THURSDAY 16 MARCH 2000

PROFESSOR SIR JOHN KREBS and MR GEOFFREY PODGER

  100. A collective responsibility when a decision is taken. This is stimulated by your remark about a possible public participation of board members. You may have a vigorous debate, but at the end of it you come to a decision. Presumably, when that decision is being reached, the rule of that board is that every single member of that board defends that decision?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) Yes.

  101. I wanted to be clear, because if people have been aware of the internal argument, it would clearly be more difficult for somebody arguing against a particular conclusion to have to go out there and defend it in public?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) If we were to meet in public, that would be one of the benefits for people to be able to see both sides of the argument.

  102. That would certainly be true, but it would make it much more difficult when you have to present your conclusion as a board, irrespective of which people would be saying, "We know that somebody did not agree with you." I merely ask you to reflect upon that. You have to present a united face, otherwise the whole purpose of the board is actually undermined. What I wanted to ask you about is one of my favourite subjects, which is concordats. You will remember that the Pre-legislative Committee expressed interest in how the concordats between you and others would work. Can you give us a progress report? When are we going get them? Who are you consulting? It is quite a crowded field that you are getting into now. How are you going to work with the other Advisory Committees? Is there room for restructuring? Once you have your feet under the table, would it make sense to have a look at the geometry of all this and see whether it can be simplified or streamlined?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) Perhaps I can pick up on the last point and then ask Geoffrey Podger to comment on the concordats. As far as the geometry of the Advisory Committee is concerned, yes, I think there would be a case once the FSA is up and running, to look at those Advisory Committees, along with the other departments to whom they also, in some cases, report. I think the answer there is simply, yes, it is an area that my board will want to focus its attention on. Let me ask Geoffrey Podger about the concordats.
  (Mr Podger) The position on the concordats is that they are now almost complete with the various departments and agencies who are most involved, and we shall be putting them to the board when the board is formally constituted, which, as you will appreciate, is not the case at the moment. Then the intention is to publish.

  103. Could I ask how you will relate to the devolved assemblies? We keep being told that that is what devolution means. In other words, you have different policies. It is possible that the Scottish Executive or the Welsh Executive could take a different view from the English and British Government in the light of the recommendation you make. How is that going to work?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) As you know, the agency is a United Kingdom-wide agency, but we have separate Advisory Committees for the devolved administrations. At the moment the Scottish Advisory Committee has been set up and that is chaired by Sir John Arbuthnot, who is a member of my board. The Welsh and Northern Ireland Advisory Committees are still in earlier stages of consideration. I have discussed in considerable detail with John Arbuthnot how the relationship between his Advisory Committee and the United Kingdom-wide board that I chair will work. Our view is that the risk assessment on any particular food safety issue, or the scientific opinion, to put it another way, is a United Kingdom-wide scientific opinion. So we draw on all the expertise of the United Kingdom and outside to get the best view. When it comes to the management of a risk or the response for a specific scientific opinion, one could imagine there being cases for a different response in different parts of the United Kingdom. There may be local factors like the prevalence of a particular food borne illness that cause a different response in one part of the United Kingdom from the response in another part. As long as that is clearly explained, why there is a difference in response, based on the same scientific assessment, I do not see that that is fundamentally unworkable. I think that is a manageable relationship.

  104. Green-top milk at the moment is not permitted for sale in Scotland, but is permitted for sale in England. I am not sure how much inconvenience that causes, but clearly there must be a difference in perception, otherwise it would not have lasted for so long. Secondly, it is an open secret that the British Government wished to get rid of the beef on the bone ban for weeks, if not months, earlier than it did, and the reason it could not was because the Scottish would not agree to it. Beef on the bone, I think you could call it, prays in aid different sorts of incidents of illness in two countries. Pretend those are being brought to your attention as the Food Standards Agency and tell us how you would react?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) In relation to green-top milk, what I would say there is that the Agency will have a scientific assessment of the risk. That is a United Kingdom-wide assessment, it is not an assessment that is specific to Wales, Scotland, England or Northern Ireland, or even Yorkshire. However, there may be justified reasons why the decision is made by the Scottish Executive to respond to that risk assessment in a way that differs from the decisions south of the border. That response is not up to me, that is a decision made by others. Those who make the decision to respond differently would have to defend their differentness.

  105. That is an important point, which is as well to have clear. You will make recommendations. Ministers will then have to make a decision as to how they respond to that recommendation, and it is by no means excluded that they may respond differentially. So there is political judgment in that process?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) Absolutely. That is essential.

  Chairman: That is very helpful. Thank you very much.

