Food Hygiene Rating Displays

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the estimated cost to the taxpayer of requiring food business operators in England to display the relevant food hygiene rating score at the entrance to premises.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, the highly successful food hygiene rating scheme plays a key role in protecting public health. I thank the noble Lord for championing the scheme and am grateful for his continued support. Making display of ratings mandatory is a sound proposal to which we are giving great consideration. There would be some minimal cost to the taxpayer but significant benefit in terms of improved food safety.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

I am grateful for that positive answer from the Minister. From my time at the Food Standards Agency, I realise that the legislation is there in place and we now have the evidence. Since 2014, when all English local authorities joined the scheme, we know that 70% of food businesses that scored only zero to two do not display it. It would be tragic if we ended up with a food poisoning outbreak before acting. We know from Wales and Northern Ireland that it can be very successful. I wish the Minister well. It could be slipped in on the back of any Bill going through the House that is related to public health.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely endorse the noble Lord’s points. There is robust evidence that the FHRS has driven up hygiene standards in food businesses, thereby reducing the risk to consumers. It was identified by the Royal Society for Public Health as one of the top 20 public health achievements of 21st century. We have received a case for a statutory scheme in England, and Ministers have given a commitment in Parliament to consider the scheme in due course.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

In her analysis of the Statement, the noble Baroness is, as ever, inspiring and optimistic. I am extremely grateful for her remarks. The Building Back Better programme will put a vision for public health at the centre of our efforts. We will build on this awful epidemic to ensure that our public health outcomes improve.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister will be pleased to know that I do not intend to ask any questions about the report from the department on testing between 17 September and 23 September. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said, there is a reference in the Statement to the Chief Medical Officer and his analysis. I have a simple, very specific question. On what date, and at what time on that date, did the Chief Medical Officer become aware of the missing data issues? On what date, and at what time on that date, did he issue his analysis? If these answers cannot be given now, I would like a commitment that I will receive a letter with the answers.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s question. My right honourable friend was very clear. The Chief Medical Officer analysed our assessment of the disease and its impact, and assessed that it had not substantially changed as a result of these data. The Statement from my right honourable friend is crystal clear. I will be glad to send the noble Lord a copy of that Statement if he does not have it.

Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, welcome both maiden speeches. I consider both new colleagues my noble friends.

Before I start, I want to declare an interest. Ten months ago, I was taken ill without warning. The NHS saved my life and I cannot praise enough the staff at Hereford County Hospital and, later, Worcestershire Royal Hospital. Nothing I am about to say is in any way critical of the staff of the NHS.

I read very carefully both the letter circulated by the Minister on 25 September and the analysis of the Act presented to Parliament. The Government constantly congratulate themselves on their response to Covid-19; superficially, I almost got taken in by the letter and analysis. So, are the temporary measures working? Do we need to keep them as they are? Do we measure what has happened and try to start again? It is the facts that should drive us.

Basically, we have a system failure, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes clearly set out. Our healthcare provision does not look that good, according to OECD measures. It certainly shows that we are not world class. According to Statista, which measured death rates in 191 countries, up to 16 September the UK had the world’s eighth-highest per capita death rate from Covid-19 in deaths per million. In Europe, only Belgium and Spain were ahead. The others in the top eight include Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Brazil. That is who we share our high death rate with. Why is this? We have never been given a reason. It is not good enough to say, “Wait another year.”

Covering 10 to 16 September, the latest weekly report from NHS Test and Trace showed that the number of people tested per day was only 83,881, up from 81,628 the previous week. The same report showed that the median distance to travel to take a test increased compared with the previous week. Only 77.7% of people were reached and asked to provide information about their contacts; the previous week, it was 83.9%. The time after an in-person test increased to 30 hours, up from 27 the previous week. The time taken to receive a result from mobile testing was up from 26 hours to 31 hours. This is simply not good enough. Yesterday morning, the devastating interview on Radio 4’s “Broadcasting House” about the substantial shortage of NHS staff—approximately 100,000—the possibility of massive numbers leaving and the burnout from last winter’s pressures, the virus and now a second wave proved too much for some.

