. We got it wrong"? Will they be surprised at the reply: "What, again?"?

We want to make that scenario less likely, and hence this amendment targeted at the areas of greatest worry. Someone described irradiation as a technology looking for a use. It is not a bad description. Let us be quite sure that it is a safe technology. As the President of the Royal Society said on 30th November: Like children with a new toy, we are inclined to play with our science before we properly understand it. There are still a number of quite legitimate worries —as those of your Lordships who watched last night's television programme on the subject will know—centering largely on proper scientific practice over safety studies. For reasons of time I do not think that it would be appropriate to go into that at this stage.

If further research shows that we cannot be assured of safety, or that a workable diagnostic test is not obtainable —and this is a crucial point —then we must have the good sense to decide that irradiation is not for us. The world will not fall in. Even herbs and spices can find new treatment methods if they have to. There is a steam method under development which I understand is already quite promising.

I suspect that few people outside the food industry equate progress with constant technological innovation in food processing. We can live without it, and we might even be healthier. If further research shows food irradiation to be safe, then well and good.

Lord Middleton

As the noble Viscount reminded us, the irradiation of foodstuffs is a subject that has come under close scrutiny by your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Communities. Sub-Committee D, which I have the great privilege of chairing, has carried out an inquiry into two European Commission draft directives which are aimed at harmonising the conditions under which food might in future be irradiated in the Community. As we heard during the Second Reading debate it is in line with these proposals that the Government intend to legalise food irradiation in this country, and to bring in regulations under this clause for regulating the process. The Select Committee's report was published last week.

There is no question about the need for a process which can be used as another weapon to control food poisoning by salmonella and other organisms, and that is what irradiation does. The question is: is it safe? The assumption underlying this amendment is that it is not, because sufficient scientific work has not been done in respect of the matters under the subsections (a) and (b) to which the noble Viscount referred. Therefore it is assumed that there is a potential health hazard, and that irradiation should not be permitted until the conditions described in the amendment have been satisfied.

Our report examined those particular matters, and we nevertheless concluded —and I know that the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, does not like the wording—that the overwhelming weight of evidence is that irradiation of foodstuffs on the limited basis proposed by the Commission is safe. However, the process must remain subject to constant scrutiny and to re-evaluation, like any other technique.

May I turn to the specific matters in the amendment and take testing first. My noble friend Lady Hooper, when she was winding up the Second Reading debate on the subject, referred to the worries about radioactivity. She said on 5th December at col. 812: The infinitesimal extra radioactivity induced by this process is too small even to be measured. Scientists have calculated that it is a hundred thousand-fold smaller than the amount found naturally in food. What that means is that at present there is, as the noble Viscount pointed out, no reliable method of testing whether food has been irradiated. Our report therefore strongly supports continuing research into the development of detection techniques. No one wants to eat irradiated food if he or she objects to it. On the other hand somebody who wants irradiated food needs to show that he has got it.

We did not consider that in itself the lack of a test represents a health hazard. Instead what it means is that the regulatory framework—which, among other things, will demand the most scrupulous labelling —will need to be more diligently enforced than would otherwise be the case.

In regard to pesticide residues, it is true that there has been no authoritative research. However, the Advisory Committee on Irradiated and Novel Foods considered that the levels of pesticide residues in food were generally low and that the levels of any radiolytic products would be negligible. This view was echoed, perhaps surprisingly, by the consumers of the European Community Group who did not consider that pesticide residues raised any particular issue. However, we agreed that more work should be done in that connection.

With regard to vitamins, the evidence of the Medical Research Council was that irradiation was no more damaging to most vitamins in food than was any other common technique, and frequently less so. They concluded that the nutritional impact of doses of 10 kilograys —that is the upper recommended limit —would not be a matter of significant concern. However, we agreed with the Government's proposal that information on the effect on vitamins of irradiation should be passed to the steering group on food surveillance for it to monitor the nutritional implications.

Regarding food packaging, we noted that irradiation has long been used as a means of sterilising packaging materials, and extensive research has been carried out particularly in the United States which has not revealed any breakdown of plastic packaging materials at doses of up to 30 kilograys. However not all commonly used packaging materials are suitable. We concluded that research into the effects of irradiation on packaging materials should continue, and that it would be in the consumer's interests for a list of approved packaging materials to be drawn up, as is already the case in the United States.

We were aware that very little research has been done on the effect of irradiation on food additives, particularly in the context of prepared meals. We recommended that the toxicological implications be thoroughly investigated before approval is given for any product containing additives to be irradiated.

As my noble friend Lord Sainsbury pointed out in his Second Reading speech, there is already a demand, albeit at this stage a limited one, on the part of the public for the protection against food poisoning that properly regulated irradiation would provide. In my view it would be wrong to delay its availability to the public as an additional food safety weapon merely for lack of a detection method or because more work needs to be done on certain aspects. So far as I know, no one is suggesting that people should be made to eat irradiated food. The Commission and the Government are proposing that any member of the public should be able to buy it if he wants it. It is the exercise of that choice which this amendment seeks to postpone.

On the question of how far one has to go to establish the safety of a new process, members of my committee felt themselves very much in agreement with the Co-Operative Wholesale Society. Perhaps I may quote what it said in evidence: There is a limit to the assurances scientific research can give … It is our view that scientific research [on irradiation] has arrived at a point where, within appropriate limitations and safeguards, the process can be legalised". If my noble friend the Minister can assure the Committee that such safeguards will be established and rigorously enforced, I see no reason for the regulations under Clause 16 to be postponed, as is proposed by this amendment. I hope that the Government will resist it.

The Earl of Halsbury

The debate on this amendment seems to be degenerating into a generalised full dress rehearsal debate on the recommendations of our own joint committee. Our discussion is therefore being very protracted. Perhaps I may draw attention to the final words of the committee: they recommend the report to the House for debate. Perhaps we can arrange to have that debate between now and Report stage so that it will be possible at this stage for the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, to withdraw his amendment while reserving his position. Otherwise we shall go on talking all night.

5.15 p.m.

Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone

I should like to ally myself with the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury and my noble friend Lord Middleton. I think that there is something illogical about subsection (b) of this amendment. I do not believe that anything is to be gained by calling people names. The last thing I would do is to call the noble Viscount either a crank or a troublemaker. Nor, I hope, would the noble Earl who sits on the Cross-Benches assume that I was necessarily hectoring or evangelical. Evangelical I think perhaps I am, but hectoring I hope I am not.

However, in the meantime there is an assumption, which I challenge, in the amendment itself; namely, that something ought to be stopped unless it can be shown to be safe. To my knowledge, gamma ray irradiation has been known to scientists for over 30 years. There is a great deal of experience of it. It will not wash woollens; it sometimes alters the taste of a product; it does not remove toxins which are chemical toxins that already exist in the food. But it kills bacteria. That is known.

The assumption that one has to have an absolute assurance that irradiation is safe in other respects, while it certainly generates a desire for further research and full discussion, is not a wise way of approaching something which is designed to make food more safe and which certainly has that effect within limits.

Perhaps for a moment I may revert to the words of an earlier amendment. We were discussing eggs and something being piping hot. As a matter of fact, anybody who thinks that without eggs he can make either mayonnaise or a hollandaise sauce has another think coming. I have never consciously used irradiated eggs for the purposes of making either but I should certainly like to use them if I could. I do not know whether they would affect the taste of my sauces but I should like to try them.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

I intervene to correct one misapprehension. I do not think that we are looking for absolute assurances. I for one accept that in science such things are unavailable. It is just that we do not believe that the evidence for safety so far is quite good enough.

Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover

I should declare an interest as chairman of a food company. A retailer has no greater responsibility than the safety of the food that he sells. I have tried to approach this problem rationally, carefully and open-mindedly. I try to be well advised by extremely experienced scientists, and the advice that I have been given wholly accords with the report made by the Select Committee. Our chief scientist has studied it carefully and does not dissent from it. Therefore I also associate myself with the advice that I have been given which could be described as overwhelming. I support the freedom to offer this process to the public so long as appropriate and strict safeguards are installed.

I should also like to tell the Committee that no retailer would wish to use or sell irradiated foods unless he believed that they were 100 per cent. safe. Retailers know perfectly well that the reputation of their business depends on it. They would not take such a step. We would not do it and nor would anybody else.

I also suggest that no retailers would want to sell irradiated foods unless their experience, knowledge and expertise suggested that it offered a real and genuine benefit to the consumer. What would be the point?

Thirdly, they would not do so unless they had evidence that there was a genuine demand from some customers. It may be a minority, but we believe in serving minorities as well as the majority. We also believe in not being swayed by the emotions such as one sees so often in the newspapers and on television, but calmly, carefully and rationally to listen to the experts throughout the world and study what they say. In my opinion, they support the line that the Government have taken.

