Mango Import Ban

Debate between Keith Vaz and Pamela Nash

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to the House for giving me the opportunity to raise the important matter of European Union’s ban on the importation of Indian Alphonso mangos. I am very pleased to see so many Members in the Chamber, including my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), my hon. Friends the Members for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) and for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), and the hon. Members for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), for Reading West (Alok Sharma) and for High Peak (Andrew Bingham). I think that that shows how much interest there is in the debate. I am also very pleased to see that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) is present. Although the title of this debate on the Order Paper is the “proposed” ban on EU imports, the ban has, in fact, already begun. It came into effect on 1 May 2014. The ban took place after I applied for this debate. The two events are not connected.

The banning of the king of mangos was an unnecessary step and has caused huge anxiety for my constituents in Leicester, and it will also mean financial losses to British citizens, devastation to the livelihoods of Indian citizens and damage to our special relationship with India. It also raises constitutional issues about the relationship between this House and the European Commission.

Discovered in India in about 1500, Alphonso mangos are unique. Not only are they produced in just one part of the world— India, and more particularly Maharashtra and Goa—but they have distinctive qualities. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s view that these mangos can simply be replaced by another import is wrong. The extra-sweet taste makes this versatile fruit a key component in a wide range of dishes, including mango pulp, chutney, lassi, fruit salads, juices, smoothies, ice cream, mango birfi and many others. I must declare an interest at this point: I am a mango eater even though I have type 2 diabetes.

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

I would just like to add my support to the campaign and congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. I have just returned from Goa where I sampled the mangos first-hand.

[Keith Vaz]

I am delighted to hear that, and my hon. Friend did the right thing in eating mangos before she landed, or else she might have been arrested for eating them here.

The United Kingdom is the mango’s true home in the EU as we are the largest importer of the fruit. In 2013 we consumed well over 56,000 tonnes of mangos, 4,800 tonnes of which came from India. That is 12 million mangos, which is equivalent in weight to 800 elephants.

The ban will have a hugely damaging impact on our food industry with many businesses set to lose millions of pounds a year. Indeed the cost has been put as high as £10 million, and some have put it much higher. It will be particularly detrimental to the 1.4 million British Indians living in the UK.