As ever, mental health is the Cinderella. According to NHS health providers, significant gaps in the mental health workforce remain. There has been no move on increasing rewards for NHS staff. I am not talking about annual rewards; I am talking about changing where NHS staff are in the national pecking order. There has been no attempt at that at all. There has been no move to co-ordinate the social care system for the long term, which the Prime Minister clearly promised by the end of the year. In the meantime, stressed, underpaid and under-strength NHS and care staff see almost daily the corruption and sheer racketeering of health resources being diverted to cronies of the Prime Minister and his advisers without so much as a peep from the sleepy Committee on Standards in Public Life. I sincerely hope that, this week, the elected Commons insists on a better system.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right that a test today only proves that you have not got it this morning; it does not necessarily prove that you might not have it in a couple of days’ time, when you go and see your loved ones. However, she is not correct on two points concerning the app. First, all the epidemiological data suggests that even small numbers of downloads—even two people, but certainly 10% of the population—can make a difference. Our aspiration is much higher than that, but it is not true that a large proportion of the population needs to use it for it to be effective. Nor is it true that that it works on only half the phones: our belief is that it will work on a very large majority of phones.

If I may take a moment, I shall use it to advertise the “Distance Aware” badge sponsored by the noble Baroness. It is a really good device for encouraging people who are near those who are shielding to respect the social distancing rules.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

Again, I take the Minister to his own department’s weekly statistics for test and trace for the latest week, 3 to 9 September. He said on Monday that I did not understand the chart on page 8. Has he now read the annexe on page 37, which states, in table 1, in bold, that the number of people tested under pillar 1 and pillar 2 was 571,400? This amounts to 81,628 per day. So, can he now tell us the date on which more than 100,000 people were tested?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I can confirm that in the week to 22 September, in pillars 1 and 2, 188,865 tests were taken during each of those days.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I note the move by Northern Ireland, which has taken a sincere and thoughtful approach. It is true that there have been some small differences between the different countries, but the vast majority of guidelines, restrictions and lockdown arrangements are shared by all the countries of the United Kingdom. I commend the huge amount of collaboration between all the DAs in working together to fight this horrible disease.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

Has the Minister ever read his own department’s weekly statistics paper for test and trace? On page 8 of that for the latest week, from 3 to 9 September, there is a chart and figures for people tested from May. There is not a single day when the number of people tested exceeded 100,000, even when tests under pillar 1 are added to tests under pillar 2. The average for the latest week is 82,000 people tested. Could he ask the Secretary of State to stop playing fast and loose with the figures, especially in interviews where the interviewer is not briefed properly, as on “The Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday? He himself used the figure a few minutes ago of over 200,000, implying that was the number of people—it is not. There have never been 100,000 people tested on any single day.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I would be glad to talk about the weekly statistics with the noble Lord in detail, if he would like. The number of tests per day is frequently over 200,000. The number of people includes a huge amount of duplication, because some people have had more than one test. Those people are often in social care or hospitals. If a person is tested in March and goes on to be tested 20 more times, they are counted once in March and not again. That is why the number he is looking at is quite different from the daily “tested” figure.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Friday 18th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I promise I can tell the time. The Minister will have realised by now that there have been massive mixed messages. It is his job to get that sorted. We have heard that from both sides of the House.

I have a couple of questions to ask, then a couple on behalf of my noble friend Lady Andrews. Why are we still buying masks from China when there is clear evidence that, in the ordinary sense of the word, slave labour is used in some of the factories? My other point is that masks cover the mouth and nose. What about the eyes? I recall seeing a man in Wuhan back in January or February who said that when he went out shopping he covered his mouth and nose and wore his swimming goggles. Have the Government done any research, or seen any, on the effect of wearing spectacles on those entering hospital in the spring or summer months in respect of the virus?

