FOCUS ON FOOD LAW ENFORCEMENT

Stafford’s Labour MP David Kidney is one of a group of MPs calling on the Food Standards Agency to give its backing to better coordination and resourcing of the UK’s food law enforcement service.

Speaking after a meeting with representatives of the Food Standards Agency, David Kidney said:

"Public Analysts and Trading Standards have been protecting our food for over 100 years. Never has this role been more important than now in an era of worries over food security and food safety.

"The defenders of our food safety – protecting us from, for example, food fraud – work for local authorities like Staffordshire County Council’s Trading Standards and Public laboratory staff. But just at a time when public concern is rising, Local Authority food sampling for monitoring is falling. 

“We have all read of threats like excessive quantities of unhealthy ingredients, links between artificial colours and hyperactivity and global food scares such as melamine in milk powder. Most criminal breaches of food law are only detectable by specialist analysis, so I want our public watchdog, the Food Standards Agency, to take public safety more seriously in respect of the food we all eat.

"At our meeting, we heard representatives of the Public Analyst service argue for the introduction of national coordination of and proper resourcing for the food sampling enforcement service.  They told us that most of the money currently provided to Local Authorities for this work never reaches its target.

"For every £1,000 we spend on food, our Local Authorities spend, on average, less than 5p on enforcement analysis. This needs attention and I was reassured that the Food Standards Agency is taking a more proactive approach to food safety.”