Boost FSA powers to improve food safety: Lord Rooker

The government’s decision to strip the agency of responsibility for these topics in July 2010 had caused delays and confusion in the early days of the horsemeat crisis, Lord Rooker told the Food Manufacture Group's Big Video Debate on the horsemeat crisis at the Foodex show earlier this week (March 24).

“Food competition and adulteration should clearly be returned to the FSA, so there’s one body and no argument about where the responsibility lies – because there’s a knock on affect on food safety,”​ said Rooker. “There was confusion in the first three or four days about who was responsible for what.” ​

The FSA should have responsibility for food competition and adulteration because they go hand-in-hand, he said. “If the adulteration is wrong, it’s clearly a food safety issue. And in drinks, it is a serious issue – with the adulteration of drinks that occurs regularly in this country.”​

‘Food safety issue’​

Support for the plan came from a wide range of sources including: the interim report from Professor Chris Elliott, director at the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University, Belfast, and reports from the FSA’s own inquiry, carried out by Professor Pat Troop. former ceo of the Health protection Agency, the National Audit Office report and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee, he added.

While horsemeat contamination proved not to challenge food safety, that was unknown until the origins of the meat had been established. “It is true that it was not a food safety issue,” ​said Rooker. “But we did not know that to start with, because we did not know where the horses had been slaughtered – whether they had been slaughtered in hygienic conditions.”​

Denying suggestions that the FSA was slow to act, Rooker said the delays originated in Whitehall and were exacerbated by a blame culture.

“There was a hiatus in the first few days. But the slowest place it went in the food industry was Whitehall. The Department of Health, DEFRA​ [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] and Number 10 blamed the FSA for the problem in the first three weeks. It’s always the issue – blame the regulator – as happened in the flooding crisis with the Environment Agency. But it is not a very good way to operate.”​

‘I'm taking everything we can get from you’​

Rooker said responsibility could be restored to the FSA without leglislation before the next general election. “We know the change can be made without legislation because it was ​[originally] done without legislation. I was told by the minister, I'm taking everything we can get from you that doesn't require legislation and the Prime Minister agrees.”​

Ed Bedington, editor of FoodManufacture.co.uk’s sister title Meat Trades Journal, ​agreed that removing powers from the FSA had compromised the response to the crisis. “The delay in response to it was because nobody really knew who was responsible for tackling it,” ​said Bedington.

“​The FSA was eviscerated in 2010 when a lot of its responsibilities were taken away from it.” ​

Dominic Watkins, head of the food group and partner at law firm DWF, said no new laws were needed to aid prosecutions following the horsemeat scandal. Existing legislation was sufficient to deal with criminal activity involved in the crisis.

Consumer watchdog Which? has long called​ for the restoration of the FSA’s full powers.

Meanwhile, during the same debate, Dominic Watkins, head of the food group and partner with law firm DWF, argued that due diligence has weaknesses​ and is not a perfect defence against food fraud.