  106. Thinking of relationships with other agencies, but in a rather different way, the Pre-legislative Committee did have some discussion about the relationship which would exist between the FSA, when it came into being, and what was then the Health Education Authority. I do not think that the members were terribly satisfied, it seemed very woolly and unimpressive. Since then the Health Education Authority has gone the journey and been replaced by the Health Development Agency. I would assume that you would feel the need to work closely with the HDA. Can you give us some thoughts about what you think the HDA will do and/or should do in fields that overlap with yours? What will you do in relation to overlapping with them?
  (Mr Podger) Could I, perhaps, seek to answer that? We have had a long tradition of actually working with the HEA, which certainly continues with the formation of the HDA, and we have already had contact with them. We see the HDA as being able to provide us with a very significant degree of technical support and advice in terms of standards for health promotion, which, as we previously discussed in answer to your question, is a key area for us. We will be exploring with them whether there are further areas where they would wish to input to us. This does not just apply to the HDA, we also have an interest in the other health development agencies elsewhere in the United Kingdom, which we would also, as a United Kingdom Agency, want to work with. I have to say, having myself worked in this area previously, I think it is a great danger for central government to overlook the extent of expertise which is to be found in bodies like the HDA, and we certainly are determined not to do that.

  107. Also thinking of relations with other bodies, how do you envisage, or do you envisage, a relationship with the DSS? Obviously, what I have in mind there—in case it is not obvious, I will tell you—things like expectant mothers, eligibility for income support or job seekers allowance if they are unemployed, rates of such allowances, differences according to the age of the pregnant girl, these things have a big bearing, in the opinion of some of us, on the potential health of the mother and of the baby to come. There is quite a lot of feeling and, indeed, information from organisations like the Maternity Alliance and from midwives and health visitors as well, that certainly the youngest mothers have great difficulty in getting adequate nourishment in pregnancy if they do not have a regular source of income. Have you given any thought to issues like this? Do you think you will? If so, how do you think you will push them forward?
  (Mr Podger) The issues you mention, in fact, in the nutrition area are all ones on which the Department of Health lead. I do not say that to get out of the responsibility in that area, but merely to make the point that because they deal with nutritional health in particular population groups, and the very important ones that you have mentioned, the lead will rest with them. I think it is inherent in what I said earlier about the way we will actually work together over nutrition, that we will also properly play into those arguments. I think you will find that it is the public health group that will take the lead in discussions with the Department of Social Security on those issues, but we will be involved in the more general issues that come out of them.

  108. The Department of Health has not made any noticeable impact, or even attempt, in my view, in relation, for instance, to the age discrimination question, and yet when the Health Committee did the maternity inquiry before the 1992 general election, it came out very clearly and unanimously for the abolition of age discrimination in benefits in pregnancy. We saw no sense in giving 16 year olds either nothing or, at best, a lot less than 26 years olds. The Government was entirely unresponsive and that is still the case. I do not remember the Department of Health being very pushy as a result of our recommendation. Would you undertake to have a look at those recommendations in that report and, perhaps, have a think about whether you have a role there?
  (Mr Podger) I think what I would say is that it is entirely right and proper that in our participation with the Department of Health and others in nutritional issues, those issues are going to come up. I think that is entirely fair. I could not take a lead which does not properly belong to us.

  Chairman: I think in a year's time it might be interesting to do a little replay and just see where you have got in your first year. That is a suggestion I make personally. David Amess has a very specific question and then we are onto the last leg.

  109. One thing we can agree on is that we need food to survive. There is a certain view out there that this food safety thing has been taken to ridiculous limits. There is huge competition among our supermarkets, pricing seems to be in the public domain all of the time, and the thing that many of my constituents raise with me are the sell-by dates on various products. I wonder if the Food Standards Agency has anything to say on this issue, because people go shopping at different times and it is extraordinary the way that things are suddenly reduced at 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock at night and they may still be all right for a day or two. Is there anything that you can say generally about yoghurts, meats and all of that, because when people are on a fixed budget these things are very important and some people actually believe that these sell-by dates are ridiculous?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) In our overall look at labelling, which we are going to carry forward from Baroness Hamwee's initiative which she started earlier in the year, we will be listening to and looking at what consumers have said about labelling. I am sure that this issue is one that will come up and we will want to work at the next stage with industry to ensure that labelling is informative and effective for consumers. If they are being given misleading information or information that could be interpreted in a variety of ways, we want to try and work to get greater clarity of information. I cannot say at this point whether the agency has a view on sell-by dates, because the agency, as yet, has not come into being. I can say that that kind of labelling issue, clarity and meaningfulness of labelling, will be something that we will be focusing on early on.

  110. So eventually the agency will have a view on sell-by dates?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) Exactly.

  Chairman: Sir John, you will be surprised if we do not embark upon GM foods, but we kept this until last to give you a sense that you were finishing on a particular tasty item.

  111. GM foods are sizzling on your plate, how are you intending to address that issue?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) Our responsibility in relation to GM foods is food safety and human health, and we will continue to use the advice of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes in the assessment of GM food safety in the same way as any other normal food is assessed. I believe that the processes and criteria for assessment for GM are similar to and should involve the same rigour as those that are applied to any other food. There are other bodies that we will be looking at, the environmental implications of GM, for example, the new Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission, and we will work closely with the Commission when it comes into being, when it finally has a chair.

