Food and Water (Safety)

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 7:37 pm on 21 February 1989.

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Photo of Mr Calum MacDonald Mr Calum MacDonald , Na h-Eileanan an Iar 7:37, 21 February 1989

I am grateful for being called and I shall try to keep my remarks within the recommended time limit, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) began his speech by suggesting that the absence of Opposition Members showed their lack of interest in the nation's health and food. The most conspicuous absentee from today's debate has been the Prime Minister, and I suggest that he addresses his remarks to her.

I shall try to relate my brief remarks to a comment made by the Secretary of State for Health at the beginning of the debate in response to a question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), who asked why it had taken the Secretary of Stale two months to answer a question that he had tabled. The Secretary of State replied that he was sorry but that the question had probably remained in some official's bottom drawer for those two months.

That answer sums up the Government's attitude to this problem. First, the Government have given low priority to food and health. The Secretary of State falsely accused the Opposition of not addressing those issues. As has been pointed out by several Opposition Members, we have raised the dangers caused to health and the environment by the Government's successive cuts in research. The number of environmental health officers has been cut as a consequence of their policy.

The Government have also wholly failed adequately to regulate private businesses because they prefer profits to people. The Opposition are right to say that the Government have accorded the problem a low priority.

The other notable aspect of the Secretary of State's remarks was his reference to an official. Passing the buck has been another characteristic of the Government's handling of this issue. The prime victim of that trait was the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), to whom the Secretary of State passed the buck towards the end of last year.

To return to the question or low priority, the Secretary of State's comments and the Government's attitude make it clear that not just written answers, but consumers have been left in the bottom drawer over the past several months. Meanwhile, the producers have been in the Secretary of State's top drawer. That is exemplified by the now notorious defensive briefing that was conducted by Government officials and representatives of the egg industry as early as last June, with the Government feeling it should be their duty to get into huddles with egg producers to produce defensive briefings rather than telling the public at that stage what they knew about the problem. That says a lot about the Government's attitude.

When the Government did move, it was to alert officials of the National Health Service. They gave the excuse that they did that because people might be at risk in hospitals, ignoring the fact that most sick people would not be in hospital but would be at home being looked after by relatives and would be equally at risk. It is fair to say that the Government have consistently afforded low priority to the issue and put it in the bottom drawer.

What I really wish to deal wall is the trait of passing the buck as exemplified by the Secretary of State's response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes).

The right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) spoke about the confusion over the issue. The responsibility must lie with the Government. The right hon. Gentleman also spoke of irresponsible scaremongering. The right hon. Gentleman was asked whether he would associate the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South with that irresponsible scaremongering, and he coyly declined to answer the question directly. But it must have been clearly in his mind. I would have said to him—unfortunately he is not in the House at the moment—that if there was scaremongering and confusion, the responsibility lay not with the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South alone but, in the last analysis, with the Government and especially with the Secretary of State for whom the hon. Lady was working at that time.

In response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, the Secretary of State repeated the astonishing admission, which he also made to the Select Committee on Agriculture when he came before us, that he had advised the hon. Lady to keep quiet following her controversial statement on 3 December about most egg production in this country being affected by salmonella. When the Secretary of State came before the Select Committee he said that his advice to her to keep quiet had been given because he felt that Sir Donald Acheson was the most appropriate person to go about the country and to clarify the question of salmonella infection. Again, I suggest that he was passing the buck to an official rather than taking responsibility upon himself.

The solution offered to the problem of the controversy generated by the remarks of the former junior Health Minister was wholly inadequate and stretches credulity.