By Paul Dicken
25 March 2010
Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones has challenged the findings of a report calling for up to £3m in additional funding to be spent to prevent a major E. coli catastrophe.
A Consumer Focus Wales report, published this month, recommended the Welsh Assembly Government commit £2.5m–£3m extra in environmental health funds to boost food safety.
But Jones said the conclusion didn’t ‘make sense’. Responding to questions from AMs on March 23, he said: ‘We will look to see what assistance we can give to local government… it is not clear how robust that figure is... It’s also unclear how £2.6m a year is enough in Scotland but somehow it’s £3m in Wales even though we are half the size of Scotland.’
The report reviewed actions taken since Professor Hugh Pennington’s public inquiry into food safety in Wales, which reported in March 2009. The inquiry was launched after an outbreak of E. coli infection in 2005, which led to the death of a five-year-old boy in South Wales.
Jones said the Welsh Government would study the report carefully and that it was ‘important to find a way to move forward to ensure the tragedy we saw at the time is not repeated in the future’.