Lord Hunter of Newington

I wish to make a very brief point. The World Health Organisation regards illness due to contaminated food as one of the most widespread health problems in the contemporary world. It positively encourages member governments to consider introducing irradiation because of the public health benefits that it brings. The World Health Organisation has issued 10 golden rules for safe food preparation. Rule 1, on choosing food processed for safety, includes the words: If you have the choice, select fresh or frozen poultry treated with ionising radiation".

5.30 p.m.

The Earl of Radnor

At the end of this rather protracted debate, I hope the Minister will find that the amendment is not acceptable. I endorse everything that my noble friend Lord Middleton has said. I am sure that on balance it is absolutely right that there should be capability of using irradiation. We seem to be forgetting its good points and searching for the rather more obscure dangers that lie on occasion apparently far into the future. I hope that the amendment will be rejected.

Lord Gallacher

Before the Minister replies to what has been an interesting debate, I express my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, for giving us a preview of his committee's report.

On these Benches we have not at this stage sought to take up a firm position one way or the other. My own view is that we can live with irradiation. Nevertheless, one would be less than honest if one did not take account of the genuine public concern that exists in some quarters. As a consequence, at the Committee stage of the Bill we have sought by a series of what we hope will prove to be reasonable amendments to allay public fears. No doubt when we reach them we shall hear the Government's attitude to them.

It is only fair to say at Committee stage of the Bill that we reserve the right to come back to this subject on Report because of its overwhelming importance and the high degree of interest that it elicits.

Baroness Trumpington

Perhaps I may start by saying that I have the greatest sympathy with what the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham have said. This afternoon I shall have to make major remarks on all the amendments dealing with irradiation in order to answer the points that have been made by the movers. That is not of my wish. I am well aware that a date has been set by the usual channels for a debate on the sub-committee's report; but there we are.

I am quite satisfied that there is no need to delay the introduction of the enabling provision for food irradiation for any of the reasons set down by the noble Lords. I shall specifically address the questions of testing and research at this stage. I shall reserve some wider arguments on food irradiation for later amendments on this subject.

The need for a detection test was carefully examined by the Advisory Committee on Irradiated and Novel Foods. It was satisfied that such a test did not form an essential part of a control regime. The view of the committee and of the Government was that a system of controls through the issue of licences, with inspection by specialised staff and a detailed record-keeping requirement, would provide a satisfactory control system. In taking this view, we are of course in good company. It is the view of, among other bodies, the World Health Organisation, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the EC Scientific Committee for food, the United States FDA and indeed of the governments of some 20 or more countries around the world, including a number of EC countries, where food irradiation is already in use. I say 20 countries have implemented food irradiation. In point of fact some 35 countries in all have passed the necessary legislation, and 15 countries over and above the 20 stand ready to use the process when they so wish.

I listened with great interest to the speech of my noble friend Lord Middleton. I would also refer the Committee to the conclusion reached in paragraph 128 of the Select Committee's report concerned with irradiation of foodstuffs. It states: The Committee therefore consider that providing the enforcement authorities are possessed of adequate powers to maintain the standards described in this Part of the Report, and providing they are adequately resourced, irradiation can be safely permitted before a test is available". Various remarks were made which I should like to answer. With regard to the attitude of the British Medical Association, everyone —including the BMA, the Consumers' Association and all kinds of other organisations—thinks that they are experts on food irradiation. I can assure Members of the Committee that I have the utmost confidence in the views of the Government's expert advisory committees. They contained eminent medical authorities as well as leading experts in a range of relevant disciplines.

With regard to scientific doubts, it is always possible to find the odd scientist who still has some doubt and of course we pay attention to such views. However, the fact is that not one independent committee which has reviewed the subject has doubted the safety of irradiated food up to an overall average dose of 10 kilograys.

With regard to the vitamin loss which was talked about, any process, even cooking, causes vitamin losses. However, the Government's advisory committee has advised that irradiation introduces no special nutritional problems. If that were not the case the process would hardly have the support of such organisations as the World Health Organisation and the British Nutrition Foundation.

The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, talked about an Indian study. The Indian studies which took place about a dozen years ago have been reviewed by independent committees of scientists in the international field —WHO and FAO, in the UK, the US, Canada, Denmark and in India. Every single one of these committees has rejected the findings of the original study.

With regard to Dutch prawns —no doubt the noble Viscount will come back to that —an impressive-looking document has certainly been sent to my right honourable friend the Minister on these alleged prawn imports. However, it was simply a list of cases from years ago and only one concerned the UK. In more recent times there have to my knowledge been only a series of allegations, hearsay and rumours. But of course the Government are funding research in the active pursuit of a suitable test as that would clearly be useful. However, the Government take the view that there is no case for delaying introduction until such a test has been devised.

As for further research into the process of irradiating food generally, this process has already been researched more thoroughly and for more years —and my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham is quite right —than any other food process. I can assure the Committee that the suggestions concerning the alleged need for more research, which the media keep repeating ad infinitum, were considered by experts of the WHO at an international conference on food irradiation some 12 months ago. I wish some of those consumers who read this mindless repetition and who conclude that there must be something in it could have been at that conference. Opponents of the process put forward all the issues that they considered still required an answer. The experts of the World Health Organisation took this list and set out, point by point, a full and detailed answer in each case. The opponents were left with no effective reply, but of course they now repeat their charges in the press just as though that had never happened.

In the light of this overwhelming weight of expert and highly-specialised scientific opinion confirming the safety of the process from all points of view, it would clearly be unreasonable now to provide that further investigations should be carried out before the scientific conclusions are accepted and put into effect.

I am not of course saying that we have closed minds on the subject; that we have closed the door on any further research. We fund an extensive research programme which we intend to maintain. But the desirability of continuing research is a quite different matter than saying that irradiation should not be permitted until every conceivable avenue has been explored. Incidentally, I am told that many years ago there existed the same kind of atmosphere about the pasteurisation of milk.

There are two further points. As Members are probably aware, the derogation permitting the decontamination of herbs and spices by ethylene oxide expires at the end of this year because of doubts over the safety of the process. Manufacturers and consumers need a safe and effective alternative treatment.

The steam process to which the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, referred is still at an early stage and as yet untried commercially. Also, I am told that it is unlikely to be able to cope with the tonnage of herbs and spices involved. Why limit ourselves to one form of treatment? Why not have several forms of treatment? At the moment irradiation is the only alternative to the treatment that has been carried out in the past and it meets the needs of manufacturers and consumers. I believe that there is a strong practical argument against unnecessarily delaying its introduction.

Perhaps I could also say that since 1969 —under the Food (Control of Irradiation) (Amendment) Regulation 1969 —the irradiation of food for patients for whom sterile diets are clinically indicated has been permitted. That said, I should add that to the best of our knowledge irradiated food has seldom been used in hospitals because of the advance in drug therapy which produces an alternative approach. Members of the Committee may recall that my noble friend Lord Middleton alluded to this in his excellent speech at Second Reading.

As I have already said, the Government will continue to finance research particularly for a reliable test. We shall allow food irradiation only after adequate control measures have been put in place. Once the Food Safety Bill has been enacted, specific regulations will need to be introduced, following consultations with interested parties, before irradiated food can be marketed in the United Kingdom.

Clearly, in drawing up our regulations we should not want to go against anything which the Community decided to require. Indeed, we do not want to make the passage of the EC directive more difficult. It is my hope that where these amendments are concerned Members of the Committee will as usual pursue the path of scientific facts and not allow scaremongering rumours to prevail.

I gladly give the assurance for which my noble friend Lord Middleton asked regarding the controls for irradiation. It is of great importance to reassure the public that the regulatory controls that we intend to introduce will amount to the close and detailed control which the public generally expects to be imposed in this sector.

I should like to stress the main elements in the controls that we wish to propose. First, no one will be able to undertake irradiation without a full and detailed prior inspection by highly trained experts capable of assessing their ability to carry out the process correctly. Secondly, they will be subject to detailed conditions on all aspects of their business set out in a formal licence. Thirdly, they will be restricted to treating the food stipulated in the licence and to the doses specified therein for the particular irradiation objectives for which they have received official approval. Fourthly, they will be required to keep detailed records of all aspects of their business. Fifthly, they will be subject to official inspection at any time. Finally, there will be full labelling of all foods to which the process is applied.

I should like to stress—and I probably will again—that by including the means of introducing irradiation under strict controls in this Bill we shall be seriously helping to reduce food poisoning in this country. But manufacturers must want to take the process up. Retailers must want to sell it. And consumers must want to buy it. This Government would never say, "You must eat irradiated food". All we are asking for in a limited field is the right to produce a very valuable choice for the consumers of this country.

I am sorry that I have spoken at some length, but I hope my explanation will convince the movers of the amendment to withdraw it.

The Viscount of Falkland

I listened with interest to the noble Baroness. Obviously, I take exception to some of the words she used such as "scaremongering". I do not believe that scaremongering is a factor; there is a genuine concern.

