Horsemeat

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Reed]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I will come on to the national equine database and the risks that its scrapping has created for consumers and the industry. I thank him for his welcome intervention.

On local trading standards services, a freedom of information request by the trade union Unison exposed the fact that 743 trading standards jobs have been lost since 2010, resulting in fewer inspections and, consequently, higher risks for the public. Unison has questioned whether councils still have the resources they need to do the job. It is not enough for the Government to blame councils for cutting those services when the Government have cut councils’ funding to such a huge extent in the first place.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s interesting speech on this extremely important subject, which is damaging our meat industry and our farmers. I am not certain about his logic regarding Government cuts to local authorities and elsewhere. He is politicising what should be a non-political discussion, because we all hate the notion of horsemeat in burgers. The issue has nothing to do with Government cuts; it is to do with supermarkets buying cheaper and cheaper burgers from doubtful sources.

[Steve Reed]

There are certainly issues to do with what the supermarkets are sourcing, which is contributing to the problem, but if we do not have a properly resourced system of regulation, consumers cannot be confident that what the supermarkets and other retailers are selling them is what they believe they are buying. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

There are serious questions about the role of the supermarkets in forcing suppliers to cut corners to meet commercial demands. There are reports—we will all have read them—of products being bulked up with protein powders containing trace DNA from other animals, with no way of tracing those products back to their origin. There are further concerns about the processing of meat from different animals through the same production equipment, leaving trace DNA behind despite attempts at deep cleaning, as well as about meat from different sources being commingled without any labelling to warn consumers about what they are buying. The National Farmers Union has raised concerns about that, warning that the drive towards “more for less” risks compromising consumer health, the need for transparency and, ultimately, consumer confidence.

On horses slaughtered in the UK for food, the past four years have seen an 84% increase in the number of animals slaughtered, mostly for export. In 2012, 9,405 horses were slaughtered, but only 1.5% of those animals were tested for phenylbutazone, or bute, as it is more commonly known. That drug is commonly administered to race horses, but it can cause cancer in humans and is banned from the human food chain. Of that small sample, the FSA has confirmed that eight slaughtered horses tested positive, potentially exposing fraud in the system. That risk of fraud was made worse by the Government’s decision to scrap the national equine database last August, which my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) alluded to. That has made it more difficult to trace which British horses are being slaughtered for meat and whether the meat is fit for human consumption.

The Government have chosen to rely on the horse passport system alone. Under that system, 75 different organisations are authorised to issue passports, which contain details of the drugs a horse is given during its lifetime. The British Horse Society confirmed this month that

“with no central database…it is now possible for a horse to be issued with two passports: one in which medication is recorded and an apparently clean one to be presented at the time of slaughter—allowing the medicated horse to be passed as fit for consumption.”

The system is clearly wide open to fraud and abuse.

[Mr Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Steve Reed]

I will make progress, if I may. I have taken several interventions already.

Those failures of Government threaten the very high reputation of the UK food industry. The NFU has spoken out clearly for a more robust system, with clearer labelling of ingredients in products, and a new requirement that processed meat products should display the species of meat and meat derivatives alongside the country of origin. On the difficulties in tracking the source of horse DNA in burgers, the NFU has called for a review into how the origin of meat is identified and maintained throughout the trade and between different countries. The Government should adopt that proposal, and I hope the Minister will respond to that in his speech.

My contention is that the Government have underfunded, fragmented and undermined the food safety system. We must reassure consumers that the meat they buy is correctly labelled, legal and safe to eat. The Government’s actions, driven by cuts and an ideological pursuit of deregulation, made the latest food crisis more likely and mean that it could happen again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I was not necessarily intending to speak at any great length, but I have been inspired by the speech of the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed). I congratulate him on making such an excellent speech so early in his parliamentary career. I am not sure that in my 15 years here I have quite achieved the expertise that he has in a few months. It was a most useful introduction to an important and interesting debate.

I took issue with the hon. Gentleman to a degree, because in discussing a cross-party issue he strayed slightly into party political issues, blaming the Government and everything to do with them for an appalling incident over Christmas, when horsemeat was found in supermarket burgers. I am not certain that Government cuts to local authorities and the other things that he listed can necessarily be directly blamed, and I felt that that was an unfortunate part of the speech. Overall, however, he made an extremely important point—that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) pointed out, even the smallest traces of DNA in a burger could damage consumer confidence to an extraordinary degree. That has happened before, such as in the Edwina Currie and eggs episode, with beef and on other occasions since then.

