5 - Ministers, officials and the Aberdeen typhoid outbreak

Summary

Introduction

In Chapter 3 we referred to some of the interactions between officials of the SHHD and personnel in Aberdeen. In this chapter we will initially consider some further activities of SSHD officials, particularly their efforts to understand the epidemiology of the outbreak. We will also consider their involvement, with other civil servants and their ministers, in dealing with additional aspects of the outbreak, including the identification of the origin of the corned beef, and subsequent action.

We will see that once the probable source of the outbreak was admitted, much work was done on formulating and presenting explanations for past and current decisions. This was with a view to questions in Parliament and from the press, and with an eye to the impending committee of enquiry which was announced at the beginning of June. As the interest of the press and politicians intensified, ministers became increasingly involved in decision making. A co-ordinating group of ministers was formed on the instructions of the Cabinet to oversee the handling of the outbreak, and to take decisions about sensitive issues. Selwyn Lloyd, Lord Privy Seal, and William Deedes, Minister without Portfolio, played central roles. Michael Noble, Secretary of State for Scotland, was initially the main spokesman, but this role, and that of the Scottish Office generally, later became less prominent. Past decisions that had made the outbreak possible had not involved the Scottish Office, but rather the Ministry of Health and the MAFF, which were, in practice, responsible for the Imported Food Regulations.

After the initial action, the key questions were not directly concerned with Aberdeen. Attention shifted to the withdrawal of canned meat produced under similar conditions to the corned beef involved in the outbreak. Ministers and officials wavered between precautionary action and avoiding action, but by the end of June, canned meat produced at two plants, in addition to the one associated with the Aberdeen outbreak, had been withdrawn. A stop was placed on releases of an even wider range of canned meat in the government stockpile. However, the eventual fate of the suspect stock, like many questions thrown up by the outbreak, would have to await the deliberations and report of the official committee of enquiry, which will be discussed in Chapter 6.