Cheeses: EC Directive (Hansard, 23 February 1995)

The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the EC directive in question allows member states to grant traditional products an exemption from the listeria standard. The Government will be taking full advantage of this. For non-traditional cheeses, guidance to environmental health officers will make it clear that enforcement action should be based on risk assessment and public health judgments, not on end product testing 1247 alone. The Government are confident that British cheesemakers, irrespective of size, will not be adversely affected by the new rules.

§ Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for that reply which may come as some solace to our larger cheesemakers. However, will my noble friend the Minister agree to meet the representatives of our cheesemakers, particularly the Association of Specialist Cheesemakers, so that there is a clear understanding of the nature of the derogation which is being applied for and that any information required from the cheesemakers to support the application can be made available in good time?
As regards my noble friend's point about environmental health officers operating this directive in an appropriate way, can my noble friend therefore give the House an assurance that those officers will not behave in future as they are behaving at the moment in Clydesdale against Mr. Humphrey Errington and his Lanark Blue cheese, whom they are happily planning to put out of business tomorrow even though that cheese has never caused the slightest tummy-ache to anyone?

Earl Howe
My Lords, my noble friend asks a number of questions and I believe that I can reassure him on all of them. Cheesemakers and other processors with a throughput of less than 300,000 litres of milk per year are eligible for a derogation from the requirements of the directive in respect of buildings and equipment. More generally, we have already consulted all sides of the dairy industry, including the small cheesemakers, on our proposals for implementing the directive. There is recognition that the Ministry has made every effort to interpret the directive in a way which minimises the burden on small businesses.
There will be a code of practice under the Food Safety Act 1990 for use by local authorities. There will also be guidelines to ADAS who are responsible for registration and inspection. Drafts of these documents were circulated as part of the public consultation on our implementing regulations during the autumn. In addition, a large number of environmental health officers will have attended Department of Health and MAFF training seminars on the regulations.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, is it not rather disquieting that British cheesemakers, who have been making some of these cheeses for hundreds of years, should now find themselves subject to a derogation from Brussels before they can carry on making those cheeses? Will British cheesemakers be able to invent new cheeses in the future without begging permission from Brussels? Should not that be a matter for subsidiarity, and, if not, why not?

Earl Howe
My Lords, the measure is perhaps not as earth shattering as the noble Lord likes to suggest. The directive is needed essentially to harmonise milk hygiene standards throughout the Community. That is a laudable objective. It is essentially a single market measure. As to new cheeses, our approach will be that if a new cheese comes forward for registration we shall take that forward immediately to the Commission and 1248 seek to have it registered as a traditional product. Our approach throughout this exercise has been to assemble as extensive a list as possible of traditional cheeses. We believe that that is the right way forward so as to minimise any possible uncertainty within the industry.

§ Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone
My Lords, what is or are listeria? What is their relevance to public health?

Earl Howe
My Lords, listeria is a bacterium which occurs in a wide variety of environmental situations. It can cause severe illness in certain vulnerable groups of people, including pregnant women and the elderly. However, the incidence of listeria as a condition is rare. There are only a few dozen cases a year. On the other hand, when it does occur it can be serious, and it is something that needs special attention in the context of milk hygiene.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, when this new cheese is taken to the Commission, is the permission to be granted only in relation to health considerations and not whether it likes the taste, the smell, the colour or anything else? It is simply a matter of health. Is that correct?

Earl Howe
My Lords, the question that was put to me I took to mean that if a new cheese were invented, that manufacturer could seek to have it registered as a traditional product if a traditional process were involved. The cheese would then be added to the list of traditional products which we are seeking to have agreed with the Commission. But that does not negate the need to be aware of the hygiene of the cheese process itself. Of course, that will be an abiding concern for the manufacturer and the environmental health officer, as appropriate.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, I am confused. If a cheese is new, how can it be traditional?

Earl Howe
My Lords, it would be registered as a traditional cheese if a traditional process were involved, which is very often the case with new cheeses. They often follow a traditional cheese making process.

§ The Earl of Onslow
My Lords—

§ Lady Saltoun of Abernethy
My Lords—

The Lord Privy Seal (Viscount Cranborne)
My Lords, I know that cheese is a very exciting subject and that we are all very fond of it, but I wonder whether it is not the turn of the Cross-Benches.

§ Lady Saltoun of Abernethy
My Lords, do the French implement this legislation as assiduously as we do?

Earl Howe
My Lords, the legislation will be implemented universally across the Community, subject to any derogations that might apply. The directive provides for Commission inspectors to be appointed to make on-the-spot checks on establishments in member states to ensure uniform application of the directive throughout the European Community.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, will the Minister explain why, in Council, the United Kingdom 1249 assented to a ridiculous intervention in what is not a significant matter here? In fact, most of us are getting cheesed off with an intervention on this scale, which is so ridiculous that it ought to have been laughed out when it was first brought to the Council of Ministers.

Earl Howe
My Lords, the United Kingdom voted in favour of the directive because we knew that the implications for our cheese industry would be next to none. The procedures followed by environmental officers and the cheese manufacturers themselves will remain almost exactly the same. Our intention is that common sense shall prevail.

§ The Earl of Onslow
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the directive states: Member States may, in so far as certain requirements of this Directive are likely to affect the manufacture of milk-based products with traditional characteristics, be authorised to grant individual or general derogation from Article 7A(I) to (4)"? If that is the case, will my noble friend give me an undertaking that the Government will ask for a general derogation and not a particular derogation for particular cheeses, but that if it is for particular cheeses it will be set in stone and not alterable?

Earl Howe
My Lords, we are required to submit a list of the cheeses which we believe should be counted as traditional. The list is now being compiled and if any noble Lord knows of a cheese which he believes should be on the list my colleagues in the Ministry will be interested to hear. My noble friend must recognise that life does not stand still. New cheeses are invented and they will need to be separately considered as and when the time comes.

§ Lord Carter
My Lords, the Minister has confirmed that listeriosis is a most unpleasant disease. Is it correct that if a case of listeriosis were to result from the consumption of cheese the manufacturer would be caught by the due diligence requirements in the Food Safety Act? If so, what is all the fuss about the European directive?

Earl Howe
My Lords, at present that is the case, although the European directive will not apply to cheese at the retail level; it applies only to cheese at the manufacturing level. The essential provisions will remain exactly the same. That is why I said to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, that we do not believe that there will be any substantive difference in the way that cheesemakers must behave in the United Kingdom.

§ Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that listeria is far more likely to be a danger in soft rather than hard cheeses? Should we not have a European directive suggesting that the French should get rid of their 172 soft cheeses in favour of the old-fashioned, superior and much better Cheddar?

Earl Howe
My Lords, the short answer to my noble friend is that, as regards the majority of your Lordships and others, that would be a severe case of hard cheese! The noble Lord is essentially correct as regards his substantive point. While listeria can occur in any type of cheese, the chief medical officer has recommended 1250 that certain groups of people, including pregnant mothers, should avoid soft cheeses in view of the slightly higher risk involved.