The slightest hint that supermarket burgers might not be up to scratch could lead to a disproportionate effect on the burger and supermarket industries, and therefore on farmers. I speak particularly on behalf of farmers in my constituency where there is significant beef production. I pay tribute, in passing, to McDonald’s, which now sources all its beef from UK sources. That was a worthwhile thing to do, and it would be appalling if confidence in the excellent McDonald’s product—I hold no brief for McDonald’s—were to be undermined by the unfortunate incident that has occurred.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on making a very good speech. Local food provenance is important, because among EU nations the UK is unique: it has the highest proportion of food retail—and beverages—from sales from shops and restaurants. That is very important, so trading standards are critical. Even in the past month, trading standards in the south-west found lamb kebabs, which everyone likes to get when it is late, on the way home, containing chicken, beef, poultry and other assorted goodies. It is important to keep local trading standards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gray]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and am about to discuss trading standards, and how we can restore consumer confidence. If consumers believe that what they buy is different from what the packet says, they will stop buying it. That damages not only dodgy products—and I think some supermarkets have been guilty, under commercial pressure, of buying products at a lower price than they might reasonably have done—but also first-class ones. I agree with the hon. Member for Croydon North about the importance of strong local trading standards, a strong Food Standards Agency, and strong Government controls, to ensure that the highest possible standards for food are maintained in supermarkets. That applies particularly in the present case to meat, and particularly beef, in the context of horse-contaminated products. I agree with the broad thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, and I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Minister how we can be certain to restore consumer confidence.

I want, however, to touch on an aspect of the opening speech that I disagreed with; the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) also touched on the same point in an intervention. The suggestion seemed to be that if the system in the UK for the control of the killing of horses were somehow better, incidents such as the recent one would be less likely. The hon. Member for Croydon North mentioned the Government’s recent abolition of the national equine database and the operation of horse passports. I remember a debate in this very Chamber in 2005 when my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) argued passionately that horse passports were a complete waste of time, and committed himself to abolishing them when he came to power. I keep reminding the Prime Minister of that, and he has not yet got round to it, but I am confident that sooner or later he may go down that track.

The idea behind the introduction of horse passports was that every medicine administered to a horse would be stamped on the passport. In particular, as the hon. Member for Croydon North mentioned, bute is a common medicine—and not only among racehorses, as he mentioned; often ordinary hacks will be given bute. That is or could be harmful to human beings. It is important that those horses should not go into the food chain. Abattoirs should know if horses have taken it, and prevent that from happening. The idea was that every horse—there are getting on for 2 million of them in the UK; we do not quite know the number—should have a passport. Every time it went to the vet the passport would be stamped, and when it appeared at the abattoir the staff would say, “No, Mr Horse, you have had bute. You can’t come in here. Please go away.”

From the start, that was a ridiculously flawed principle. The basic flaw is that although a horse owner such as me might be persuaded to buy a horse passport on first getting the horse, it is difficult to remember to cancel it when the horse dies. Already, roughly half of 750,000 horse passports in circulation in the UK today are for dead horses. The document is entirely meaningless, and a great many horses—particularly low-value ones, belonging to various groups of people—have no passports at all. The system is blown wide open. Decent, sensible, ordinary horse owners get round to buying them. People who try, criminally, to get their horses into the human consumption chain do not, so the system does not work.

That system failure was compounded by the national equine database. I must pick up the hon. Member for Croydon North on one point: of course the NED did not cost the Government anything. It was the passport-issuing authorities that paid for it. Abolishing it did not save any money; it was abolished because it was not working. An enormous computer, with a list of animals on it that die at the rate of 100,000 a year and are born all over the place, without anyone knowing where they live, is a worthless piece of bureaucracy. It cannot keep an accurate record of where all the horses are. It did not work. It did not even begin to do so, or come close to it. The Government sensibly realised that. I hope that they will go further at some stage and abolish horse passports, challenging the European Union in doing so, but that is another debate.

[Glyn Davies]

I have taken the same view of horse passports as my hon. Friend, because I knew they would not work. Does he agree that the issue is particularly relevant where there are many wild horses? Because of the bureaucracy affecting passports and ownership, and fear of in some way getting into trouble, the likelihood of their being got rid of when they die is far greater. That is one reason why the whole industry is not run properly. That is particularly relevant in places such as north Wales, where there are huge numbers of wild horses.

[Mr Gray]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, and I was about to move on to it. He speaks for north Wales, where there is a large problem, but it is also a problem across the rest of England—less so in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.

The fact of the matter is that the NED and horse passports cannot, by definition, prevent horse medicines from getting into the human food chain in the UK; neither can they prevent horsemeat from entering it. They do not work, but there is a simple solution. Only about 7,500, or perhaps 8,500, horses a year go to the one or two functioning UK abattoirs that still take them, which is an incredibly small percentage of the 100,000 or so horses that die each year. Horses are generally shot by a vet, and either buried on a farm or given to packs of foxhounds to consume. The latter is a common way of disposing of horse carcases, with a very small number indeed of horses going to an abattoir. All horses that do go to an abattoir are exported overseas on the hook, as it were, for eating in Italy and elsewhere.

