The government response, issued today (October 11), played down the independent committee’s claims that confusion over the roles of departments and agencies hampered the process of tackling the issue. It also disagreed with the government's belief that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) had not reacted too slowly.
McIntosh told FoodManufacture.co.uk concerns over the lack of prosecutions, the lack of explanation of how contaminated meat entered the food chain and the lack of public analysts had still not been adequately addressed. “The committee is at odds with the government response.”
And she said the delay between the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s revelation to the FSA in November 2012 that it had developed horsemeat tests and the detection of horsemeat contamination needed explaining. She asked what the FSA had been doing in the intervening time.
‘Not acceptable’
“Clearly it is not acceptable for them [the FSA] to wait four months. When the news broke in January and February, where was the FSA?”
Three independent reviews, one from Professor Pat Troop and one from the EFRA select committee issued in July and one from the National Audit Office, published yesterday (October10), expressed the same opinions, she said. But the government had chosen to take issue with them all.
“They have all identified the problem. What we need now is a solution,” said McIntosh, who is also Conservative MP for Thirsk, Malton and Filey.
Challenged all stakeholders
The EFRA committee has challenged all stakeholders to attend a debate on the issue at Westminster City Hall in London next Thursday (October 17).
Meantime, the FSA’s director of operations Andrew Rhodes plans to outline challenges for regulation and food safety and lessons learned from the horsemeat crisis at Food Manufacture’s Food Safety Conference on the same day.
The conference will take place at the National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull. For more on the conference, click here.