My noble friend Lady Andrews, who regrets she cannot be with us, has a couple of questions, which I will ask in the time available. Can the Minister tell us in what respects the UK continues to follow the World Health Organization’s advice on medical personnel and medical masks, or on wearing masks in the whole community? Can he tell us what research is in process to establish the relative effectiveness of the three-layer fabric masks that most people in the community are now wearing? What tests are being done on filtration, for example? Are some materials better than others at keeping out viruses? Can this information be made available?

Also, would the Minister agree that it might be a good idea to ask universities to require students who return to campus to wear masks when attending any lectures, seminars and especially lab sessions, where social distancing might be harder to maintain? This would be one move to stop the UK always being behind the curve. I will refrain from asking any further questions and conclude to try to make up for the abuse of time that just took place.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Statement makes it clear that the numbers of cases are rising. Will the Health Minister give the House his personal assurance that sufficient personal protective equipment will be available, unlike during the first wave?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am very glad to make that assurance: 13 billion items of PPE have been procured and made available for NHS, social care and other key workers. I pay tribute to my colleague and noble friend Lord Deighton, who has led our efforts on this. The situation is completely transformed from that of earlier this year.

Folic Acid

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have yet been able to form a conclusion on the proposal to add folic acid to flour following the consultation between 13 June and 9 September 2019.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, there are about 1,000 births with NTDs each year. Folic acid is a valuable prophylactic. We recognise that around half of the 700,000 births each year in this country are unplanned; some of mine were. Therefore, adding it as a supplement to some flours potentially offers great value.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, that is a deplorable Answer. I at least expected an answer to the question. I wanted a date. Would the Minister discuss this with the Prime Minister, who takes an interest in issues only where he has personal experience, such as Covid and obesity? Thankfully, he has no experience of babies born with a lifelong disability, which is what my question is about. Does the Minister recall that the English Government consulted on how, not whether, to implement a policy agreed by the three devolved Governments and the Daily Mail and operated by over 80 other nations? No action is like having a vaccine and not using it. We must do better.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I pay testimony to the good work of my noble friend Lord Rooker on the campaign for mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid. He introduced a Private Member’s Bill and his work has been earnest. My personal experience is that my cousin James was born with an NTD; he survived two weeks and, sadly, passed away. Therefore, this is a matter that has my personal commitment. However, I am not in a position to give him the date he wishes, but we will come back to the House and answer his Question in due time.

Covid-19: Personal Protective Equipment

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The noble Baroness is entirely right to champion the role of interpreters. Their role in the recent Leicester lockdown has been incredibly important: there could not have been an incident that better highlights the importance of language skills in the healthcare setting, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for championing those. The care of interpreters is an incredibly complex question and entirely depends on where they are sited. It is the responsibility of individual trusts to look after interpreters in hospital settings but, in other settings, it may be that of other organisations.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

Do the Government now accept that there is no further excuse for secret, non-competitive contracts for PPE channelled through the friends of Ministers and special advisers? There are thousands of UK companies ready and willing to bid for contracts to produce PPE—why not use them? China may not be reliable in the future.

[Lord Bethell [V]]

I completely reject the implications of the noble Lord’s question. While British companies have stepped forward and we are pleased to have made many contracts, there are not, I am afraid to say, thousands of domestic producers capable of providing the billions of items we need in the British health service. I pay respect to all the companies that moved quickly and contracted under difficult circumstances for major contracts. I also salute the companies overseas with which we have good relationships, and which remain our trusted partners.

Specific Food Hygiene (Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I do not intend to detain the Committee for very long. The Minister has outlined the instrument clearly and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has raised some pertinent issues but I too would appreciate some clarification. The briefing that I received from the FSA says:

“The new instrument makes clear that the responsibility to approve any additional substances which may be used to remove surface contamination from products of animal origin rests with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in England, and the appropriate Minister in each of the Devolved Administrations”.


This raises a few questions and I have some that I would be grateful if the Minister could answer, or at least get back to the Committee about.

