Food: Adulteration

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Crawley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking in the light of the findings by trading standards officers that a third of recent food samples were adulterated with other substances.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interest as president of the Trading Standards Institute.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley) (Con)]

My Lords, we take the threat of food fraud very seriously. Following the horsemeat fraud last year, we have been working with industry and local authorities to improve our intelligence sharing to target sampling and enforcement better. The sampling carried out by West Yorkshire Trading Standards Service demonstrates the action being taken by local authorities across the United Kingdom to target known problem areas and in response to complaints. The findings are not representative of all food products.

[Baroness Crawley]

I thank the noble Lord for his reply. However, I do not think it reflects the seriousness of the food adulteration crisis across this country. Reporting of food fraud has increased by 66% since 2009, while the number of samples taken by local authorities has decreased by 26%. Call me old fashioned, but I like my ham actually to be ham and not poultry dyed pink or meat emulsion, whatever that is. I want fruit juice to be just that, and not laced with vegetable oil that is used in flame retardants. Of the 900 samples that were tested by West Yorkshire Trading Standards, one-third were not what they were meant to be. Does the Minister support the Elliott review’s interim report on the horsemeat scandal, which is highly critical of the current enforcement system’s ability to tackle food crime? What are the Government doing about the depletion of trading standards departments across the country, whose job it is to track down organised criminal gangs in the food sector?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I agree with much of the sentiment behind the noble Baroness’s question. In his interim report, Professor Elliott recognises that the United Kingdom has access to some of the safest food in the world, but we should not be complacent. We are working across government, and with the industry and local authorities, to improve our intelligence gathering and sharing, with the aim of improving protection for the consumer. Consumer protection is the key priority for the FSA and local authorities, and enforcement officers are working across areas, targeting those most likely to be at risk. During 2012-13, 86,000 food safety composition and authenticity tests were carried out. The FSA has increased the additional funding it provides to local authorities to support testing to £2.2 million this year.