I know better than to bandy words with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, over perceived illogicalities in my amendment. Moving to a lower level, I wish to advise him that he will not find an irradiated egg that he can use in his culinary adventures. The effect of irradiation on eggs is to make the inside a slurry.

Certain foods have recently been in the public eye as being culprits in terms of food poisoning. In addition to eggs, there has been cheese and pate. Similarly, they are quite unsuitable for irradiation, and in my view Members are unlikely to see them on the shelves of the outlets belonging to the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury.

I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury. I am grateful for the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, the chairman of the Select Committee. It is good that we shall have an opportunity to discuss the report. It is excellent; I have read it and understood it as much as I can. I believe that the debate will be most informative. I agree that any further detailed discussion should be postponed until that date.

The level of penetration of the rays proposed to be used in this country are 10 times those which are permitted in the United States of America. That is curious when the United States has recoiled from previous positions of certainty about the process to the stage where five states have or are about to discontinue their use of irradiated foods. In Australia there is a three-year ban which reflects the level of concern felt there.

As I promised the noble Baroness, I have now the document which gives several examples, and I am told that there are more. The document emanates from the London Food Commission, only one of the organisations which has sent me information. The noble Baroness said that they are cases which occured long ago. I shall not bore Members of the Committee by reading them all; I shall confine myself to only two. One concerns the United Kingdom and the other does not.

In 1986 a consignment of Malaysian prawns, which was originally imported into the United Kingdom by the owners of a proprietary brand which I shall not mention, was found to be contaminated. The prawns were shipped to the Gammaster irradiation plant in the Netherlands. They were irradiated, illegally reimported into Britain and sold under another label. That was in 1986 which is not so long ago. I shall give my document to the noble Baroness in its entirety.

My second example concerns a company which was fined in 1988. Again, that is not such a long time ago. The Dutch parent company of the Danish Romoe Museli Company was fined in 1988 for importing 32 tonnes of irradiated mussels. Danish authorities rejected them because of contamination with bacteria. The company sent them to Gammaster for irradiation and illegally re-imported them into Denmark. Gammaster was not prosecuted. The product was being irradiated for export. Gammaster claims that food is tested for bacterial contamination before being irradiated. The list is quite extensive.

Baroness Trumpington

Before the noble Viscount decides what to do about his amendment, he has made a very unfair statement about the dose being 10 times as high as in the United States because that is completely misleading. The United Kingdom intends to approve the irradiation of any food up to an overall average dose of 10 kilograys. The US approach is somewhat different in that it has fixed different maximums for different classes of food. In some cases that is only one kilogray because technologically there is no need for a higher dose. However, in the case of herbs and spices it approves a maximum of 30 kilograys, which is three times the proposed UK limit.

The Australian decision, to which the noble Viscount has referred several times, does not follow scientific assessment but was based on a report by the House of Representatives standing committee on the environment, recreation and arts. That assessment of the safety of food irradiation can hardly have the same force as the detailed evaluations of professional nutrition experts, radiologists and micro-biologists and so on who carried out the work for the WHO, the US and the UK. The Australian decision was political as are the contents of the noble Viscount's amendment.

The Viscount of Falkland

I am sorry that the noble Baroness considers that I am unfair because unfairness is the last thing I wanted to bring into this debate. I see us all having exactly the same aims, but it is merely that we have a differing view about a particular process. Therefore, the Minister's reaction, which I consider to be unfair, was a tit for tat, but I put that down to a misunderstanding.

I shall read carefully what the noble Baroness said, as will my advisers and others. She can probably gauge from the tone of my remarks that I do not intend to press this amendment at present for the very good reason that at this stage we are not informed as to the point at which we shall be after we have debated the report of the Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Middleton.

However, we consider this matter to be very serious. We intend to pursue it at a later stage with fairness and I hope that when we do that, our amendment will be stronger, more effective and Members of the Committee will be better informed and able to judge its necessary value. I thank all Members of the Committee who have taken part in a very interesting debate on this amendment and I beg leave to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

5.45 p.m.

Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 73A:

Page 12, line 43, at end insert— ("(1A) No regulation made under subsection (1)(c) above in respect of the irradiation of food shall apply to food other than that produced under conditions of good agricultural and manufacturing practice, as specified in regulations under subsection (1)(d), and in respect of such food the Minister shall, after consultation with food authorities, issue regulations under subsection (1)(b) above as to appropriate microbiological standards").

The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to give effect to two of the principal recommendations of the World Health Organisation's international consultative group on food irradiation, whose findings were published in June 1989. Its recommendations included the following two key points: Only foods produced under conditions of good agricultural and manufacturing practices (GMP) should be accepted for further processing, including irradiation. Further processing should not be used to disguise the consequences of poor hygiene. Microbiological guidelines should not be used as limits for regulatory action. Failure to meet such guidelines should direct attention to the manufacturing process and the establishing, if necessary, of GMP".

The World Health Organisation report said that food manufacturing practices, which are set out in a number of codes of hygienic practice drafted by expert bodies, can greatly assist food processors to ensure food quality and safety. Good practice can be maintained both by food processors and producers establishing adequate quality control procedures over their raw materials and processing systems, and by regular inspection by public authorities to ensure that the requirements of regulations are met. Good manufacturing practice is therefore a concept of regulation which will be revised regularly in accordance with developing technology.

We believe that the Government should consider issuing guidelines for microbiological treatments of food. However, those should not be used as limits for regulatory action. A failure by a processor to meet a guideline should be a signal that there is a problem with the manufacturing process and the good manufacturing practice may have broken down in that particular case. As the report goes on to argue, the foods of concern in this area tend to be raw, which means that adherence to good manufacturing practice will not necessarily ensure absence of some pathogenic micro-organisms. The purpose of the microbiological guidelines would be to give some assurance of good manufacturing practice. Such guidelines would not themselves however demonstrate that food was necessarily safe for consumption without appropriate further processing.

If the Government now intend to permit the irradiation of food they should, as the World Health Organisation report concluded, at least use the maximum degree of regulation available within current understanding and technology. Our amendment draws attention to two specific types of regulation for which provision is made in the clause under subsections (1)(c) and (d). The powers are provided for in the clause and it is hoped that the Minister will give some indication of the Government's thinking as to the regulatory framework for irradiated food in the light of this amendment. I beg to move.

Baroness Trumpington

I do not believe that this amendment is necessary. However, I should make it absolutely clear that we will not allow irradiation to be used as a substitute for good quality control nor as a means of upgrading unfit food. I shall explain how we intend to ensure this.

First, all food irradiation would be subject to the normal food hygiene regulations. Secondly, while it would be impractical to attempt to lay down comprehensive microbiological standards, we will require appropriate microbiological testing to ensure that only normal, sound, marketable food is irradiated.

I draw the attention of the Committee to what the Select Committee had to say on this point. Paragraph 120 of their report records their conclusions as follows: Until such generally applicable microbiological standards are developed the committee believe that it would be misguided to attempt to apply specific conditions to foods intended for irradiation. Instead, adherence to the general quality standards currently applied in other forms of food processing should ensure that irradiated food is sound and of good quality. These standards can and should be enforced through random microbiological tests carried out by environmental health officers". As I have indicated, we entirely agree. Food for irradition will have to comply with normal hygienic rules. In addition, we will require appropriate microbiological testing to ensure that it is of sound quality. And environmental health officers will carry out their own random checks to ensure compliance. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, will agree to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Gallacher

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the comfort she has given me thus far in regard to the subject matter of the amendment. I am also grateful for her reference to the Select Committee report, a document I do not feel in the least inhibited in discussing during this Committee stage. To do so would be Hamlet without the Prince or the Pope without Roman Catholicism.

Nevertheless, I will study what she said, particularly the implications for microbiological testing by environmental health officers and their capacity to undertake such tests on a regular basis. In that light, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 74:

Page 13, line 3, at end insert— ("(3A) Before making any regulations under subsection (1) authorising the irradition of food or class of food the Ministers shall consult such persons or bodies as appear to them to represent the interests of producers of food sources and consumers.").

The noble Lord said: This is a simple amendment in line with item 145 of this Chamber's sub-committee report. It is also very much in line with what my noble friend on the Front Bench said on Amendment No. 73.

My main concern about irradiation is that of producers and consumers wanting a high quality, fresh product. Perhaps I may quote mushrooms as an example. Mushrooms, if irradiated, will last no longer than those kept in a cool chain. While looking white on the top, they can be discoloured inside. Customers, we believe would be discouraged from purchasing not just irradiated mushrooms, but all mushrooms. This problem could occur in respect of many fresh vegetables.

Perhaps of much more importance is the fact that mushrooms —85 per cent. of which are sold loose —must be irradiated within two hours of picking. How will that be possible to police, particularly if the mushrooms are purchased from abroad? Policing, for instance, of the olive oil regime has proved impossible. I wonder what are the chances for irradiation of products such as mushrooms.