I wonder whether we could have different outcomes in each country of the union. Would this impact on, for example, the sales of Welsh lamb into England? If we can operate slightly differently in Wales and make different decisions there from those in England, could there be an issue with that? I also wonder who the Secretary of State will take evidence from in making his or her decision in this matter. What public consultation will be carried out in advance of a decision? Finally, we have already heard chlorinated chicken being raised but could the Minister assure us that this is just an English measure? Can she assure us that there will be no English chlorinated chicken on English dinner plates?

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I should like to raise a few points and I suppose I ought to declare an interest, as between 2009 and 2013 I chaired the Food Standards Agency. I will not go into any detail about the regulations but they are really about Ministers’ powers. It is a Minister I want to talk about because it seems that we now have another Secretary of State who does not like the FSA. The Minister here may shake her head but wait until I have finished, please.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, did not like the FSA and sought to abolish it in 2010 but was prevented. Labour Ministers did not like the FSA either; that is the point. That is why it was set up, but now we have a Minister openly attacking the FSA in the public prints. He talked about action on “best-before zealotry” after the Prime Minister said that mouldy jam was okay: “Just scrape the top off, it’s okay”. Sod the toxins that have got into the rest of the jar and can cause major food poisoning. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State were obviously better qualified than the medics who give the advice. The Secretary of State also weighed in when he said back in February, “I want a new chief executive at the FSA”, and he got one—did he not?—when the previous one left in June or July. I do not criticise that. I am sure it was perfectly ordered and all fine. However, he is starting to speak out on matters related to food safety. He has piled in about the “government body’s line”—referring to the FSA, a non-ministerial department—on beef burgers. He is very unhappy about the FSA’s interventions on food safety and wants it to go back to its “original purpose”.

These regulations are quite good, in a way, because they are essentially about surface contamination. But I invite the Minister and the Secretary of State to go and read Hugh Pennington’s report about the south Wales outbreak of E. coli 0157 in September 2005. A butcher provided meat then to schools in four local authorities; 157 people fell ill and, regrettably, Mason Jones, aged five, died. The butcher went to jail. It was all about the contamination and cross-contamination, and Hugh Pennington did a major report for the whole of the country. It did not relate just to Wales or that incident, as he had of course done others as well. That was about surface contamination, so surface contamination is not unimportant.

The Secretary of State said that if beef patties—beefburgers—were served rare, that was perfectly all right. I have some news for him: that is the whole point. I know that there is dispute between some scientists on this, but if you chop up meat, part of it will have been the outer part of the meat, the bit that can get contaminated. If you then mix it all together and do not cook it properly, it is highly likely that somewhere in the middle of the product will be meat that could be contaminated but has not been cooked. That is the great thing: cooking gets rid of most of the problems, whether E. coli or salmonella.

We have had cases in recent years where people have been seriously ill. It is not just a UK issue; there was the death of a young boy in France, who died 5 years after eating rare burgers from a Lidl supermarket. It is not unimportant.

My noble friend mentioned CJD. When I led a debate on the ban on beef on the bone—the most controversial debate I have ever led—it was at 10 pm in the House of Commons, everyone had had a good dinner and I came along as Grandpa Nanny Rooker saying that we need to ban beef on the bone. It was pretty acrimonious. What silenced the House was that during the day—this was in 1998 and I am not a doctor —I had asked: what happens to people who get CJD? What are the symptoms? During my conversation with three or four medics, it transpired that when those identified as having CJD—there is no final figure, but there are well over 100—were operated on to check the situation in the brain, the medical instruments had to be destroyed. They could not be sterilised. That really put the House of Commons to bed. It suddenly dawned on us that this was serious.

We may not have some of those issues now—heaven forbid that we do—but we must learn lessons from the past. It is so easy to say, “We haven’t had any problems; we will relax the rules because we have too much regulation”.

Just before I left the FSA—I am not sure of the date because I have not checked, but it was either 2012 or 2013—we were lobbied intensively by industry to allow animal protein to be fed to animals. We had a long board discussion about it, which is all on the record. One beauty of the FSA is that it is open and transparent. We came down 100% against allowing animal protein.

