My Lords, Amendment 60 in this group is in my name; I will speak to it relatively briefly.
First, I thank the chair of the FSA, Professor Susan Jebb, for her helpful meeting with Peers about this Bill last week. We covered a number of issues including labelling, safety and enforceability. I listened carefully to her advice, which was extremely helpful.
However, this amendment raises concerns about the resources and capacity of the FSA to take on the additional functions envisaged in the Bill. It is a probing amendment. I would welcome some reassurance from the Minister that the FSA is in a good position to meet the demands set out in this Bill in a meticulous and timely fashion. I raise this because we know that, like many public bodies, the FSA is not in a great position financially. At its last meeting, the CEO reported that, although the budget for next year would not be cut, there would be no extra money for inflation; as we know, that is in effect a cut in income. She also reported that staff are feeling overwhelmed by the relentless pace of and increase in different demands.
As a result, the FSA has already identified key areas of its existing work to be reduced, paused or stopped. My own union, UNISON, is already reporting that the FSA is removing many daily meat inspections in abattoirs, for example. The sector is facing huge food safety challenges, for example from the fall in the number of inspections of food businesses and the ongoing delay in establishing proper import controls for high-risk food and feed from the EU. These are all pressures with which the FSA is already grappling. Incidentally, it is also having to divert resources to assess 150 pieces of EU legislation before the retained EU law deadline of December 2023.
My question for the Minister is a genuine one: in the light of all these diverse pressures and the fact that there does not seem to be any more money around, can he assure us that the FSA has sufficient resources and in-house expertise to take on another complex regulatory role when it already faces so many challenges? I look forward to his response.