Food Standards Agency (Hansard, 30 July 1997)

Mr. John Cunningham

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and I, with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales, and for Northern Ireland, welcome the excellent response to the consultation on Professor James's report. The Government have received replies from more than 630 organisations and individuals. The responses show that there is widespread support for the proposal to establish a food standards agency which would be a non-departmental public body accountable to Parliament through health Ministers and operating on a basis of openness and transparency; create a clear separation between the responsibilities for regulating food safety and for promoting the interests of food-related industries; promote food safety from "plough to plate".

Many detailed points were raised in the consultation, which we are now studying further. Our aim is to publish a White Paper in the autumn setting out the Government's response to Professor James's recommendations in the light of the first round of public consultation. The White Paper will itself be the subject of a second consultation and a draft Bill will then be drafted and published. We shall bring the Bill before Parliament as soon as parliamentary time permits.

It is the Government's intention to establish a shadow food standards commission once the necessary legislation has made sufficient progress through its parliamentary stages. We are also taking a range of measures to improve food safety arrangements in the transitional period before establishment of a food standards agency. The Minister for Food Safety and the Minister for Public Health will take on a joint role in preparing the way for the food standards agency and ensuring maximum protection for the public. They will carry out this day-to-day role in close consultation with their ministerial counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Overall policy co-ordination will rest with the ministerial committee on food safety, chaired by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

A key feature of the transitional arrangements will be developing further the independent advisory committees that advise the Government as a whole on food safety and related matters. The Food Advisory Committee will be given a special role in the handling of food safety issues that go beyond the remit of any one expert committee.

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In addition to these UK-wide measures, the Secretary of State for Health and I are taking specific steps to improve the management of food safety issues in England. A joint food safety and standards group will be formed from the relevant staff in MAFF and the Department of Health from 1 September 1997. The group will be headed by Mr. Geoffrey Podger, a Department of Health official currently seconded to MAFF. The new joint group will report to Ministers in both Departments. In Scotland, all food safety issues are handled by a single team which comes under the responsibility of the Scottish health Minister; in Wales all food safety issues come under the responsibility of the Welsh health Minister; and in Northern Ireland the Department of Health and Social Services has lead responsibility for food safety issues.

The chief medical officer, Sir Kenneth Calman, will be given a new high level co-ordinating role in the handling of issues of potential public concern about food. Sir Kenneth will have particular responsibility for a new joint MAFF-Department of Health risk communication unit which is to be established and further reinforced by the appointment of an external adviser. This role will be undertaken in consultation with territorial Departments.

We are also continuing to strengthen our approach to food safety issues taking account of the high priority we give to the protection of public health, the rigorous enforcement of measures designed to protect the public and our commitment to openness, transparency and responsiveness to consumer concerns.

I am placing copies of all the responses to the consultation on Professor James's report in the Library of the House.