Meeting of the Parliament 02 October 2014
I thank Duncan McNeil for his convenership of the Health and Sport Committee as my colleagues on the committee and I went through the stage 1 process.
The bill has been one of the most interesting things that we have done. In effect, everyone thought that the Food Standards Agency and food standards Scotland were fairly standard things to have. However, the further we looked at the bill, the more problems were brought in, relating to the producer, at the low end, right the way up to the retailer, and how the people in the chain of supply felt about FSS. At what point should regulation kick in to penalise severely those who have done something wrong? Some believe that overregulation means that people are discriminated against. Some producers are looking for lighter-touch regulation, because they believe that local authorities already have enough power to do work within their companies.
The fact that there is no one view on this matter is what makes it so diverse. As the committee found on a number of occasions, everyone wants food standards Scotland, but there are differing views about what it should do. I had certainly never thought about issues such as the regulation of animal foodstuffs, which has been mentioned by various members, and we can take that all the way through to the vision that Christian Allard, with his years in the food industry, set out with regard to regulation. I think that it will be very difficult to secure absolute agreement from everyone.
In a very interesting trip that the committee made to Aberdeen earlier in the year, we not only talked to the Food Standards Agency and other organisations such as the Rowett institute of nutrition and health but ended up visiting Joseph Robertson (Aberdeen) Limited, a food processor in the area. As someone who, as members can imagine, has been no stranger to a fish supper over the years—perhaps I should stop eating them—I started to ask questions. Where does this fish come from? How is it identified and tracked? How do we ensure that it is quality food?
As far as food safety is concerned, we just do not realise what is going on. For example, I was astonished to find that, each year, food safety issues cost the economy something like £140 million and lead to the hospitalisation of 2,000 people. I could not quite get that into my head at the time. We simply do not realise the overall effect on the economy, never mind the food industry. Although, as many members have pointed out this afternoon, the food industry has a phenomenal reputation, we have still had to endure the Wishaw E coli outbreak and, of course, last year’s horsemeat scandal.
I am really interested in finding out how this legislation will be enforced. The retailers who made comments to us seemed to feel mildly discriminated against. However, as Bob Doris has said, the opposite view was taken by officers from Glasgow City Council, who said that fixed penalties—[Interruption.] Excuse me, Presiding Officer—I am suffering from a bit of a throat this week. The officers told us that the fixed penalties and compliance notices will be a fantastic boon to them. Their problem, however, is the cost of taking cases of food fraud and the like to court, only for the perpetrator to come out with a fine that barely dents their finances. We need to toughen up the system. If we do not, our reputation as one of the world’s great providers of quality food and the reputation of the associated industries will diminish, and our salmon will no longer be seen in France, for example, as being of the highest standard.
The question, then, is how we do all that, given the prevalence of European legislation. How do we take account of the fact that the horsemeat scandal, for instance, emanated from the continent? We need partnership working, and that applies as much to research. After all, bugs do not respect borders. We cannot act independently; given the worldwide nature of the food processing business, we, too, need to look worldwide.
I do not want to go through everything that has been said this afternoon. All I will say is that I agree with virtually all of it and that I think that the bill’s principles are correct. The question is how we do all this without hurting people who are not at fault, how we track the perpetrators of fraud and how we ensure that issues such as the E coli outbreak in Wishaw and the 2013 horsemeat scandal are appropriately dealt with.
I support the bill’s principles.