I was very interested in my noble friend's reply to my noble friend Lord Montgomery regarding the need to designate irradiated food in restaurants. I wonder how his can be done for mushrooms where, as I say, 85 per cent. are sold loose.

British farmers and growers are always being exhorted, absolutely correctly, to produce high quality and reliable produce that the customer wants and likes. This amendment will ensure that the Minister, before he allows irradiation, shall consult those interested. That would mean the producers, the retailers, the consumers and, last but not least, the hoteliers.

I should like to tighten the amendment further and insist that the Minister does not allow irradiation unless there is agreement. I am not sure that that is possible, but I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend has to say. I beg to move.

The Viscount of Falkland

There is considerable concern among members of the industry who deal with fresh products of this kind. For that reason I support the noble Lord. Mushrooms particularly seem to have come into our briefing papers more than any other fresh product. I believe that the anxiety of the Mushroom Growers Association reflects an anxiety among other producers.

The point that concerns producers of a product which achieves the majority of its sales volume through being sold loose is that irradiated products should differ substantially right through the distribution system and should be described and treated throughout that system as processed. That is the only way of protecting the housewife who purchases fresh produce such as mushrooms at a street market thinking they are fresh when in fact they may be days old having been irradiated. I support the noble Lord in his amendment.

Lord Mottistone

My noble friend and the noble Viscount have talked about fresh foods. I see their point. I would not object to the principle of the amendment on those grounds. As it is worded, however, the amendment would seem to cover all sorts of food including processed foods, the producers of which, apparently, are to be excluded from those my noble friend would wish to be consulted.

The amendment needs to be re-worded to show that it refers to fresh foods; then one would have no objection to it. As it stands, the amendment is not necessary for processed foods for all sorts of reasons; and we have already gone over that ground. In any case, processed foods will be suitably marked, as we have also been told, where it is relevant for this process to be given to them. It seems to me, therefore, that we need to exclude them from the amendment. Alternatively, if they are to be included, then the food processors should be among those consulted. It will be interesting to hear what my noble friend says.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

In supporting my noble friend Lord Stanley perhaps I may ask that the proposed consultation process be extended from hoteliers to include restaurants and all representative catering organisation.

Lord Carter

Since we on this side of the House have put down a number of amendments in which we encourage and exhort the Government to consult with all interested bodies, we have no hestitation in supporting this amendment and saying that anything which brings the consumer and producer closer together is wholly desirable.

Baroness Trumpington

I thank my noble friend for his explanation, but I believe his amendment is unnecessary. Regulations authorising food irradiation are likely to be made under Clauses 16 and 19. As the Bill stands there is already a requirement in Clause 26 for such regulations to be subject to statutory consultation. This consultation will embrace all organisations which appear representative of interests likely to be substantially affected by the proposal. I hope that replies to my noble friend Lord Montgomery.

I am happy to give an undertaking that the Government will consult organisations representing consumers and producers on any proposals for such regulations. Any consultation document will also be available to individuals on request.

Turning to the point made in relation to the irradiation of mushrooms, let me reassure the Committee that there is no reason for particular concern. Mushrooms were among the vegetables assessed by the committee on toxicity of chemicals in food, consumer products and the environment as part of its contribution to the work of the Government's advisory committee on irradiated and novel food. They were also among the products assessed by the panel on novel foods for nutritional aspects as part of the Government's wider study. I can thus assure the Committee, on the basis of the conclusions of these expert committees, that irradiated mushrooms have been specifically assessed and that they are as safe and wholesome as any other irradiated foods. Of course, if there are quality problems producers will not wish to use the process but in view of what I have said I can see no justification for maintaining a ban on their irradiation. I hope I have answered the questions put to me.

Lord Stanley of Alderley

Until my noble friend made that last remark I had hoped not to upset her too much by saying that I was entirely happy. I think I am more or less happy. The point I was trying to make about mushrooms is that irradiation does not destroy them at all. The point concerned appearance. I am sure my noble friend on the Front Bench realises that appearance in food is very important. However, I think I am happy. I shall read carefully what she said about mushrooms. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

6 p.m.

The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Serota)

In calling Amendment No. 75 I should point out to the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 76.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley moved Amendment No. 75: Page 13, line 5, leave out ("regard to the desirability of restricting so far as practicable,") and insert ("a duty to restrict, and so far as is practicable, eliminate").

The noble Lord said: In speaking to Amendment No. 75 I shall also speak to Amendment No. 78. For 35 years Ministers have been required by law to have regard to the desirability of restricting, so far as practicable, the use of substances of no nutritional value in food. At present the approximate number of substances intentionally added during manufacture in this country is as follows: colours, 50; flavours, over 3,500; flavour enhancers, 7; sweeteners, 13; texture modifiers, 70. The total of these cosmetic additives whose function is to make food more attractive is over 3,640. Preservatives, including antioxidants and sequestrants, which basically extend the shelf life of foods, amount to 63. Processing aids, which facilitate the manufacturing process, total 91. The grand total is some 3,800 substances. Less than 1 per cent. by total and by weight are necessary preservatives; over 95 per cent. are cosmetic.

I am almost tempted to rest my case there. If additives have increased to such an enormous extent the argument for tightening up a law which has had so little effect speaks for itself. Frankly, it is inconceivable that there is a real need for so many substances in our diet. The wording of this amendment is designed to place a duty on Ministers not just to restrict additives but to work to reduce them.

Perhaps I may read to the Committee from a food label which states: Ingredients: raspberry flavour jelly crystals: sugar, gelling agents E410, E407, E340, potassium chloride; adipic acid, acidity regulator E336, flavourings, stabiliser E466, articifial sweetener (sodium saccharin), colour E123. Raspberry flavour custard powder: starch, salt, flavourings, colours E124, E122. Sponge, with preservatives E202, colours E102, E110. Decorations with colours E110, E132, E123, E127". There are three more lines in this vein, but I expect the Committee has the flavour of it by now. It is (or was) a trifle, but I doubt whether the Committee would have guessed that.

People may ask: where is the harm in this, and does it really matter? I shall explain as concisely as I can why I think it does matter and why the framers of earlier legislation were right to want to restrict additives, and why the situation is even more urgent today. Additives harm people: not all additives by any means and not all people. But the evidence is clear to see. The harm is both negative —in the trifle I have described there can have been little room for any vitamin or mineral content —and positive by inducing adverse reactions.

I say that without equivocation and in the face of many official assurances to the contrary. A professor and a member of the Advisory Committee on Toxicity said: No one in Britain has ever suffered harm from an intentional additive". He clinched the matter with the elegant argument that no additives were harmful, otherwise they would not be permitted in food. I refer to a recent television programme in which an official of the food industry said that artificial colours were perfectly safe and they had all been "fully tested".

Why can I not accept these assurances? It is partly because of the nature of the science that underpins them. I have spoken on this topic before. Science, which now includes medicine, is currently in thrall to the controlled trial. It is of course an absolutely vital tool, but it is not and never will be the only source of good evidence. However, the current fashion is to treat it as such. Clinical experience alone, on which medicine progressed for thousands of years, counts for little. The result is that a large and growing body of good evidence from doctors around the world, from the Hyperactive Children's Support Group, from practitioners of complementary medicine and others, can be dismissed as anecdotal with perfect professional respectability.

Few of these people have access to the kind of big money which is needed to mount controlled trials. So we hear the well-worn phrase, "There is no evidence to show that any harm has resulted". Few people recognise how little this bit of professional jargon means. Coupled with that, we commonly see a high degree of proof of harm called for before any precautions are taken. The scientists' desire for absolute proof is admirable, but it is out of place in the real world of public policy where the possibility of harm to people should be enough to sound the warning bells.

It is the failure to recognise that which has been responsible for much of our present environmental troubles. The scientific approach is vitally necessary but it is seldom, if ever, sufficient. For all that, there have been some well-conducted trials in this field by respected people. Professor Soothill and others at Great Ormond Street Hospital were able to implicate tartrazine and benzoic acid, a colouring and a preservative, in childhood migraine and hyperactivity reported in the Lancet in October 1983 and March 1985. These results have not been refuted; they are usually just ignored.

Professor Truswell of the University of Sydney came to similar conclusions in July 1985, in a trial that tested other chemical additives as well and found culprits among them. Doctor Hunter, a leading gastro-enterologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, writes: Approximately one-fifth of our patients react 10 food additives such as preservatives and colourings". The suggestion in the joint report by the British Nutrition Foundation and the Royal College of Physicians that a maximum of 15 people in 10,000 react to additives —I believe the figure was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, on Monday —needs to be seen in the context of a very rough estimate on limited data made in the early 1980s when awareness of food intolerance was not as it is now.

