| Food Safety (Fishery Products and Live Shellfish) (Hygiene) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1999
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The Minister for Public Health (Ms Tessa Jowell): I join other Members in welcoming the opportunity to conduct this debate under your chairmanship, Mr. Wells. I listened carefully to the speeches of the hon. Members for St. Ives and for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman). Like the constituents of the hon. Lady, my constituents in Dulwich and West Norwood buy fish rather than catch it. However, looking around the Committee, I see a number of hon. Members for whom the fishing industry is of enormous concern to the economic health of their constituency. I shall—I hope—deal with all the points that have been raised in this short debate. I should like to explain why the regulations are necessary and to highlight the careful attention that the Government have paid to the charges that this is an increased burden on an already stretched industry. I will speak about lead times and also about implementation by other countries. I assure the hon. Member for Meriden that the implementat ion of the directive in the United Kingdom does not in any way represent gold-plating. The charges were introduced after careful consideration and full public consultation. The regulations came into force on 30 June. In summary, they implement charges for hygiene inspections of fishery products landed from European Union ships and hygiene inspections of fishery product establis hments in Great Britain. Parallel regulations are to come into force in Northern Ireland on 9 August. The charges for EU ships are similar to those which were implemented last year for hygiene inspections of fishery products landed by third country fishing, factory and freezer ships. As such, they serve to complete our obligations to implement the full set of charges relating to hygiene inspections on fishery products and fishery product establishments required under directive 96/43. The regulations also make some technical amendments to the Food Safety (Fishery Products and Live Shellfish) (Hygiene) Regulation s 1998. I should point out that fishery products are not being singled out when it comes to charging; hygiene inspections are already in place for food products of animal origin other than fish. For example, there are charges for hygiene inspection costs relating to the slaughter of beef, pigs, sheep and poultry, and for the cutting and storage of animal products. I turn to the EU dimension and our legal responsibilities. These charges are required by European Council directive 96/43, which was agreed in June 1996 and introduced inspection charges for a range of food products of animal origin. Among other things, it requires standard charges to be collected to contribute to the costs of carrying out hygiene inspections on fishery products and fishery products establishments. The underlying reason for the charges is to harmonise rules on charging for hygiene inspecti ons, thus helping to provide a level playing field for the fish industry in different EU member states and to avoid any distortion of competition. Under the terms of the directive, all member states had a legal obligatio n to implement the charges by 1 July this year. As the hon. Member for Meriden made clear, had we not implemented the directive, the UK would have been in breach of its Community obligations and liable to legal challeng e in the European Court. I understand that other member states are also proceeding to implement the provisions, according to their obligations. Before drawing up the regulations, it was essential to consult interested parties on the arrangements for implementing the directive. I want to place on record the Government's thanks to the industry and the enforcement organisations, which made a constructive contribution to that process. I shall summarise the consultation. A letter was sent last summer to some 550 interested parties setting out the implementation timetable and explainin g options for how the measures could be implemented. Meetings were held last autumn with representatives of trade bodies and enforcement authorities and a two-month formal consultation exercise followed between February and April this year. There were further meetings with the trade and enforceme nt bodies at the end of April to discuss responses to the consultation. In addition, my officials attended a number of informal meetings with individual trade bodies, including the Sea Fish Industry Authority, the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, the UK Association of Frozen Food Producers, the British Frozen Food Federation and the Shellfish Association of Great Britain. The main messages that we gleaned during that extensive consultation process were, first, that the industry was—not surprisingly—reluctant to pay the charges, although the legal obligation on the UK to introduce them was generally acknowledged. Secondly, different sectors of the industry had conflicting views on who should pay the charges at different stages. Thirdly, it was felt that there should be arrangements to help small businesses and food authorities, for whom there might have been a disproportionate administrative burden. The hon. Member for St. Ives asked who should pay the charge. I am well aware that the fishermen's organisations feel that their members should not be required to pay a charge for the inspection of landed fish and that such a charge should instead be paid by the purchasers of the fish. We decided that fishermen or the agents who sell the fish on their behalf should pay the charge for several reasons. First, our legal advice was that that was the most appropriate way of implementing the directive's requirements. Secondly, the system that we have introduced allows for the collection and payment of charges by the smallest number of people, thereby minimising the administrative burden. Thirdly, a criterion for applying reductions to the charge is that the fish have been graded for freshness or size. That is the responsibility of the fishermen rather than the purchaser of the fish. The regulations provide that the charges that are paid by the fishermen should be included in the purchase price paid to them by the purchaser. In that way, the fishermen can recover the charges that they are required to pay. The outcome of the consultation process is that the regulations are now in force. The charges that they introduce reflect the requirements of directive 96/43 and allow for: charges on landings of fresh fish and frozen and processed fishery products from EU fishing, factory and freezer vessels; a charge for fishery products entering establishments in which fishery products are processed; a charge for inspections of establishments in which fishery products are stored, chilled, frozen and/or packaged; and a charge for inspecting UK approved factory vessels that are inspected abroad. Given that EU law made it impossible for us to do anything other than implement the charges, we have taken every available step to ensure that the charges are equitable and fairly spread across the industry. That means that fishermen, fish processors and those in the industry who prepare, freeze, chill, pack or simply store products will all make a contribution to the inspection costs. However, that contribution will be modest, as I shall explain. We took several important steps to reduce the costs and burdens on the industry, especially small businesses and food authorities. I shall give some examples of the provisions that we have made. First, landings of fishery products of less than 1 tonne—about 2,000 lbs, for hon. Members who are more familiar with that system—will not require a charge to be paid. That should mean that the majority of fishermen operating small fishing vessels will not have to pay charges. Secondly, charges can be paid in flexible account periods, to be agreed with local food authorities, of between one month and one year. That reflects our wish to minimise the administrative burden on fishermen. It will reduce the frequency of making returns and payments to local food authorities, thus minimising administrative costs. Thirdly, reductions to the standard charge will be applied to the majority of businesses. I shall deal briefly with the costs to the industry. The main charges are set at a level of 1 euro, or 67p, per tonne of fishery product landed, and 1 euro per tonne of fishery product entering processing establishments. Those charges can be reduced by 55 per cent. to about 30p per tonne if certain conditions are met. Our expectation—and, indeed, the official guidance from my Department to local food authorities—is that the reduced level of charge should apply in the majority of cases. Consequently, the typical charge for a tonne of landed fresh fish, which may have a commercial value of »1,500, would be about 30p. Industry-wide, we estimate that the new charge will create recurring costs of approximately »650,000 per annum. That income will go to the inspecting local authorities. In response to the point that was raised by the hon. Member for Meriden, the inspections will be carried out by environmental health officers. A typical small processing business that was contacted as part of the regulatory impact assessment estimated that it would pay charges of between »75 and »165 a year—between approximately »1.50 and »3 a week. In taking forward our proposals to implement the charges, a full regulatory impact assessment was carried out. I hope, for several reasons, that members of the Committee will accept the measure. First, the charges are unavoidable if we are to discharge our obligations under Community law. Secondly, we have carried out full consultation with interested parties and have taken many comments on board. Thirdly, fishing has not been singled out for hygiene inspection charges: the charges parallel those already in place for third country fishery products and other animal products. Fourthly, as with any new regulation, I expect that practical issues are likely to arise from making the charges work at a local level. I know that local authorities and the trade are already working together on the issue. The Department of Health is available to provide whatever further advice may be necessary. The Government have approached the implementation of the regulations fairly and openly, and in a way that meets our EU obligations. I hope that, in the light of my detailed presentation of the background of the issue, hon. Members will feel able to support the regulations.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 1999 | Prepared 27 July 1999 |
