Food Labelling Regulations (Amendment) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Friday 1st April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is interesting to reflect that the key aspects of both this and the previous Bill end up essentially being determined by foreign organisations. In this one, we see clearly that it is an issue of the European Union, and it is a great pleasure, as always, to see the Minister for Europe in his place, because he is wiser and better informed on these issues than almost anyone else in the House. In the previous debate, the issue was whether we would be allowed under European treaties to subsidise from the licence fee the production of programmes made in the United Kingdom. That is clearly an issue that Europe would have poked its nose into.

Then we get into a desperately depressing discussion about whether something that this sovereign Parliament is considering doing is legal. Whatever this sovereign Parliament decides to do is by its very nature legal although it may undermine some obligations we have under international treaties. I know that a senior judge—indeed the most senior judge, Lord Justice Judge—spoke recently about the application of European Union law and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in this country. He rightly pointed out that they have effect only because of laws that this House has passed; therefore, they can have uneffect, if such a word exists, if this House passes amending legislation. A possible problem with the Bill is that it does not have a “notwithstanding” clause. If it said “notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972”, it would undoubtedly be possible to introduce food labelling regulations.

This is an issue of great topicality. I have been discussing food labelling for meat products with a constituent, specifically about their religious nature. Canon John Baker who lives in Midsomer Norton has corresponded with me about his concerns that eating halal food would be in breach of a Christian’s obligations, as set out in the Acts of the Apostles, on eating food that has been blessed in honour of gods other than our lord and saviour and the blessed trinity. I have taken this up with the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who I thought would be an authority on this matter. Hon. Members will be reassured to know, when they buy their meat, that whether it is halal or not, labelled or not, it is still perfectly legitimate to eat. I am glad to put on the record the authoritative view of the established Church—not, as it happens, my Church—on this important issue.

[Mr Bacon]

I am inclined to remark in parenthesis that although my hon. Friend is not a member of the established Church, we all feel that he probably ought to be were it not for the minor question of doctrine.

On the “notwithstanding” clause, I was tempted to put one in, but I did not for two reasons: first, because I contend that my Bill falls on the right side of the jurisprudence I have been talking about within the European legal system, and secondly because my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister tends to get the heebie-jeebies when the word “notwithstanding” is mentioned. As I was praying him in aid, as well as the two Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers who have given their support by signing the previous, identical version of the Bill, it seemed to me not a politic thing to do.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I completely understand my hon. Friend’s concern about introducing a “notwithstanding” clause, because it does seem to some to be the nuclear option when it comes to our European relations. We would have to debate whether it was suitable to use such a powerful clause in relation to food labelling, and whether food labelling is an issue of such importance that it is worth fracturing our relationship with Europe over, because the “notwithstanding” clause does ultimately fracture our relationship with Europe, or leads to a fundamental renegotiation. The question, I suppose, is whether that is what the British electorate want.

I have huge sympathy with my hon. Friend on the point about most people in this country wanting to know where their food comes from, how it is processed, and what is in it. It all gets frightfully stomach-churning when we read in the detail of the Bill what is classified as meat:

“the heart, any other internal organ…the muscles of the head, the carpus, the tarsus, or the tail from any mammalian or bird species recognised as fit for human consumption.”

Some of those bits do not sound fit for human consumption at all. They sound more like dog meat, which probably should be equally carefully labelled, so that the great dogs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not mistakenly consume foreign-produced dog food; I expect that would cause them great concern, because we know that the English bulldog is a particularly patriotic symbol.

I come back to the concerns of consumers. We have had lots of rows with Europe about how food is labelled and processed, and Europe always seems to be on the wrong side of the argument. It always seems to be restraining some form of trade without allowing people to have proper information. I remember the great row about where Parma ham was cut, and whether it could be described as Parma ham if it was not physically cut in Italy. That seemed fair old nonsense; if a person has a great slab of ham and cuts it up at home, it is the same ham as if they had cut it up in Italy. I think it was Asda that wanted to do that in some plant in the United Kingdom. Europe goes for a tough and restrictive anti-free-trade regulation. It seems to put us in a position where we cannot really be honest with the British consumer and let him or her know what they are buying. That is important, because we have read the most appalling stories of the labelling of food that is pretty much no more than packaged in this country as if it were British.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) so rightly mentioned the use of the Union flag on food. When we see the Union flag, we want to think, “That’s a best bit of British beef.” We do not want to think that it has possibly come from Kobe, where the beef used to be very good and delicious, but which we might now worry was becoming radioactive. We need to know what it is, and what is in it. If it has come from Kobe via some European country and we are not being told, that must be to the disadvantage of the British consumer when they go out to do the weekly shopping.

When one is in North East Somerset, one wants to know that one’s food is really from Somerset, because some of the best food produced in the United Kingdom comes from God’s own county. We have the finest beef, lamb, chickens—you name it; turkeys, even. It has a quality, a taste, a melt-in-the-mouth flavour that makes one proud to come from Somerset. That ought to be on a label, and some bureaucrat Johnny in Brussels should not be saying, “We really can’t have this, because it might deter you from buying a German sausage.” I would not like a German sausage at all; they are much too spicy and flavoured for my taste. I like a good, proper, plain, British banger. Those hon. Members who remember watching “Yes, Prime Minister” all those years ago will know that that has been an issue in British political life for decades. We want our right to eat our sausages stuffed full of bread and things like that, because when they are, they taste nice. We do not want all this garlic and stuff that we get in foreign sausages. I am tempted to mention the Flanders and Swann song but, Mr Deputy Speaker, I know that when I get too poetic I sometimes incur your wrath, of which I live in trembling fear, so I will avoid Flanders and Swann when thinking about garlic-eaters.