A moment's thought will show the absurdity of the claims for perfect safety. How can 3,800 substances be rigorously tested within the limits of time, money and manpower? I take a foreign example. An authoritative textbook states that reliable toxicological information is available for less than one in 14 of the 17,200 chemicals eaten or absorbed in the USA. That does not begin to tackle the question of the interaction between chemicals, which is what the real life situation is all about. We do not eat and drink additives in isolation.

I am not aware of any research at all on the interacting cocktail of chemicals in our every-day diet. The scale of such a task is almost unimaginable. People sometimes argue that if there was here a real problem we would have noticed it long ago. The problem of smoking might have been recognised long ago—hundreds of years ago, in fact. A similar argument applies to lead in petrol, asbestos, and so on. It is not a good argument.

To find whether a colouring in beer is the cause of arthritis, headaches or heart trouble takes a great deal of careful and detailed work. These matters seldom spring to the eye. There are no easy assumptions of safety here. An indication that we are on the wrong track in this country is provided every time an additive is banned. The other day it was potassium bromate in white bread which was removed as a flour improver because it was shown to cause cancer in animals. Why was it there in the first place?

Two months ago the problem was with caramel colourings. Why does Britain allow more additives and have weaker controls than almost any other country in the developed world? At a meeting on additives a Dutch paediatrician asked: But why do you want to make your children ill? In Holland the parents came to us and told us what was happening, and we got together with the food manufacturers and identified the colourings, and they substituted, and in a few months the problem was no more … Why are they fighting this knowledge? I cannot understand it". Neither can many people in this country.

So far I have not spoken specifically about Amendment No. 78. We have highlighted colouring agents because they are the most purely cosmetic additives as well as the most troublesome. The coal-tar dyes in particular need attention. Looking back over 60 years of expert advisory reports, no coal-tar dye has always been classified in the A category; that is, acceptable without question for use in food. If Norway can manage without artificial colours, and the United States allows seven, why do we permit 16? If Amaranth is banned in Sweden, Russia and America, why is it accepted as safe here? Where is the need for so many colours? It is welcome news that some tightening up is going on in the wake of the recent review of the Food Advisory Committee, but every such review must raise the question of why those substances were allowed in the first place.

Our hope in moving these amendments is that the Government will accept that Clause 16(4) as worded has been honoured mainly in the breach until now and that there is a strong case for tightening up. If they accept this, they will be moving in step with the views of the public, who want less, not more, chemicals in their air, water, soil and food. I beg to move.

Baroness Tumpington

Perhaps I may clarify in my mind that the grouping is Amendments Nos. 75, 76, 77 and 78.

Noble Lords

Yes.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

The noble Earl has made a fairly lengthy and extremely carefully thought out speech. He is saying things which concern a great many people. He asked why this country is so far behind other countries. Some of us have been wondering that, but surely that is what the Bill is about. It seeks to bring us up to date. In this clause the Government have attempted to strike a sensible balance. I say to the noble Earl that we should not take all the fun out of life. He is saying that if his amendment were accepted the Government would have a duty to make sure that all boiled sweets are white. I do not think that that would be very much fun for anybody.

The Viscount of Falkland

I support the noble Earl's amendment. Colour has little nutritional value in food except perhaps in one or two examples in regard to infant food. There might be a temptation to present the food in an attractive way using colour and so on to the detriment of its nutritional value, although with a reputable manufacturer that would not be the case. The amendment would tighten up the law on the matter. I certainly support it.

6.15 p.m.

Lord Mottistone

I propose to comment on Amendments Nos. 75, 76 and 78 and also to speak to my Amendment No. 77. I believe that with Amendment No. 75 the noble Earl is overdoing it, on the lines suggested by my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour. The subsection goes as far as is necessary and as far as it is reasonable to require a government to go. It says: Ministers shall have regard to the desirability of restricting, so far as practicable, the use of substances of no nutritional value". That goes quite a long way. To strengthen it in the way the noble Earl suggests because of his extreme views reduces the validity of the clause. I hope therefore that my noble friend will resist it.

Why pick on colours? There are a good many additives, and I shall have something more to say on that subject when I speak to my own amendment. In my experience in the past 10 years colours have been very much the subject of restriction, especially in the European Community as well as in this country. There was a stage when the food processing industry was invited to test six colours. It took about nine years to complete and several generations of rats were gone through. It cost £1.5 million to test six colours. The industry thought it worth doing that. On the whole, colours came through all right. This goes on all the time. To strengthen the clause in the way the noble Earl suggests strikes me as unnecessary at this stage.

Colours are to be the subject of even stricter regulation in accordance with the advice of the Food Advisory Committee, which has, however, recognised the need for the use of some colours in food. Some colours are certainly necessary because it has been found that people will not in the main buy grey products. Where it can be established that the colours are harmless —a great deal of trouble is taken to do that —it is much better to let people have what on the whole they want.

The current wording of the clause is taken from the Food Act 1984. It is intended to deal with the control of food additives through the development of positive lists in subsidiary legislation. Few additives are considered to have intrinsic nutritional value, although they may, through preventing deterioration, maintain a food's nutritional value, or, in making foods more attractive, assist in promoting the consumption of a variety of foods and hence of a balanced diet.

This provision does not, however, take into account recent developments such as alternatives to fat or carbohydrate which do not contribute energy to the food. These substances may be considered to be without inherent nutritional value and so be deemed to be caught by this provision. But they can, and indeed are intended to, make a beneficial contribution to the diet of those who wish to reduce their energy intake. That is the point of what may appear to be a very subtle alteration in changing "of no nutritional value" to "without beneficial nutritional effect".

Set against the background of recent COMA reports advising on intakes of fat and carbohydrate, there is likely to be increased interest in these substances. My amendment would retain the spirit of the current Bill's provision but usefully clarify its meaning to reflect changes in food technology and consumer requirements. It would of course be necessary for any such new substances to be evaluated and cleared for use, as may be appropriate, according to their intended applications, but that is the normal process.

I hope that my noble friend will agree with me that all the other three amendments are a disaster and that mine is worth supporting.

Lord Ezra

As my amendment is one of those contained in the group, I should like to support what the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, said in proposing his amendment. He was right to draw attention to the fact that there is growing public concern about the extensive and widening use of food additives. He was also right to draw attention to the fact that the use of this kind of wording in previous legislation did not seem to have much effect.

The wording of Clause 16(4) is highly qualified. The words "have regard to" are themselves a qualification. The words "desirability", or another form of it, was criticised by the noble Baroness earlier in relation to Amendment No. 68. She thought that the word "desirable" was subjective and could have almost any meaning that one wished to put on it. Moreover, the words "so far as practicable" are also a qualification. Therefore, I can hardly think of a more qualified phrase than that which is contained in Clause 16(4). Further, in the light of this very extensive public concern I should have thought that there was a strong case for strengthening the wording to some degree.

Lord Auckland

If these amendments, especially those put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, were accepted, I venture to suggest to the Committee that enforcement would be extremely difficult. Some noble Lords may have watched the most interesting television series which is shown on Tuesday evenings called, "Food and Drink". One recent programme dealt with additives in confectionery. Like many noble Lords, I am quite partial to certain kinds of confectionery since I am a non-smoker.

I do not know whether there is any evidence to show that any particular harm is done by the addition of such substances as cochineal and citric acid to confectionery. It may well be that members of the dental profession will have adverse comments to make on the matter, and perhaps in many ways they may be right. However, I very much doubt whether additives are necessarily responsible for any such harm.

I am much more inclined towards the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Mottistone because it seems to be much clearer. While of course good health is essential as regards any type of food —that is, with or without additives —I believe that these amendments, on the whole, go much too far.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes

I think that colour is quite important in food. Those of us who are well fed and like our food do not always appreciate the fact that there are people who have to be tempted to eat; for example, the elderly, the frail and the anorexic. Indeed, many people will not eat unless food looks appealing. Such people are really not eating enough. Therefore, I think that colour plays an important part in the process.

Each person's perception of colour in food is a personal matter. Someone recently gave me a cake. It was a home-made birthday cake. However, it had been made in screaming purple, red, and livid green. My first reaction was, "How incredible; I have never seen such a cake before". But the person explained to me that in her community that was the colouring always used for food and that they liked having their food in those colours. I should say that it was a delicous cake.

Surely the way to deal with the colouring factor is to carry out tests on the colouring materials in the first instance. That would determine whether they were all right. If they pass the test. we should be allowed to use them. However, if they do not pass the test they should be banned. That is exactly what has happened in respect of barbiturates. We are no longer allowed to prescribe them. The good effects of such drugs were outweighed by the bad effects and they are no longer on the list. Moreover, if that purple dye was not perfectly harmless —I hope that it was harmless —it should not have been available for people to buy and put into a cake. I think that this testing can be carried out quite easily.

