Hansard

I am grateful for the opportunity to make this statement to the chamber today. Members will recall that in last week's food safety debate, I touched on the Executive's position on beef on the bone. Since then, there has been considerable press coverage of the issue and we have received requests from a number of members to clarify the Scottish position. We considered it important that we take the opportunity to do just that. The purpose of my statement is to set out, fully and clearly, the Scottish Executive's position and to answer questions that members may have about it.

It may be useful for members if, briefly by way of background, I touch on the history of the issue. The beef-on-the-bone ban was introduced on 16 December 1997, following consideration of the issue by the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, or SEAC—the Government's scientific advisers in this field—and advice from the then chief medical officer in England. That advice was fully endorsed by the Scottish CMO and was also accepted by the then Scottish Office ministers.

A review of the ban was undertaken by the present CMO in England in January 1999. His advice, again fully endorsed by the Scottish CMO, was that a lifting of the ban at that time would result in the reintroduction of an unacceptable degree of risk that had been eliminated by the imposition of the ban.

While progress had been made in the measures to reduce the incidence of BSE and the risk of transmission of the disease to humans, the recommendation was for a continuation of the ban with a review to be undertaken after six months. The outcome of further work by the Wellcome Trust Centre at the University of Oxford was to be part of that further consideration. That was the position in January this year.

Since then, the CMOs in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK have continued to keep the position under review and to consider the relevant evidence that has emerged during the intervening period.

There is at present a difference of professional view between the English CMO and the CMOs for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the evidence available. I refer here to information that has been in the public domain over the past few days: the English CMO advises that the additional risk to human health created by lifting the bone-in beef ban, on visible cuts of beef, is tiny and unquantifiable in any meaningful way. However, he also advises that the retention of the ban on the use of bones for manufacturing food products, including infant foods, would be a sensible and very precautionary approach. I must emphasise to members that all the CMOs are united on that last point—that the ban should not be lifted on manufactured beef products.

The Scottish CMO, in common with the Welsh and Northern Irish CMOs, remains concerned that there is insufficient evidence available to underpin a decision to lift the ban on visible cuts of beef now. He has advised specifically that:

"the evidence has not changed sufficiently to justify a lifting of the ban at this time. The history of the BSE epidemic underlines the advisability of continuing to err on the side of caution. The Scottish CMO does not consider that we yet have enough scientific certainty to depart from the precautionary principle and would recommend that the ban stays in place, subject to review on receipt of the definitive estimates from the Oxford Group and to re-appraisal in January 2000 if the ban has not been lifted by that time".

The Oxford group is considering the risks associated with maternal transmission—cow-tocalf infection—of BSE. Updates of its analysis, which informed the earlier review and, indeed, the original ban, will not be available until November.

Some of the Scottish CMO's key concerns are as follows. For the whole of 1999, we can expect more than 2,200 BSE cases in Great Britain. Dorsal root ganglia are the tissues that are connected to the spinal cord and have been shown to carry BSE. They are in part removed by deboning, they are known to be highly infective and they contain infectivity before the disease becomes clinically apparent. There is also uncertainty about possible infectivity in bone marrow. There remains uncertainly about the number of cattle acquiring BSE by cow-to-calf maternal transmission: the Oxford study results will assist with that. Finally, there is still considerable uncertainty about the eventual size of the variant CJD epidemic.

In short, there is a difference of professional view, but there is no difference in policy outcome. It is well recognised in all parts of the UK that uniform action throughout the UK is highly desirable, and that is what has transpired. Equally, as I have said on many occasions in this chamber and will repeat today, it is recognised that this is a public health matter and that a precautionary approach is essential if we are to safeguard public health in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.

Variant CJD is a particularly distressing disease, and so far it has always been fatal. By the end of June 1999, 43 people had developed vCJD. More cases are awaiting diagnostic confirmation. We cannot ignore or underestimate the human suffering and loss that results from vCJD. Given the long incubation period, it is too early to make confident predictions about the eventual scale of infection: estimates range from a few hundred to several million cases. There is, therefore, considerable uncertainty and no room for complacency in our handling of this issue.

The Scottish Executive's policy is clear on this matter: public health must come first, and we must listen to the medical advice that is given to us. We all want to lift the beef-on-the-bone ban, but only when the medical advice indicates that it is safe to do so. The advice is that it is not yet safe to do so, hence the ban will remain for the time being. That is in everyone's interest—producers as well as consumers.

We will, of course, continue to keep the position under review and, as indicated, the ban will be lifted as soon as the medical advice suggests that it is safe to do so. I hope that that clarifies the Executive's position. I would be pleased to answer any questions that members may have.