Many purists who think that eating a horse is a disgusting idea, would say, “Fine. Let us abolish the killing of horses in the UK. There is a very small number, so let us just abolish the abattoirs.” That would also abolish the need for horse passports, because if someone could not take their horse to an abattoir they would not need a passport to prove that it had not taken bute in the previous couple of years.

That is a possible solution, but either way, I do not believe that the way in which the horse passport regime, the NED and the UK abattoirs work has anything to do with the scandal of horsemeat in burgers. That came from elsewhere in the world, and no one is suggesting that UK abattoirs were somehow feeding horsemeat into burgers in the supermarkets. Saying that the horse passport system is somehow bad, that the NED should not have been abolished or something about abattoirs in the UK has nothing to do with what we are discussing, so I want to press the Minister on this matter.

If the Government have a primary duty to consumers, it must be to say to them, first, “What you are buying in the supermarkets is what you believe you are buying.” What it says on the tin must be what they find inside the box, and if that is not the case there is a slippage somewhere, whether with the Food Standards Agency, local trading standards or elsewhere. Secondly, the Government must be able to tell consumers that the product is of the highest possible quality. Our farmers depend on the consumer relying on top-quality supermarket products, and the moment the consumer—because they are Muslim or do not like eating horses, or for another reason—begins to believe that a product might somehow be contaminated, they will stop buying it, and that has an extraordinarily bad knock-on effect on our nation’s food producers.

The Government have an absolutely fundamental duty to discover what went wrong in this case, to put it right, and to consider whether the newly established supermarket ombudsman might have a role to play, possibly in examining how purchases are made. In all events, I want to be able to say to consumers in my constituency, “What you buy in supermarkets is exactly what you think you are buying and it is of the highest possible quality. There is no possibility of cross-contamination, from horsemeat or in any other way, and you will get precisely what it says on the tin.”

I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon North on securing this important debate, and I very much hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister responds he will be able to put at rest the minds not only of consumers across my constituency of North Wiltshire but of the food producers there too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that matter. The farming industry does its bit, and trading standards has a role to play, but the supermarkets also have a clear role because their push for insatiable profits and cheaper items means that they cast their net wider when it comes to getting the product.

At the time I was talking about, the shelves were emptied of bacon, sausages and other pork products, even through they were safe. The spin-off in Northern Ireland was worrying. The contaminated products came from the Republic of Ireland, and their origin was not clear from the packaging. There is a clear role for local councils and trading standards on clear packaging.

[Mr Gray]

There is a question to be asked about the degree to which the Republic of Ireland is guilty of lower standards than we have in the United Kingdom. I heard of a case this week in which a horse with a decent passport was exported to southern Ireland to be administered drugs and the passport was not changed. The horse was re-imported into the UK with an apparently clean passport, despite having been given drugs in the Republic. One or two of the Republic’s practices might need to be examined with some care.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman has illustrated that well. There is a question on the standards in neighbouring countries, and that question must be addressed.

The Northern Ireland pork contamination of 2008 is happening today in the United Kingdom, and this time we must take action that ensures that the good-quality products that farmers produce across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are given the status that they deserve. That raises the issue that butchers and the like have been touting for years: buying from reputable local retailers ensures that food is locally or responsibly sourced, although it may cost slightly more. Local butchers have local products. Many farmers have direct access to butchers, and people can be assured that the local butcher, by and large, has the best product and ensures animal welfare.

We had a debate in this Chamber two weeks ago—several Members here today were in attendance—on veterinary products that are put into animals and sometimes carry over into the food chain. There is concern about animal welfare, but there is also the reassurance and confidence, to which my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry referred, that British farming almost certainly guarantees a first-class product every time.

Hailing from a rural constituency and working with farmers and fishermen, I know the hard work that goes into providing top-class produce. In my eyes, buying locally, supporting the local economy and ensuring that farmers get a fair price for their product is worth every penny. I am concerned about local supermarkets and their drive to keep prices low, which is good for the consumer, but only if the product is good. The recent situation should not have arisen, but, as the saying goes, there is no use crying over spilt milk, just fix the jug handle and make sure that it does not happen again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me to mention the Government’s own veterinary advice, although I was not going to mention it. The veterinary residues committee, which advises the Government, has repeatedly identified concerns about trace elements of bute, or other substances, in horses coming into the slaughter process in the UK, although not entering the human food chain. That committee identified a failing in the system, regarding the veterinary process and the horse passport, which has been mentioned. Horse passports are fragmented now over more than 70 organisations.

