I will be coming on to that point, but I believe that an allergy tsar, which the first petition asks for, will be able to bring those concerns together. That would help the industry immensely.
There are companies out there such as Control Catering that want to work with the Food Standards Agency and the industry to create a single source of truth. They want to work with manufacturers so that all data is seamlessly passed to the end user, the customer or diner. The petitioners believe that that is a sensible idea, as we have over 50,000 products across a huge supply chain going to many different outlets and 60 million-plus people across this land. The British Institute of Innkeeping and Hospitality Allergen Support UK feel it is sensible, too, but apparently the FSA is slow to respond when contacted about it. The industry believes that unless we have a joined-up approach, we could end up putting forward legislation that has the best intentions but turns out to be completely unworkable. I know that there is much more that the petitioners would have me say, but I must move on in the hope that other MPs will add their thoughts on the complexity of the issue.
The second part of Owen’s law would be for all servers to start a discussion with customers about allergies so that customers do not have to ask. My own experience is that that is happening anyway. However, I am fortunate enough to be able to answer no, so I am unsure how deep the conversation goes if the answer is yes. Stakeholders feel that training is required for all servers, but I understand that the industry suffers from a high turnover of staff, so that is not an easy task.