The clause as it stands is really quite good. I also think that the subsection dealing with nutritional value is a good one. I say that because it says: shall have regard to the desirability of restricting". That indicates to me that the Government can say, "Well, it is not desirable to restrict it". What worries me is that bulky fibrous material included in some food, which goes through totally undigested but which is of value in terms of providing bulk in the diet, might be described as having no nutritional value in the sense that you are not absorbing the calories. However, it may be a very desirable substance to leave in.

Under this clause it seems to me that the Government have the right to examine any type of food and any additives therein, whether good or bad, and to decide yes for them or no against them. However, the amendment seems to be pushing the balance in the other direction and getting it to a point where we might be bringing m an enormous amount of restriction which would not necessarily be in the interests of the consumer. Therefore, I do not support the amendment.

The Earl of Halsbury

I wish to answer a rhetorical question put by my noble friend as to why people colour food and drink at all. I shall give an illustration about something which I know and understand. Freshly distilled 'whisky is as water-white as vodka or gin, which are only pre-distilled whiskies. Why then, if the public do not buy whisky unless it is coloured, are they content with vodka or gin? The answer is very simple. Under the trade descriptions regulations you cannot describe something as whisky unless it has been stored for a minimum of three years in an oaken cask. It picks up colour from the oak.

The favourite casks are second-hand sherry casks, but there are not enough of them to supply the entire trade. Therefore, we have whiskies of different colours. Moreover, since you cannot bleach the more highly coloured whiskies, you colour up the next highly coloured whiskies with a little caramel. That is done because the man accustomed to buying Johnnie Walker expects it to be of a standard colour and not necessarily the same as Famous Grouse. People have an eye for such matters. That is one answer to the rhetorical question: why colour things up at all?

Baroness Trumpington

In my view the debate on these amendments has been worth while just to hear the explanation of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury. However, I do not believe that any of these amendments are necessary. Clause 16(4) repeats the wording of the present Act, which has been in operation satisfactorily for many years. It contains adequate safeguards for consumers and allows Ministers the flexibility necessary in such a subjective area as the need for non-nutritional substances.

There are substances such as artificial sweeteners or fat substitutes which probably have no intrinsic nutritional value. However, there is beneficial use to consumers in constructing their diets in permitting the use of those substances. I therefore consider that we would be well advised to leave the test as it is.

The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, want specific mention of colouring agents to be made. Again, this is not necessary as the same considerations apply and there is no need to highlight colours. There are examples, as pointed out by my noble friend, such as sugar, confectionery or table jellies, where the very nature of the product for consumers is governed by the use of colouring agents.

I turn now to the testing of colours, to which my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes referred. All the approved food additives have been assessed by independent experts and found to be safe for use before Ministers approved them. The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, also asked about the large number of additives in the UK list. The statistics quoted by the noble Earl are misleading. The additives referred to are not of course all used at the same time. They are also used in infinitesimal amounts, especially in flavours —3,500 out of the 3,850. Moreover, there are some additives which are on our list because they have been approved at EC level, although they are not actually used in this country.

The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, asked why additives were allowed in the first place. I think that he answered the question himself. Public tastes and perceptions change. We keep our list of additives under review with that factor in mind. The current review of colours to which the noble Earl referred is part of that exercise. Although some people are intolerant to food additives, including colours, there is an interesting thought in this respect. Scientific evidence is that many more are intolerant to chemicals naturally present in basic food such as milk and wheat.

6.30 p.m.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

I shall answer the Minister's last point first by pointing out that milk and wheat are part of our staple diet whereas one has much more of a choice about putting in additives. To add something to which people are known to react does not seem to me to be good sense.

We have had a useful debate. I am grateful to all who have taken part. The disagreement revolves around the extent to which the present wording has been doing its job. I point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, that that was what my main point was about. The present wording, as others have said, has existed for about 35 years. It appeared in the previous Food Act. My feeling, which is why I tabled the amendment, was that, far from overdoing it, as the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, said, something like this wording is necessary to produce any control over the escalating number of additives.

Why did I pick out colours? As I said, they seem to me to be the least necessary and to give the most troublesome reactions. They are probably what we can most do without.

I should turn around the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. He rightly said that the trials are expensive. I thought that he was going to say that they came through with flying colours, but he did not. They are expensive and therefore it is unreasonable to expect to find the manpower and money to test them all. So one takes a precautionary stance and starts with as few as one can. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, for his support. The noble Lord, Lord Auckland, believed that there would be a problem over enforcement with this wording. Yes, in a sense it is a bit woolly; but so is the present wording. There is no worse problem with the wording of the amendment than with the wording that we have had for many years.

Needless to say, I am disappointed by the noble Baroness's reply. She said that the clause had been in action satisfactorily for several years. I would argue that it is far from satisfactory if we now have nearly 4,000 of those substances. I shall not argue about the exact numbers. I understand that she and her colleagues would feel a lot less comfortable if they were under a duty rather than having to have regard to the substances; but it is what I feel is necessary. However, I do not believe that it is appropriate to press the matter at the moment. We have had an interesting debate. I should like to take the amendment away and think about it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 76 to 79 not moved.]

Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 17 [Enforcement of Community provisions]:

Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 80: Page 13, line 16, at end insert ("Where Ministers are aware of pending Community obligations they shall await a decision by the Council of Ministers on those obligations before making regulations of the kind described in this subsection").

The noble Lord said: The amendment is designed to give the Government the opportunity of becoming even more communitaire than they claim they are at present. The text reads: Where Ministers are aware of pending Community obligations they shall await a decision by the Council of Ministers on those obligations before making regulations of the kind described in this subsection").

Clause 17 is the Community clause: the sidelining identifies it as such. We have no quarrel with the general objective on the clause. It is obviously sensible and right that the procedure in Britain for implementing Community requirements as regards food should be as expeditious as it will be when Clause 17 is enacted. The Bill is long on Community obligations. It is equally right that Her Majesty's Government should accept the nearness of 1992 and attempt to anticipate European Community proposals, even at the expense of own-initiative. Failure to do so, and the exercise prematurely of own-initiative when a Community directive or other legislation is in prospect, will be detrimental to business planning and other interests. In certain circumstances, it will lead to a request for derogations, which are designed to impede 1992, at least in spirit if not in practice.

The framework directives for food post-1992 are now mostly in place. However, there are some specific issues, one of which is the draft directive on irradiated food issued by the Community. Asking the Ministry of Agriculture to keep in step with Community requirements for irradiated food should commend itself to Her Majesty's Government. First, it accords with the concept of a single market; secondly it will avoid doubts in the mind of food manufacturers about incurring the high capital cost of providing plant for irradiation, and the likely response of food retailers to that capital cost; and, thirdly, it will eliminate problems concerning inter-Community trade in irradiated food—for example, a situation in which some member states allow irradiated food, some do not and others partially allow it.

If Her Majesty's Government permitted irradiated food as and when it was a Community requirement to do so, much of the present opposition would diminish. Blaming Brussels is almost a national pastime: I am surprised that an astute Minister of Agriculture, such as I believe the present incumbent undoubtedly is, has not realised that. The drive of career prospects in politics never fails to amaze me. As I said, it would be better for manufacturers and retailers because of the elimination of uncertainty.

The speed of Community action as regards irradiated foods is well within the scope of Her Majesty's Government to influence, especially as irradiated food is permitted now in France, Belgium and Holland. In view of those circumstances, the Council of Ministers should be willing to act promptly and should not be too worried abut the European Parliament's views on the original directive.

Our Select Committee on European Community affairs in its special report advocates action on irradiated food in step with European Community. By happy coincidence that accords with the spirit of the amendment. The amendment is designed to achieve that end as regards irradiated food but, more importantly, as a general proposition. It ensures, as I said at the outset, a communitaire approach to 1992 which I hope will appeal to Her Majesty's Government and allow them the pleasure of accepting the amendment. I beg to move.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, has said everything that I was planning to say about the amendment except for one thing. As a member, at any rate during the later stages, of the Select Committee —at a time when it was agreed that we should propose to the Government that they should not proceed with their plans to allow irradiation until the draft directive had been agreed to —I was under the impression, as I believe was the committee, that that decision was pending and would not take long. If it does not take long, I stand by our decision. I hear on the grapevine —perhaps my noble friend the Minister can confirm this —that the Select Committee was aiming at a moving target and that it is not proving as simple as the Community thought to take that decision. If so, and it means a long delay, I can see the Government's point in proceeding, because many urgent matters require to be regulated upon. We probably should not wait indefinitely for the decision from the Community. We have been in this position before, and it could happen again. I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend has to say.

Baroness Trumpington

There are two main reasons why I cannot accept the amendment. I shall deal with the wider aspect first. If I were to accept the amendment the result would be that whenever we suspect that plans are afoot for a new Community law on any aspect of food, regardless of however many years hence, we should not proceed with regulations under the Bill. This would result in the British consumer waiting for possibly an unreasonably long time to be properly protected in a whole range of areas. This situation does not strike me as acceptable and for that reason alone I find it impossible to accept the amendment.

