I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) on securing the debate. He expressed some disappointment about the number of Members attending, but we have had a really substantive event; it
does not take away from the gravity of the issue, because the speeches made have really got to grips with the issues. Let me start by making it absolutely clear that food fraud is totally unacceptable: it is a crime, and this Government will not stand by while consumers are duped and deceived.
As my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) made very clear, food and drink manufacturing is important to this country. It is our largest manufacturing sector, a significant contributor to economic growth and a big employer. British food is renowned throughout the world for its quality, and our farming industry is world-renowned for our high animal welfare standards. The integrity of our food supply chain is essential for the great reputation of our exports, as well as for the confidence of consumers at home.
I want to say a little about the action that the Government and others have already taken since the horsemeat scandal broke at the beginning of last year. First, there has been robust testing of meat by industry and by the Government, with more than 50,000 tests of processed beef products carried out during that time, and I can say that no horsemeat was present in any of those 50,000 tests undertaken since the initial scandal at the beginning of last year. The Government have provided an additional £2 million of funding to local authorities for food sampling in the current financial year to help them carry out that vital consumer protection role.
We have commissioned additional sampling and testing for authenticity in response to intelligence that has been received. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire cited the example of lamb kebabs that did not contain as much lamb as they ought to have done. There has been comprehensive sampling of take-away meals to seek undeclared meat and undeclared allergens, which are another cause of concern. We have also instigated the development of new testing to ascertain provenance and country of origin, so that we can check that the country of origin that is stated on the label is correct and that those who claim that products come from the UK are being honest.
Finally on testing, we are developing and road-testing a new method to detect undeclared offal in processed meat products. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) asked me what area we would look at next and where we think there might be additional problems. This is an area that we highlighted very early on. That is why we have been developing testing in the area.
At the end of last year, the FSA set up a new intelligence hub to collect, analyse and share information on emerging risks. We have also taken action to empower consumers to understand where their food comes from. That includes improved country of origin labelling requirements for products such as lamb and pork that have been set at an EU level, which take effect from April next year. The UK argued strongly for those changes. We are also improving the public procurement of food and catering services to provide schools and hospitals with high quality British food.
A great deal has been done, but this debate has focused very much on the final report of Professor Christopher Elliot, which was published last Thursday. I want to say at the outset that the Government have accepted all Professor Elliott’s recommendations. As I
said earlier, many of them are already being implemented. We will be taking forward other improvements that were recommended by him to ensure that consumers have absolute confidence in the food that they buy. I think that there can be a universal consensus around the House about the key point that Professor Elliott made: the consumer must come first.
Chief among Professor Elliott’s recommendations was the formation of a new food crime unit, based within the Food Standards Agency. That will build on the intelligence hub that was established in the FSA at the end of last year, but will add investigative powers. We have made a commitment to establish the unit and it will be fully operational by the end of the year. Initially, it will focus on building the intelligence and evidence picture of the risks and nature of food fraud in the UK.
It is important to note that Professor Elliott made it clear both in his interim report and his final report that the incentives for organised crime to get involved in food fraud are high. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) highlighted that in his contribution. Although Professor Elliott stated that he was unable to find any credible evidence of serious organised criminals operating in this area in the UK, he highlighted the serious risk of that happening, given the incentives. The Government are not at all complacent about that. If there is any evidence of criminality in our food supply chains, we are determined to find it and fight it.
A number of Members, including the hon. Member for Ogmore, highlighted the importance of whistleblowing. That is the subject of one of the main recommendations made by Professor Elliott. There is a concern that employees and others who have knowledge of food fraud do not feel that they have the right mechanism through which to alert people. The FSA has had a whistleblowing service, but it is fair to say that the awareness of it has not been sufficiently high. The FSA is looking seriously at steps that can be taken to increase people’s knowledge of the whistleblowing service. In addition, steps are being taken by the food industry to put in place similar measures to make it easier for whistleblowers to report wrongdoing.
Linked to that issue is the need for better intelligence gathering and sharing across Government and the industry to improve our ability to protect consumers. As a number of hon. Members said, Professor Elliott spoke about the need for a safe haven for industry so that businesses can share intelligence in a way that does not compromise commercially sensitive information. The FSA has made a commitment to improve its systems for dealing with sensitive information and to facilitate the kind of intelligence sharing and analysis for which Professor Elliott called. We will work with the industry to facilitate its development of a safe haven to contribute to that intelligence-sharing process.
A number of hon. Members, including the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), talked about the importance of supply chain audits. That is another key theme throughout Professor Elliott’s report that we want to learn from. Professor Elliott highlighted the action that the food industry has already taken to assure the integrity of its supply chains and restore consumer confidence following the horsemeat fraud.
Professor Elliott made a number of key recommendations for the industry on that issue. First, he said that there should be a shift of emphasis towards the use of unannounced audits and the use of sampling as part of the audit process to act as a deterrent. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton made the point powerfully that we need to have unannounced audits if the audits are to be meaningful.
Secondly, Professor Elliott made an important point about duplication in the audit process. The hon. Member for Ogmore has talked about Government Members being negative about regulation. We believe in having regulation where it serves a purpose, but we should all share the hope that we can remove duplication. Professor Elliott made the point that a lot of retailers are doing similar audits, but with slight differences. There is a good case for the British Retail Consortium bringing its members together to review their audit standards and give consistency to their approach to audits so that there is a single industry audit system. He also called for the introduction of a new fraud module in the audit, which is incredibly important.
We must recognise what the industry has done to restore confidence in the food supply chain. I commend the work that the Food and Drink Federation has done to introduce a guide to help its members protect themselves against the risk of food fraud. My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton referred to that. Although a number of hon. Members, notably the former Minister, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), highlighted concerns about the catering industry, it is important to note the good work that is being done by the British Hospitality Association to engage small catering businesses on good practice in food authenticity, and its work with Whitbread to develop an audit standard for larger food service businesses. He is right to highlight the concern and there might be further difficulties in making progress on that front, but we welcome the work that the industry has done.
The shadow Minister spoke about the machinery of government. He asked why, after the interim report called for a change in the machinery of government, Professor Elliott seems to have stepped back slightly from that. Professor Elliott spells out the reason quite clearly on page 49, where he highlights the fact that representations were made to him regarding the machinery of government changes. He says:
“The review investigated this issue and was able to ascertain that the winding down of the FSA’s food authenticity programme was initiated prior to the machinery of government changes. While not attributing any blame for this decision, it was certainly not helpful”.
The final point he makes is that wherever the boundaries are drawn in the machinery of government, there will still be a need for different parts of the machinery to work together. That is why his ultimate conclusion is that wherever the boundaries are drawn, the most important priority is to have better co-ordination. That is exactly what we will deliver with the food crime unit.
The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse spoke about the vital role of local authorities, and around 2,500 trading standards officers provide an important part of our field force in that area. As he knows, we have made available an extra £2 million per year, and the Food Standards Agency runs training programmes for those 2,500 officers in the field. Local authorities
have a legal responsibility to do that work under the Food Safety Act 1990, and a number of protocols and service agreements that the FSA has with local authorities set out exactly what is required, which is monitored centrally by the FSA. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there could be a mixed picture, with some local authorities being better than others, but the FSA monitors them and holds them to their service agreements and requirements.