Hansard

We have had a Food Standards Agency since 1999, but as part of a United Kingdom agency. The agency has been a success and has acted on its own initiative, for example, as I said at stage 3, on standards for school meals. More recently, it has produced independent research on food fraud, on which it led the rest of the UK.

However, with the UK Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition breaking up the UK agency, consideration of the future of FSA Scotland was necessary. Professor Scudamore’s report in March 2012 strongly recommended Scotland having an independent agency. That is a classic example of powers with a purpose, and Labour has backed the general principles of the bill from the outset.

In what has become a standard Scottish approach that seeks to ensure that experts and the public are fully engaged in any new bill, we have had two consultations, and there have been two further reports following the horsemeat scandal, with Scudamore reporting again, on food and feed safety, and Ray Jones reporting on traceability, labelling, assurance schemes and provenance issues associated with primary red meat production and processing.

We have come a long way since the Swann report on antibiotics in veterinary use, which was published in the late 1960s. However, the issue of chemicals in meat production is a matter of concern. If the transatlantic trade and investment partnership is approved, we must ensure that US meat that is produced using growth hormones is controlled.

Most of the evidence that the committee received supported a new independent agency, but some people argued that the preservation of the status quo would ensure consistency of approach, communication and advice across the UK, maintain good links to the European Union and avoid duplication of effort. The committee rightly rejected that view. I believe that it is vital to Scotland’s food production that we have an agency that is seen to be independent and which can ensure that Scotland’s reputation for quality is fully protected. For example, our farmed salmon is the only salmon with the Label Rouge, making it a premium product.

As the minister said, the new agency’s powers are to be enhanced. My amendments sought to reinforce the agency’s powers on diet and nutrition, working in partnership with the Government and Health Protection Scotland, which will be important in tackling what I believe will emerge as the biggest challenge in public health.

Currently, tobacco is the main legacy issue that we are tackling. Of course, alcohol is important and progress is being made through price control and availability restriction. I hope that, with support for many of the 10 elements in my proposed member’s bill, we will continue to make progress on alcohol. However, obesity, which currently affects 27.8 per cent of adults, threatens to reverse the gains in life expectancy over the past 20 years. When I started in medicine, the level of type 2 diabetes was at 1 per cent of the population, but it is now at 6 per cent across the UK, with more than 250,000 people in Scotland affected.

The new agency will have to meet head-on the issues of food content, such as saturated fat, trans fat, salt, sugar and food density or calories. That will mean challenging the current buy-one-get-one-free approach of retailers as well as the approach of the food industry. To that end, I supported many of the amendments that Which?, one of the premier consumer bodies, suggested at stage 2. It is imperative that, in the appointments to the board, there should be a powerful consumer interest as well as an employee director, as Unison has suggested. There should also be gender balance.

Labour will seek to act if the agency fails to demonstrate sufficient power in the area of nutrition. The Health and Sport Committee noted the suggestions that it received that one role of the agency should be to help grow food and drink industries in Scotland. However, if it is to do so, it will need to ensure that its role as a regulator remains paramount. We must never forget that the feeding of brain and spinal cord to cattle as a money-saving device resulted in BSE, which, by the way, we have not seen the end of. As I mentioned, I have concerns about the use of antibiotics and growth hormone.

We are only now beginning to emerge from an era of excessive additives. Agents for anti-caking, anti-foaming, bulking, food colouring and colour retention as well as emulsifiers, humectants to prevent drying out, preservatives, stabilizers, sweeteners and thickeners—all named in Europe as E numbers—are widespread and pervasive. One example of the challenge of additives is whether certain colourants and sodium benzoate contribute to increases in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.

There has been significant controversy associated with the risks and benefits of food additives. Some artificial additives have been linked with cancer, digestive problems, neurological conditions, ADHD—as I mentioned—heart disease and obesity. However, the evidence is often still equivocal. Natural additives may be similarly harmful or may be the cause of allergic reactions in certain individuals. One example is the azo dye sunset yellow, which is already banned in many Nordic countries. The UK has the highest consumption by children of soft drinks containing such dyes in the European Union, and Scotland has the highest in the UK. Therefore, clarity on safety is needed if at all possible.

Of course, that is mainly a matter for the European Food Safety Authority, which rightly sets many of the regulations for us. Its expert scientific panel that deals with food additives, the panel on food additives and nutrient sources added to food—the ANS panel—has started the process of reassessing all permitted food colours, of which there are 45 in total, including six additives that, in 2009, the UK FSA called for food manufacturers to voluntarily stop using. The banning of those colourings could result in significant challenges to our producers, including AG Barr, which produces Irn-Bru. However, AG Barr already exports a Ponceau-free Irn-Bru to Canada, which has banned the UK recipe. Therefore, it is not impossible for food producers to change production without having to wait for the final results of tests.

The new agency will need to commission research, but in doing so it will need a memorandum of understanding with the remnant FSA and it will need to work closely with the European FSA, if not have a memorandum of understanding with it. My view is that the agency must lead us in a transition to a simpler approach to food and a world in which a slightly misshapen carrot or apple is regarded as equally acceptable as the pre-packaged tracer gas-filled products in supermarkets today, the packaging of which is neither biodegradable nor recyclable. We also need a world in which additives are minimised. The agency must rigorously apply the precautionary principle.

There are many other issues that I do not have time to go into. The hygiene aspect of the bill is critical, as we still have one of the highest rates of E coli 107. That is a challenge, as will be emerging bacteria or strains. My colleague Rhoda Grant will deal with the matter of local authority trading standards and Claire Baker will mention meat inspection, which we dealt with in the stage 1 debate and which is a critical part of the bill.

I could go on for some time, but my time is up. I commend the bill to the Parliament.