Food Labelling Regulations (Amendment) Bill

Gavin Shuker Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Time is short, so I shall try to keep my remarks as brief as possible. The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) will find a clear theological justification in Colossians 2:16. I am sure he will go away and look that up—the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) probably knows it in the original King James, which is encouraging. It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for North East Somerset launch his campaign to save the great British sausage. If he chooses to turn that into a leadership bid, Labour Members will give him our full backing. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), a fellow east of England MP. A number of east of England MPs have introduced Bills today, and it will be interesting to see how this one goes—they have so far won one and lost one.

The Opposition have a number of problems with the Bill in its current form, but clearly, Members on both sides of the House and consumers support origin labelling. Consumers now have more interest in the food they eat than ever before. As a nation, we care more about where our food has come from, what is in it, how it was reared, and how it was slaughtered. The Bill raises some very interesting points on the information that consumers should receive on the pack.

We have so many decisions and choices to make in the shops, and we need our labelling to be honest, helpful to read and real. In that light, it is encouraging to see the commitment in the coalition agreement, which states:

“We will introduce honesty in food labelling so that consumers can be confident about where their food comes from and its environmental impact.”

It is for the Minister to say how he will fulfil that aspect of the agreement, but the Opposition believe that country-of-origin labelling is an important aspect of food labelling.

The previous Labour Government were aware of that need and introduced a voluntary code of conduct to help both consumers and producers, but they also pushed for greater European agreement. It is helpful for labelling to be considered at European level. We support what Labour MEPs are doing on the implementation of traffic light information on food labelling. We want to ensure that legislation is produced in conjunction with that, but I am aware that that option has faced resistance in recent months.

The Opposition support the approach whereby mandatory rules are applied to ensure that consumers are clear what origin labelling means when food businesses choose to make an origin claim. For example, pork should only be allowed to be labelled as British pork if the pig was born, reared and slaughtered in the UK, which was a point made by a number of hon. Members.

We strongly support the consumer’s right to know how their food was raised and where it has come from, which is why in the EU Parliament earlier this week we supported increased labelling requirements for cloned animals entering the food chain. Unfortunately, the Government opposed that measure. A Europe-wide solution would be preferable to a measure that might get us into a legal minefield. The hon. Member for South Norfolk raised that point. Never has European case law sounded so good as when he read out the names of those cases.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman clearly supports honesty in food labelling, but does he support an extension of that to honesty in drinks labelling? He might have seen an article in the Sunday People last Sunday—I am sure it is an organ that he knows well—that called for high-caffeine drinks to have proper labelling on cans, so that young people in particular know how much caffeine is in the drink. Is that something he would also like to see?

[Gavin Shuker]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about labelling. It is not just about food; the debate goes much wider than that. I will leave it to other hon. Members to speak on that matter, but he makes his point very well.

I will make two more points, but briefly, so that the Minister can respond. We are obviously concerned about the burden of regulation that the Bill might put on small producers and retailers. A report commissioned by the previous Government on developing a framework for assessing the costs of labelling changes in the UK should be extremely helpful on that matter, and we should consider that report as the Bill goes forward. Furthermore, the 10% requirement is quite a low level to require labelling. For example, it might affect pizza and other foods with a low meat content. That should be looked at.

We find it hard to reconcile the Bill’s presentation to the House with the fact that in the same week the coalition Government are cutting funding to the Food Standards Agency’s nutrition website, which provides consumers with more information. We broadly support the aims and methods of the Bill. However, I think that this matter should be resolved in the light of the discussions going on in Europe and of those that the Minister will be having with other Departments. I hope that the Government will do more. We will press them to do more on the issue of clear food labelling. I commend the hon. Member for South Norfolk on raising this matter for a fourth time. We will wait to see what happens next.