[Mr Gray]

Just to correct the hon. Gentleman on a small point, it is not a matter of fragmentation. When the Labour Government introduced horse passports, there were 93 passport-issuing authorities and that number has been reduced to 75. So it is nothing to do with fragmentation. The system was flawed before it started.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

This is fascinating, because that was why we introduced the national equine database, which centralised data in accordance with European regulations to do with horse passports and aspects of safety in the supply chain. I ask the Minister how, in the absence of the NED, he can assure himself about issues to do with passporting, when there is a report showing that there is concern about double passporting. Vets must be much more rigorous in ensuring that a non-passported horse is not entering the food chain. I will cite the report if the Minister would like me to.

[Mr Gray]

Double passporting and fraud would occur whether or not there was a national equine database; that would not prevent it. I want to correct the hon. Gentleman on a factual point. The NED was not set up by the Government. It was a private not-for-profit company, run by private individuals—directors—to which the Government provided some small subsidy. It did not cost the Government much at all. It was a private company that never worked, and I am glad it has been abolished.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Indeed, hence my insistence on doing more. It is not sufficient just to say, “We have checks in place.” We need to do more.

I draw hon. Members’ attention to my praise for an announcement made by Tesco this morning, about its introduction of its own self-funded, comprehensive system of DNA testing for meat products. That innovation is welcome; there should be more of that sort of thing, which the NFU and others are calling for. We need to be far more rigorous than we used to be, and such innovations show us how we can do that. It is not the same world as it was 20 years ago.

It is not only me saying that double passporting is a matter of concern. With no central database to facilitate checks, it is now possible for a horse to be issued with two passports, one in which medication is recorded and an apparently clean one to be presented at the time of slaughter, allowing the medicated horse to be passed as fit for consumption. Hamish McBean, chairman of the National Beef Association, has said:

“It is obvious that here in the UK consumers, quite rightly, have high regard for the excellence and integrity of beef produced on British farms and that British beef is their favoured purchase.”

He is flagging up exactly the same issue.

[Mr Gray]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I would prefer not to take an intervention, because a separate debate is needed on the matter and I am up against time, but okay.

[Mr Gray]

I am extremely interested in the whole topic of horse passports, but it is a diversion and a red herring in the debate. Only one abattoir in the United Kingdom kills horses, and it kills nothing apart from horses—it is a pure horse abattoir. In the recent scandal, no one has suggested that something going wrong in the British abattoir system was to blame. That meat could have come from anywhere in the world; as the hon. Gentleman correctly pointed out, it could have been internationally sourced. The notion that we should somehow undermine the credibility of the British abattoir system because of apparent cross-contamination seems entirely fallacious. A small number of horses are killed in Britain, and there is no suggestion that the abattoir that does it is guilty of the cross-contamination in the recent case.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Another debate is needed, but I can cite root and branch opinion, including from members of DEFRA’s own equine expert groups, on the necessity of a central database to deal with controls and stringency on passports.

To move on to my fundamental point, the issue is not only a UK one. In recent weeks and months, we have had warnings over dyed pork sold as beef; in Sweden, meat imported from Argentina and sold as beef turned out to be other meat products; in Spain, in recent days, a similar horsemeat scandal to ours has been unravelling. As I mentioned earlier, trading standards are now picking up adulterated meat issues locally, not only in supermarkets but in takeaway shops and restaurants.

I am interested in the Minister’s comments on whether the country of origin labelling proposals before the European Parliament and Commission—due to be resolved this year—provide an opportunity for more stringent labelling. The NFU, the National Beef Association and others are keen on that. When something is marketed as British beef, it is really important to know that it is sourced and produced in Britain, not transported from somewhere in the EU, potentially with adulteration, and that it is only processed in Britain before being put on the shelves.

In the Minister’s response, will he deal with the fundamental issues of adulteration, which are not UK issues only? Does he have any evidence on whether adulteration is going on more widely in the supply chain and, potentially, in the EU market, and what lines of inquiry is he pursuing? What additional steps is he taking to tackle the issue, in the UK and in the EU? Does that involve discussions at EU level? Does it involve further discussions with the supermarkets about following today’s example of Tesco on DNA testing? Has he had any discussions whatever with the Home Office on the criminality involved in the sector, whether in food adulteration or in horse passports, in order to get horsemeat into the food chain?

The issue is vital, and I know that the Minister wants to give complete confidence. We are forthright about our concern on the subject, as are the NFU, the National Beef Association and people who believe in provenance labelling such as red tractor labelling. They are concerned about the matter not only because of its economic importance but because they want to give people long-lasting confidence, in the very different age we now live in, so that they know exactly what they are eating and can trust what is said on the labels.