I am obviously delighted that the Judicial Review on GM rice found that the FSA complied fully with our obligations under EU law. This is also very good news for consumers, because we have always stated that we will put consumer interests first on food issues, and the review has provided a stern test of our performance against this standard.
Putting the consumer first means that in any incident, such as the contamination of American long grain rice with a GM variety, we start with the science and conduct a risk assessment. Judgements then need to be taken about the action that needs to be taken to address the problems, making sure that the action is proportionate to the risks and that Food Business Operators comply with EU regulations.
In practice, these judgements are not straightforward for a host of reasons, such as the complexities of the food chain and access to suitable analytical tests, but, by being transparent about our decision-making process, we allow others to judge whether we are meeting the standard of putting the consumer first.
As with all these sorts of incidents, there are lessons to be learned, and we’ll be studying the judgement to see how we can improve what we do in the future.