  112. You made an early pronouncement that you thought there was room for an international body dealing with GM foods when you spoke in Edinburgh. Do you wish to expand on that or retract it?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) I am not retracting it. This emerged from the Edinburgh OECD conference on GM food safety and human health. The idea that came up there, and I was one of the people who was talking about it, was that where we have a global issue of GM technology, we need to take a global look at the science. It refers, in a way, back to one of the comments that the Chairman made earlier, where you hear different scientists from around the world taking different points of view on whether GM food is safe to eat, or whether GM food crops are good or bad for the environment. I was using, in a very loose sense, the analogy with the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, where the diversity of opinion is drawn together so that governments in forming policy in relation to climate change can say, "Here is the mode of scientific opinion at the moment and here is the spread." I believe there will be merit in taking the same approach to the contentious issue of GM. Where is the mode of scientific opinion from around the world? What is the spread? How is that spread and mode changing through time as new evidence improves?

  113. Would you accept that with the debate as it is currently in this country and in much of Europe, simply confining this to a discussion among scientists as to the relative merits of their research and trying to weigh up the value of their conclusions will not be adequate?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) I do accept that, yes.

  114. Do you think that for a consumer, who clearly has a non-scientific perception of this subject which needs to be addressed, their concerns need to be brought within the big tent of decision making?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) As you know, that was the philosophy behind the Edinburgh conference that I organised on behalf of OECD. We brought in the consumers, we brought in the green lobby groups—Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace—we brought in scientists like Arpad Pusztai formerly from the Rosslyn Institute, and had the debate in the room rather than having people in different rooms shouting past each other. So, yes, you are quite right, if the kind of forum that I envisage were developed, it would be science but it would be science plus consumer interests, green group interests, those that are concerned with the ethical issues, genetic modification, those that are concerned with the economic trade issues, those that are concerned with the IPR issues. It is much more complicated than the IPPC, but I use that just as a loose analogy of how opinion on a scientific issue had been drawn together from around the world. I still believe that, as far as the regulator is concerned, the regulator in the different countries around the world has to base its assessment primarily on science. There is not another way of assessing whether something is safe enough to eat other than scientific assessment.

  115. Indeed so, but would you, perhaps, accept that with the debate as it stands there is an argument for a pause for confidence building, since confidence has clearly not been strong in the degree of advice that has been given so far?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) If you look globally, of course, the development of GM food technology is moving at very different rates. We heard in Edinburgh Professor Zhang-Liang Chen from Beijing University describing the growth of GM crops in China. Huge areas of China are planted to GM crops, and he considers that they are essential to feed the population of China. So I think whilst there may be reservations among the United Kingdom consumers at the moment, those reservations are not universal. We heard from many spokespeople in developing countries at the Edinburgh conference, how they see GM technology as an essential part of their armoury for feeding their populations of the future. Not the total solution, but part of the armoury that they need.

  116. Mr Podger, I may have misunderstood the way you presented some of your answers, but I gained the impression that you see the agency as a kind of continuation of what you have previously been doing, rather than a very radical new departure. Have I misunderstood what you have said?
  (Mr Podger) I think the answer to your question is that it is clear that I have mis-expressed myself. What I would like to say is that I think we have made radical changes in the last two and a half years which we shall take with us into the agency. I think the fact that the agency will be literally under entirely new management, differently positioned, means that there is a considerable further gear shift to undertake, and that is where I come from. It is not in any sense simply, as it were, a relabelling of what we are doing now. I do think we have made significant renovations in the last two and half years which will be beneficial in the new environment of the agency.

  117. Second question, which is to Professor Krebs. One of the slight concerns that the Health Committee has had in respect of some of the quangos that have been created for very good reasons, NICE being a good example, is that it is a mechanism whereby difficult issues, rationing questions, can be kicked into the long grass for a period of time. What I wondered was whether you fear the possibility that you might be used to facilitate a particular decision, and if you were, what you would do about it? (Professor Sir John Krebs) Just as a preamble, we are not quangos, we are a government department.

  118. I appreciate that, but you understand the point that I am making about NICE?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) Yes. I think it relates to a conversation earlier with the Chairman. It is very important that we distinguish our role in providing advice and ministers' roles in making policy decisions based on our advice. The fact that we are able to publish our advice in an open and timely way, I think will, if anything, encourage a speeding up of a political process, because the pressure will be there to respond to advice when we have published it.

  119. If you felt you were being landed with an issue that was digging a minister, or Secretary of State or department, out of an awkward corner, would you feel able to say that to a Select Committee or say it to the Secretary of State or whatever?
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) If I felt that I was being asked to make the decisions that should be made by ministers, yes. That is not my job. I have not been elected, I am not a representative of the people and, therefore, I should not make those decisions.

  120. I meant more where it could be felt that you were being used as the long grass to perhaps take an issue through to a general election period to get out of an awkward corner, which as we all know does happen with governments of all parties.
  (Professor Sir John Krebs) I would have to wait to see which bit of long grass I was in.

  Chairman: I think it is very dangerous to start exploring the dangers of the long grass, Sir John. Sir John, Mr Podger, thank you very much indeed. I realise we have given you quite a strong grilling but it has been extremely interesting and I think it would be interesting, perhaps in a year or so down the road, which will be very much into the long grass we anticipate, to see how you are making out. Thank you very much indeed.