We really need to know that information, so that we can get the food that we want, like and love—ideally the food from Somerset, where the grass is of particularly high quality. Those hon. Members who understand the digestion of cattle will realise that if the grass has the right flavour, and the water that falls is the best-quality rain, only to be found in Somerset, the meat and its marbling develops in a particular way.

[Mr Nuttall]

I must intervene on that point. The best quality rain, if that is what I heard my hon. Friend say, must surely fall in Manchester, in particular that part of Greater Manchester which comprises my constituency, Bury North.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

There are occasions during a test match at Old Trafford when the rain falling can be the best possible rain, when it saves England from a notable defeat, but the rain that falls on the edge of the Mendips is the finest rain. That, as it happens, is why Joseph of Arimathea visited. He just wanted to see quite what high quality the rain was.

I was talking about the high quality of the beef in Somerset. When one looks at a piece of meat in a farm shop, like the farm shop that I used to live next door to, it has a quality that makes one look forward to one’s Sunday lunch. With some Yorkshire pudding—I know that is not meat, but it would be most upsetting to think that one’s Yorkshire pudding came from the continentals. I am sure that they have no clue how to make it. Where their eggs would come from would be not quite the thing. I know that I am going on to other food products that are not mentioned in the Bill.

I want to say a few words about one detailed concern—perhaps a pedantic concern—that I have about the Bill. That is the reference to the Union flag. Many of our most favoured nations, countries with which we have a great fellow feeling, use the Union flag as a jack. I am slightly worried that we might stop our friends in Australia and New Zealand putting their flag on because of the Union flag being used as a jack, with the stars in the fly. We want to be entirely clear—this may be a point to be discussed in Committee—that flags that incorporate the Union flag should be permissible as a representation of the country of origin when the item comes from that country.

That is a particularly welcome thing to do, because those tend to be countries that share a sovereign with us. We should have a particularly favourable attitude towards them, rather than countries such as France, which of course used to share a sovereign with us—I think of Henry VI, crowned king of France in Paris some time in the 1420s; Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know better than I the precise date—but no longer do so and have therefore lost out in the development of European history. One can only have sympathy for them in lacking such a wise and benign system of government as we have here.

[Mr Bacon]

I took the trouble to mention kangaroo meat, and how it would not be affected by my Bill. I have no objection to kangaroo meat showing a clear national Australian symbol on it, which of course incorporates the Union flag.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I am greatly relieved, because I thought he was going to propose that we might get some kangaroo meat from Somerset. Although Somerset is very good at almost everything, kangaroos might find the climate a little colder than they are used to, and perhaps the fences not quite high enough. They might do awful things like hopping over to Gloucestershire, which would no doubt be extremely dangerous for their health.

There are all sorts of other peculiar meats that one can eat. I remember being offered crocodile, but I did not have it. I thought that it was more for making ladies’ handbags than a gentleman’s dinner. It was clearly labelled as not being English; as far as I am aware, there are not many crocodiles living in England, although there always used to be those stories about them being in the sewers. As far as I know, that is not true. It was one of those urban myths.

Let us get back to the serious point while I have the attention of the Minister for Europe, which is, as always, a great pleasure. He knows the point that I will come back to and it is a serious one. We have got ourselves into a situation in our relationship with the European Union where laws that are perfectly routine and sensible run up against a European blockage. Whether the jurisprudence of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk is right or the Government’s current view is right I do not know, but I do know that it has become the reason for inaction. It is one of the reasons that I greatly welcomed the European Union Bill, which is passing through the other place and which we passed recently. It contains the sovereignty clause which makes it clear that laws from Europe have effect only because of an Act of Parliament.

The reason I think that this is so important is that we may get the phraseology right—and I urge my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to bear this in mind—but we often hear about things that are against European law as being illegal. They are not illegal; they are against an international treaty obligation. There is an important difference. It is illegal in this country to murder someone, which is absolutely fine. The application of European law results from a treaty obligation that we have accepted and incorporated into our law, but it is absolutely legal for this Parliament to decide at any point to change it. That might appear to be a relatively obscure point, but language is important, because the House, if it so wishes, may pass the Bill with a “notwithstanding” clause, but it is perfectly reasonable for the Minister to say that because of our international treaty obligations it would not be considered wise to do so.

[Mr Bacon]

My hon. Friend, who is being generous in giving way, prompts me to intervene again on the question of the word “language”. Directive 2000/13/EC specifically states that language can be used as a legitimate restriction, which means that a label must contain the language of the country where the product is to be sold.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That seems perfectly reasonable. With regard to the Bill, I suppose that, as we are in the United Kingdom, the label is likely to be in English anyway, and English is such a commonly used language that it is hard to see that we could get the protection simply by saying that the labels had to be in English; they would be anyway. That would not indicate a great deal.

We need to consider the right balance in our relationship with Europe. In my view, Europe interferes too much in the minutiae of British life, and I would classify the Bill in that category. Whether one is in favour of specific food labelling laws is neither here nor there in this sense, but it clearly ought to be in the ambit of this Parliament to decide without worrying about Europe. It is not, except at the most excessive level, a barrier to free trade. I am concerned that we should have a relationship with Europe that is friendly, hospitable and trading, but we are getting to a situation where our democratic control of what we want to do is so undermined by the constant attrition from European law that the British people will no longer wish to accept the relationship along its current lines.

Therefore, those Ministers and hon. Members who are broadly in favour of a free trading area and the European Communities Act must bear in mind that, by allowing Europe to go too far, they might be sowing the seeds of its own destruction, and we may be beginning to see that in the move for an in-or-out referendum. I am very sympathetic to my hon. Friend’s Bill. I think that it ought to be a matter for this sovereign Parliament to decide, but I quite accept that the Minister may feel that, in terms of our current arrangements with the EU, this may not be the best battle to fight.