This Secretary of State is obviously amenable to industry, given how he has been bellyaching that the FSA is doing too much and should stick to its original purpose. There are attempts to restore that procedure, because it is a cheaper way to do it. I understand the pressure from industry. I and others were lobbied—submissions were made—to go back to it, saying, “We will follow the rules; we will not mix it up with anything else”, but everybody spoke on the record and the FSA board unanimously said that we were not going down that road, because we were still worried about what had happened.

We understand that this Secretary of State does not like what is happening at the FSA. I have not spoken to anybody on the board, by the way, but I assume that it is bold enough and has enough backbone to follow the rules and the law that set it up in the first place. I warn the Secretary of State that if he ever comes to this House trying to change Section 1 of the FSA Act, it will not go through. I am certain of that, because there is no excuse for watering down.

Ministers do not like it when things go wrong. They love to pull the levers when things are okay, because they are Ministers and they want to do this and announce the other. That is the thing they do not like about the FSA. My caveat—not a warning—to them is that they need to have officials and scientists front up the media when things go wrong. If Ministers start interfering when things are not going wrong, it might be that one day they will end up in the spotlight themselves. They will be the Minister who has taken health and food risk decisions. They will carry the can. There is no need for that. That is what the FSA has been set up for—not to carry the can, but to be the public guardian. That is its main function.

I have looked at various of the Secretary of State’s musings. It is probably unfair of me; I have probably not seen all the good things that he has said about the FSA. In fact, I have not found anything good that he has said about it, but I have found a few things that are negative. I thought that this would be an opportunity to put on record that we are watching him, because when things go wrong people will start opening the books and saying, “Who’s responsible for this?” It was the same when the horsemeat issue broke. I was in Northern Ireland at the time and so was the chief executive. It broke overnight.

When things go wrong, you start to say, “Hang on, who’s responsible for which bit here?” You can test these things out, but when things go wrong that is when people open the book. When things are going okay and we do not have major outbreaks, you can always say, “We can relax. We’re being too tough on industry. We want less regulation and to free up the market”. On food safety, however, the FSA’s staff have spent the best part of 20 years rebuilding British people’s confidence in their food supply. It is very important that we do not put that at risk. I fully accept that the regulations and the statutory instruments that the Government have provided for Brexit fully conform to all that. I have no problems with any of them. I have absolute confidence in what Ministers are planning.

However, the vulnerability is in the meat plants in particular. It is a closed industry. I think there is only one plc in the meat industry, which might be Morrisons, because it has a vertically integrated system—at least it used to; I am not up-to-date these days. Generally, it does not advertise on its factories, “By the way, we kill animals here so you can have your meat”. It is a very closed industry, but when you go to abattoirs for pigs, sheep and cattle you see the care and attention that has to take place for live cattle, some of which might be dirty cattle—the vets are there to stop that; a clean cattle policy is supposed to operate—from live animals at the beginning to the end product for the table. It is vital that that process is looked after. There are people in that industry who will seek to cut corners. I will not give examples; it would be unfair because they are out of date. But the fact is that it is a closed industry and it does not expose itself. I understand why. A few documentaries so that people understand where meat comes from might be helpful, but nobody has ever had the courage to do it.

It is in the industry’s interest that it resists any ministerial temptation to cut corners, because industry would be the loser. The beef ban lasted until 2006. It was the last thing that I did as a Northern Ireland Minister. I did not go to Brussels; I am one of those who has hardly ever been there. I went there to serve Northern Ireland beef on the day that the beef ban was lifted. Traders were over there doing deals to restore their past links. The last few years of the beef ban were purely political. There was nothing scientific or health-based about it whatever. We in this country know far more about CJD and BSE than anybody else simply because we have gone through it. We had reports galore. The fact is that industry suffers economically, and then the country suffers as well.

I wanted to put those few pointers on record so that someone could say to the Secretary of State, “By the way, it’s probably not a good idea to keep rubbishing the FSA, because people are watching what you are saying”.