FSA closure rumours spark public health concerns
A report from newswire Reuters quotes an unidentified source as saying that the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition plans to close the food body, putting its public health function to the Department of Health (DoH) and its food safety function to the Department for Food, Rural Affairs and the Environment (Defra).
These plans would go further than the pre-election plans published by the Conservatives, which foresaw only reducing the FSA’s remit to food safety and sending the public health work to the DoH. However there has been no confirmation of these plans, and the DoH has said in a written statement that no mention of the FSA is made in a white paper on health due to be published this afternoon.
The FSA was set up by the Food Standards Act in November 1999 in the wake of a series of food safety scares, including the BSE crisis, in the 1990s, when food policy fell under the opaque – and now defunct – Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the influence of industry was called into question.
Owen Warnock, partner at Eversheds law firm, told FoodNavigator.com he believes the government would be able to close the FSA without having to go through primary legislation in parliament. Changes to its remit could be made by a statutory instrument, such as an order in council.
Sue Davies, chief policy advisor for consumer watchdog Which? said that such a move, if confirmed, would be “very short sighted” and “a step backwards”.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition might be looking to cut costs in the short term, but “if you get food policy wrong, as we have see with BSE, there are huge costs”.
The FSA was set up to put the consumer first, be open and transparent, and to be evidence-based, she said. Although Which? may not always agree with the FSA, if is possible to go to board meetings, see how decisions have been reached, and ask questions.
“It was set up because we had a lot of problems with food safety, and no proactive approach to problems around diet… it has generally been recognised that we needed a more focused approach to food safety within one body”.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which was also set up in the wake of the BSE crisis, as the European Commission’s independent risk assessor and also coordinates food safety communications between the member states. It declined to comment on the rumours to FoodNavigator.com before conducting investigations into the plans.
