Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Official Report 678KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Food Additives and Novel Foods (Authorisations and Miscellaneous Amendments) and Food Flavourings (Removal of Authorisations) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 (SSI 2024/156)

The next item on our agenda is consideration of one negative instrument, which is the Food Additives and Novel Foods (Authorisations and Miscellaneous Amendments) and Food Flavourings (Removal of Authorisations) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. The purpose of the regulations is to implement the decision that was made by the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health on eight regulated food product applications. It authorises the placing on the market in Scotland of four new novel foods, authorises a new production method for two food additives and a new use for one other food additive, and authorises the removal of 22 food-flavouring substances.

The regulations also set a maximum limit for residues of ethylene oxide in all food additives, and they correct minor technical errors and omissions in two existing novel foods authorisations and two existing food additive authorisations.

The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered the regulations at its meeting on 11 June 2024 and made no recommendations. No motion to annul has been lodged.

I believe that Emma Harper has a comment.

I do—thank you, convener. I hear what you are saying about the removal of 22 products and the changes to other foods coming on to the market. I want to raise again my concerns about the colours, flavours, emulsifiers and stabilisers and the chemicals that are added into our food supply chain. Stevia, for instance, interrupts the gut biome and can affect people’s hormone levels. I also read that it can cause depression. There are other issues with ethylene oxide. It is carcinogenic and mutagenic. Ethylene oxide residue is used to sterilise surgical instruments and medical devices; that is where I learned about it. It is now used as a pesticide and a sterilising agent for food, so there must be some standards required for a minimal amount of ethylene oxide residue when it comes to food supply.

Our documents show that Food Standards Scotland and the Food Standards Agency have reviewed the European Food Safety Authority’s opinions, along with all the documentation on what we are discussing today. I am interested in the issue of everything that is coming on to the market with novel foods.

There is also the issue of the novel food cetylated fatty acids, which has a maximum level of 1.6g per day in the European Union, whereas Great Britain’s maximum level is 2.1g per day. Cetylated fatty acids are not naturally occurring, except for in some dairy products. Now they are added to our food. I would be interested to hear why it is 2.1g per day in GB, but 1.6g per day in the EU. I assume that it is to do with safety margins.

I just wanted to raise my concerns about the continuing issue of chemicals that are coming into our food supply.

Would you be content for the committee to write to the minister and ask about the concerns that you have raised?

I think that members of the committee would find that agreeable. I am just seeking some affirmation about the safety aspects of the regulations and the discrepancy between 1.6g per day being allowed in the EU and 2.1g being allowed in Great Britain.

I am looking around the committee members and it looks as though they are content for us to do that. I am certainly happy to do it.

The proposal is that the committee does not make any recommendations on the regulations. Does any member disagree with that?

Members: No.

Next week, the committee will hear from the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport in the concluding oral evidence of phase 2 of its post-legislative scrutiny of the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013.

That concludes the public part of our meeting.

10:31 Meeting continued in private until 10:49.