I come now to the question of food irradiation. The whole object of the Bill is to ensure food safety. That is the title of the Bill and that concern lies behind almost every clause we have been debating and will debate. Food irradiation has, I submit, a useful part to play in our comprehensive strategy. It is not a quick fix to clean up dirty food at the end of the food chain.

The report of the sub-committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Middleton has drawn attention to the weight of scientific evidence given by the distinguished independent expert scientific committee to which the Government referred the examination of the safety and wholesomeness of irradiated food. That committee concluded, first, that given proper controls and up to an overall average dose of 10 kilograys, irradiated food is both safe and wholesome; secondly, that there is no public health justification to maintain the current ban; thirdly, that the potential benefits of food irradiation present strong grounds for permitting its use, assuming the safety of the food supply is a matter of great concern to any government.

In the light of the experts' recommendations, some of which I have outlined and which have been endorsed by the European Community's committee, and taking into account the firm position of WHO, I submit that it is the clear duty of the Government to provide for the introducton of food irradiation as an additional weapon in the armoury of measures to fight food contamination.

I understand the concern expressed in paragraph 141 of the House of Lords sub-committee, but if we were to follow its recommendation not to proceed with plans to allow food irradiation until the draft EC directive had been agreed it would strengthen the position of those who wish to restrict consumer choice by preventing the legislation on food irradiation. Other EC countries —France, Belgium, Holland and Italy —already give their consumers the choice of buying some irradiated food. We want to make the same choice available to our consumers, who deserve the same standards of safety.

Clearly, in drawing up our regulations, as I said earlier, we would not wish to go against anything which the Community decided to require in relation to food irradiation. One harmonised set of rules for the whole Community would certainly avoid any risk of confusion.

Nevertheless, I think it would be a great mistake to delay. Here I come to the points raised by my noble friend Lady Carnegy. The time-scale in Brussels is far from clear. Discussions are currently bogged down, largely for political reasons; certainly not for reasons of safety since that aspect has already been confirmed by the EC scientific committee for food. It is not clear how those political difficulties will be resolved or how quickly.

We see no reason whatever to hold up the introduction of a potential health benefit for UK consumers simply because political difficulties among some of our partners are delaying action by the Community. It is true that there is disagreement between member states as to the products to which the process should be applied. But perhaps I may stress that our proposals do not envisage allowing irradiation for any product or for any purpose or at any level of dose for which safety has not been confirmed. Moreover, every single one of the products likely to be irradiated here is already being irradiated by one or another of our EC partners.

I hope that the truth of what I have been saying has convinced the Committee that it is right to proceed. Standards will be rigorously maintained. All irradiated food will be clearly identified and labelled. Food irradiation premises will be licensed. At the end of the day, with all the assurances I have given, the consumer will be the one to make the choice. It is a case of choice, not must. This Chamber has always been the champion concerning matters of choice. For all the reasons that I have given, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, will withdraw his amendment.

6.45 p.m.

Lord Gallacher

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply. She will not be surprised to hear that I am totally unconvinced by it. It has been suggested that the effect of this amendment would be to put Her Majesty's Government in a situation in which they suspect that if plans are afoot they must delay. With due deference, the amendment says nothing of the kind. It says: Where Ministers are aware of pending Community obligations". Suspicion does not come into it. There is either something on the table or there is not. It is only in the circumstances in which there is something on the table that this amendment would begin to bite. Therefore, I suggest that that argument is misconceived. I could think of stronger words, but because of my high regard for the noble Baroness I shall not use them this evening.

The argument that because the Community is a complex organisation there is likely to be delay seems to me to be entirely passive on the part of Her Majesty's Government. I thought, in my innocence, that come 1992 we would be in a new era regarding the European Community, and that in anticipation of it things would happen quickly. I am sorry that a certain distinguished noble Lord is not in his place tonight to hear this. If that is not the case and if the noble Baroness is telling me that we are still playing politics about simple questions of this kind in Brussels, I think it is time that the British Government made that abundantly clear to both the Council of Ministers and the Commission.

There must surely be limits to the credibility of the people of this country about whether or not we shall really see a Community functioning as those who advocate that in 1992 it will function. On the other hand, it may still be the same old niggling affair in which dotting "i"s and crossing "t"s and blaming translators and interpreters and all the other jiggery-pokery make a mockery of what we are seeking to do. Incidentally, worse than making a mockery of it, that gives us extremely bad value for money. I agree with the critics of the Community this far: that unless we can justify the cost to the United Kingdom, which is very considerable, we are on a bad deal in Brussels. Thus I do not accept these arguments in the slightest degree. I must say that I am disappointed that they should be advanced as a counter to this amendment.

Because we wish to do this as a food safety measure, I am substantially in agreement with it. But that seems to me to indicate the urgency of the question. I still see a situation of great difficulty in persuading people to invest capital. I have not quoted the figure of the capital cost of a modern irradiation plant. Two figures have been quoted to me. One took my breath away; the other almost gave me heart failure.

I suggest to the Ministry of Agriculture that there is a bland assumption here that once the legislation is in place and the Minister has acted by making regulations under it, things will begin to happen. There is an assumption that capital is just waiting for the investment opportunity which the legislation of irradiated food provides. I do not think that that is so. A part of the United Kingdom Government in this sphere is quite happy to let Brussels take for ever to act as long as we proceed unilaterally. Capital will want an assurance, first, that when Brussels does act, if it produces a regime for irradiated food which is not at one with what Britain wishes to see, we have a situation if not of actual stalemate certainly one in which people may have invested capital unwisely. For this reason I do not see manufacturers rushing ahead of Europe in this context.

What we are advocating in the amendment is for the good of British business. I have yet to see much being said by those who might be expected to irradiate food —namely, the large food manufacturers —in this regard. I am extremely disappointed with the arguments that have been deployed. I am obliged to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, for her remarks. I dare say that the sub-committee thought that as it was considering a draft directive it would not take long before it was implemented. However, apropos irradiated food we shall not die if we do not eat it until Brussels says we can. There are those who equally firmly hold the view that we shall die if we eat it. I shall not test the opinion of the Committee this evening on the amendment because of the lateness of the hour. However, I shall certainly return to the matter on Report, perhaps with a better text. The Committee has a duty to pronounce for or against this principle.

Baroness Trumpington

Before the noble Lord withdraws the amendment, I wish to refer to his remarks when he said he was disappointed with me. Frankly, I am disappointed with him. He simply has not addressed the point I made that various EC countries are already irradiating food. The noble Lord has not addressed the fact that 20 countries already irradiate food, and that four of those countries are within the EC. I believe I understood the noble Lord to say that it may take years to get the money together to manufacture irradiation plants. However, if we have to wait while the politics go on —we are one of 12 and although we do our best we cannot influence all the others—we shall put off even further the day when irradiation plants can be set up. EC proposals are often under discussion in Brussels for many years. An example of that is the heat treated milk directive which was under discussion for years before it was adopted. The jams directive was under discussion for about 14 years.

Lord Gallacher

The noble Baroness ignores 1992. Is that event going to occur or not? Is all that is being said about it to be believed or not? If member states are already irradiating food, what are the impediments to a decision by the Council of Ministers? It seems to me that the British attitude is that provided we proceed unilaterally the Council of Ministers can take as long as it wishes to introduce a directive on irradiated food. That is a passive and defeatist attitude to the question; it negates the spirit of 1992. I withdraw nothing and assure the noble Baroness that she will be hearing from me again. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 17 agreed to.

Clause 18 [Special provisions for particular foods etc.]:

Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 81: Page 13, line 29, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").

The noble Lord said: We believe it essential that there is an effective system for approving and controlling novel foods and processes. It is crucial in our view if novel foods, particularly genetically manipulated novel products, are to be accepted by consumers.

Baroness Trumpington

Am I right in thinking that this amendment is grouped with Amendments Nos. 83, 85 and 86? That is all I wish to know.

Lord Gallacher

The noble Baroness is quite correct. I apologise to the Committee for not saying at the outset of my remarks that I was moving Amendment No. 81 and speaking also to Amendments Nos. 83, 85 and 86. I give that assurance now and hope that I can find my place in my script.

Genetic manipulation is an entirely new concept to most people who will want to be reassured that such developments are being carefully monitored and appropriately regulated. The Bill in our view fails to address this point. It simply permits novel foods to be prohibited once they are shown to be unsafe. Consumers deserve protection and must have it if novel food processes are to play a significant part in the food supply of the future.

