Food and Drink (Miscellaneous Amendments Relating to Food and Wine Composition, Information and Labelling) Regulations 2021

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction and am grateful to her officials for providing a briefing on this extremely complex statutory instrument, which is all about the labelling of a wide variety of products. Although the Brexit transition period has finished, this is a transitional SI and covers an additional period, providing a 21-month adjustment period for businesses to be able to comply with import product labelling. The products under discussion are caseins, or milk products, which nobody has so far mentioned and which are the ones for human consumption, honey, meat and minced meat and trimmings, excluding beef, and wine.

The instrument concerns relabelling of products with the name of their UK importer and the information on prepacked food, including blended honey. The Explanatory Memorandum states at paragraph 2.12:

“EU-centric rules will not be appropriate for the UK.”


This may well be true for some people, but there are consumers who will want to know where the produce covered in this SI has come from and how it has arrived on market shelves. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, raised the issue of allergens, and it is extremely important that this information is included on labelling; I declare my interest as an allergy sufferer myself.

While trying to separate ourselves from the EU and its legislation, it is important accurately to reflect the provenance of consumables. As my noble friend Lord German indicated, much of the wine imported to the UK will be bottled here, relabelled and then exported again, mainly to the EU. The same is likely to happen to honey in terms of blending. I should like the Minister’s reassurance that honey, which has a particular identity and flavour and is produced in a specific locality, will be correctly labelled and not blended with inferior honey or syrup, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said. Such a practice of blending is likely to destroy, not enhance, consumer confidence.

Paragraph 12.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“There is no … impact on the public sector.”


However, trading standards officers will be inspecting wine and prepacked food to ensure that it is correctly labelled as to the proper UK importer. Therefore, there will be additional work for the local authority officers. However, trading standards officers are not permitted to take any action if they find that products have not been correctly labelled until after the end of the transition period. I find this disturbing.

While I understand that this is to allow businesses to make a smooth change to their labelling, there is a likelihood that this could lead to confusion and misinformation not being dealt with but left until the very last date before enforcement action could be taken. Does the Minister think this is acceptable?

I have one very serious issue that I wish to raise. On Monday, during the debate on the Queen’s Speech, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park—gave an assurance to those Peers who raised issues concerning animal welfare that the UK intended to be a world leader in that area. Paragraph 7.6 of the EM refers to meat excluding beef. Its last sentence states:

“Instead, the amended legislation will allow the use of ‘non-UK’ where the country in which the period of rearing specified in this legislation according to species is not available or the indication ‘several countries’ in the case of meat reared in several non-UK countries.”


This is very confusing, and I apologise for that, but it is not my Explanatory Memorandum.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, referred to the importation of meat and meat products. Does the Minister believe that there is a golden thread that puts animal welfare at the heart of all Defra’s work and that this statutory instrument upholds this view and ensures that meat reared in non-UK countries will indeed have come from animals reared in accordance with UK standards and not from inferior rearing practices? Unless she can give this reassurance, all the Government’s words on animal welfare are fairly meaningless. This apart, I support this statutory instrument.