These amendments to Clause 18 aim to give a sound statutory basis to the voluntary arrangements which at present exist for the control of novel foods and processes. Our amendments would give the Minister positive powers of approval rather than the negative sanctioning powers in the Bill. During the 1984 review of food legislation the Government formally accepted that some form of statutory notification and approval scheme for novel foods was necessary in the light of recommendations made by its food standards committee. I refer to the report on novel protein food issued in 1974.

In industry, too, there is a strongly held view that such a scheme is required to underpin consumer confidence. We are therefore somewhat disappointed that the Government appear to have backtracked on this issue, rejecting as they have any form of statutory approval scheme for novel foods and processes. These amendments to Clause 18 would make a legal requirement of the kind of approval scheme already envisaged by the Department of Health's advisory committee on novel foods and processes in its paper entitled Guidelines on the testing of novel foods. This proposal would provide guidance for those producing such foods, or those wishing to market them, through a flexible decision approach which would require different information to be provided about different novel foods according to their complexity.

A system of identifying categories, as I have outlined, allows for a flexible mechanism of control which can easily identify those foods or processes which need to be checked and those which do not. In our opinion this arrangement would not impose an unreasonable burden on the food industry. It is for that reason, in addition to the other reasons that I have already advanced, that I beg to move Amendment No. 81.

Baroness Trumpington

Does any other Member of the Committee wish to speak on the other amendments before I reply?

Lord Gallacher

I hope that the noble Baroness will reply to Amendment No. 81. However, I was also discussing Amendments Nos. 83, 85 and 86.

Baroness Trumpington

I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining the amendment and those being discussed with it. I completely share his concern that only novel foods that are safe should be marketed. This was very much in our minds in drafting the Bill. I believe that its existing provisions cover this point adequately and that the amendment is therefore unnecessary.

Novel foods range from exotic fruits and vegetables to the products of genetic manipulation. Many will be perfectly harmless but it is possible that some may pose risks to consumers. That is why in this clause we are seeking to provide additional safeguards, over and above the other food safety requirements of the Bill. In Clause 18 we seek to provide for a flexible system which fully takes account of the potential risk of different types of novel foods. Perhaps it would be helpful if I amplified the background to our thinking on this subject.

Technological innovation and the consumer's wish for a varied, interesting diet mean that novel foods are likely to become increasingly significant to the food supply. That is why we established the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) in 1988 to advise Ministers on all aspects of novel foods. I am pleased to say that the committee operates most successfully a voluntary notification scheme for novel foods.

Against this background of increasing innovation, there is also a need to provide appropriate controls. The proposed powers would enable Ministers to introduce various controls appropriate for the wide diversity of foods that could be classified as "novel". So, in the case of products involving genetic manipulation we would have powers under the Bill to require prior approval following a detailed assessment of safety. But the same considerations scarcely apply when one is considering an exotic fruit, which has long been consumed elsewhere in the world.

Let me amplify this point. Our industry is at the forefront of development in biotechnology. We have no wish to discourage its spirit of innovation or put it at a disadvantage in relation to overseas competition by unnecessary or bureaucratic controls. On the other hand we are determined that consumers should be adequately protected whenever a novel food might pose a risk to health. As I have indicated, this demands a flexible approach to legislation. Clause 18(1) provides for just such an approach. It will provide for a system under which we can control the classes of novel food which present a potential risk to consumers and, where necessary, we can attach conditions to any approvals that are granted. Of course our intention is to meet the concern of noble Lords that only safe novel foods reach the market. The clause as drafted, taken with the wider food safety provisions within the Bill. meets that objective.

7. p.m.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes

I wonder whether the amendment as proposed might be more effective in cases such as that of the Skoal Bandit. Some people classified that as a food and others classified it as a drug. It was a terrible tobacco product which one chewed. It was very carcinogenic and many oral cancers developed as a result of it. My point is that by the time that that was discovered the Skoal Bandit was being manufactured in this country. A large government grant had been obtained to set up a factory to produce it. When the product was banned it was argued that we were taking employment away from the region in which the factory was set up, and the region needed employment.

If "shall" appeared in the clause instead of "may" perhaps such projects would have to be approved in advance. That would prevent a similar situation arising. However, it may be that the matter is too complicated and Skoal Bandits could still have escaped the net. I should like to hear the Minister's comments on the question of liaison between departments offering grants dealing with the food aspect. Would having greater control over food aspects mean that the department giving a grant would have to approach the Minister's department for a comment on the food aspect?

Baroness Trumpington

I may have to write to my noble friend on the matter. I believe that at the time the grant was given for the Skoal Bandit, with every good intention, it was not known that it was such a devilish thing. When a company comes along with what looks like a very good product which would provide employment for many local people in a new factory there may seem to be no reason not to give a grant. The decision was taken to ban the particular product; therefore I imagine that my remarks still stand.

I am a great one for taking out "or", but in this case I am afraid that I am told that I cannot take it out. There is a good reason, so I am told. The powers in Clause 18(1)(a) and Clause 18(1)(b) are quite different. One is concerned with novel foods and the other with importation. To substitute "and" might suggest that the two provisions should be used together, which is not the case.

I am reminded that the Skoal Bandit is not covered by the definition of food or novel food. However, I shall certainly look at the point when I am considering the relevant clause.

Lord Gallacher

I thank the noble Baroness for her reply to the group of amendments. Being very much a lay person in this area I shall need to study very carefully what she has said and to take advice from those who have asked me to assist them with this particular question.

Before I formally beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 81 and not move the other amendments when they are called perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness whether the statement that she has just made on this question represents the views of the Ministry of Agriculture or the Department of Health, or both Ministries.

Baroness Trumpington

In reply to the noble Lord, both.

Lord Gallacher

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 82: Page 13, line 30, after ("prohibiting") insert ("or regulating").

The noble Viscount said: In speaking to Amendment No. 82 I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 84. The argument behind the two amendments, which insert the words "or regulating" after "prohibiting", is quite simple. During the next decade we are likely to see an increase in what are described as novel foods. Those can be established substances which have never been used or totally new foods, many of which are produced by biotechnology. Genetic engineering in particular is an extremely powerful technology which could bring benefits to manufacturers and consumers alike. However, such foods will not have a history of safe usage. Some could have adverse or unwanted effects.

We feel that prohibition is largely a corrective action after the harm has been done. In our opinion there is an additional role for the Minister to assess and regulate novel products which appear on the market as a result of that new technology. The words "or regulating" rather than the final "prohibiting" might be more appropriate. I beg to move.

Baroness Trumpington

The clause seeks to provide for arrangements to deal with the special cases of novel foods and imports.

The conditions in which we shall be taking action on novel foods will vary very widely. Some may involve the technique of genetic manipulation and thus require a detailed scientific assessment of their effects on consumers. It is our intention that in such cases there should be a prohibition on marketing until such an assessment has confirmed the safety of the product. Accordingly, Clause 18 provides for prohibition and for the possibility of subsequent exclusion from the prohibition so as to enable us to bring in a strict control system on the basis I have outlined. If we had simply wanted to regulate novel foods we should have just touched on the powers of Clause 16. The point is that we wanted to be able to operate a special regime.

At the same time some novel foods will be novel in the sense only that they have not normally been regarded as foods in Western Europe, though they have been used as food elsewhere in the world. Clearly products of that nature can safely be released to the public on the basis of the normal controls in the Bill, including Clause 16 if appropriate. An example is Kiwi fruit.

As regards imports, the wording in line 33 reflects the Importation of Milk Act 1983. That has enabled us to operate a strict milk import regime which we wish to maintain. I therefore favour retention of this wording, and its application to imports other than milk.

The Viscount of Falkland

I thank the noble Baroness for that explanation. I fully understand and accept the argument that she put forward, which seems to be most appropriate. Under those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 83 to 86 not moved.]

Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 87: Page 14, line 10, at end insert ("or has been produced by new or extensively modified processes;").

The noble Lord said: The amendment is to the definition of novel foods contained in the Bill on page 14, line 10. The purpose is to broaden and clarify that definition by emphasising the importance of the process by which they are produced. That is clearly a crucial consideration if the consumer is to be presented, for example, with foods that are commonly consumed but are produced or processed by new or modified methods such as genetic manipulation.

We believe that it is vital that genetically manipulated products fall within the scope of these provisions. It is for that vital reason that I now move the amendment. I beg to move.

Baroness Trumpington

I believe that this amendment is unnecessary. Processes, including novel processes, can be regulated under Clause 16(1)(c) and can be licensed under paragraph 4(b) of Schedule 1. If the food produced is identical to a food already available to the public there is no special case for an additional prohibition under Clause 18.

I hope that in the circumstances the noble Lord will not press the amendment.

Lord Gallacher

That reply has a facility which almost bewilders and baffles me. Therefore I must, in my own interests if not my own sanity, take it away, study it, take advice and, if necessary, come back to it at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne

I beg to move that the House be resumed. In moving this Motion, perhaps I may suggest that the Committee stage begin again at 10 minutes past eight.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

House resumed.