Horsemeat

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Simon Hart

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

Sometimes people simply do not have a choice between buying the slightly dodgy knock-off cheap telly that has probably come off the back of a lorry and going to one of the high street shops and buying a top-of-a-range brand. That is the point that I am trying to make. People may well know that what they are eating is not as good as the organic produce that is sold in, for instance, The Better Food Company, an organic supermarket in Bristol, but they do not have the option of going there. As I have said, even if people had enough money to buy more than one day’s food and could plan ahead and try to cook their own meals, they would still not be buying premium “best of British” mince. They would be buying the sort of mince that was mentioned just now by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), and about which I asked the Secretary of State yesterday. If the Government manage to find their way around European Union regulations, that mince could be up to 50% fat and collagen, and other substances that are not meat, without the consumer’s being any the wiser.

We need to get the message across to Government Members. We are living in a world in which people’s cost of living is being squeezed from all sides. Their incomes and benefits are being cut, their rents are going up, and fuel prices, fares and food prices are rising. Obviously they will buy the packet of eight Tesco value burgers for £1, because they have no other option. According to statistics released last week by Mintel, the market research company, some 30% of consumers now buy budget ranges, as opposed to just one in five back in 2008. We cannot insist that everyone should buy the premium, locally sourced, top-of-the-range products, because some people simply cannot afford to do that. The important point, surely, is that all food should be of a decent quality, and all consumers should know what is in their food.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

World Vegan Day

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Simon Hart

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, and I will come to the environmental and food security case for being vegan in a moment.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Can the hon. Lady point to any peer-reviewed science to support her allegation about the UK livestock industry, rather than giving us the mantra of the animal rights or vegan movement? If she can do that, her argument might carry a bit more weight.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am about to cite some scientific research on the health case, and I also have some very authoritative sources for the environmental case. The ethical case is about people’s personal opinions on whether it is ethical to treat animals in such a way or to eat them. It is not science-led; it is led by people’s morals.

[Simon Hart]

So is the hon. Lady saying that the assertions she has made about agricultural practices are a personal opinion, as opposed to there being any evidence to support them?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am not quite sure which practices the hon. Gentleman is referring to. If he is talking about the average lifespan of a dairy cow, that is something that I have researched and it is in the public domain. I know that DEFRA is looking to get the average lifespan of a dairy cow up to eight years, but six years was the average cited in the research that I looked at, while the figure for cows suffering from mastitis is 33%. I could go on—although I do not have the footnotes before me—but it is all in the public domain and well researched.

It can be quite difficult to nail down the facts and figures on the health benefits of a vegan diet, particularly when organisations such as meat marketing boards and milk marketing boards spend millions on counter-promotions. As I have mentioned, the recently released film “Forks Over Knives” puts the case that switching to a wholefoods-based vegan diet can prevent and even reverse serious illnesses. The film gives an overview of the 20-year China-Cornell-Oxford project, which found that a number of diseases, including coronary disease, diabetes and cancer, can be linked to the western diet of processed and animal-based foods. It is certainly true that the traditionally very low rates of breast cancer among Japanese women are increasing as they adopt western diets with a higher consumption of animal fats. In Japan, affluent women who eat meat daily have an 8.5 times higher risk of breast cancer than poorer women who rarely or never eat meat.

Sustainable Livestock Bill

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Simon Hart

Friday 12th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I think that my hon. Friend probably knows the answer to that question, which is, of course, no—but not in an aggressive sense. Farmers simply want a chance to compete on a level playing field not only with other farmers across Europe and the world but with other industries in the UK. This is not about special pleading, but about their pleading to be treated in a similar manner to everybody else. The Bill contributes to a suspicion that individual Members of Parliament want to do things to agriculture rather than for it. If there has been a long-running problem it is the latent suspicion hanging over everything we do that we act in our interests rather than those of farmers.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is a trade-off here, given that the UK agriculture industry benefits from billions of pounds-worth of subsidy from UK taxpayers? Do not the taxpayers who are not involved in the farming industry have a rightto express an opinion on how farming is conducted? If they think it important that higher environmental standards are met, that is a perfectly valid point for them to make.

[Simon Hart]

Yes, I do agree. That is perfectly reasonable and the evidence clearly shows that nobody in agricultural food production would disagree. Indeed, people in the industry have been making such points for longer than the hon. Lady or I have. This is all about fairness, to use a word that is also becoming rather fashionable. On that point, our countryside and industry are the envy of Europe not because of politicians but despite them. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, who has just left his place, accurately raised that issue in his intervention. We have to be careful that when we pass legislation that affects rural Britain, particularly agriculture, we do not create a more complicated and therefore less competitive agriculture industry, thereby failing to achieve the benefits that the supporters of the Bill have quite reasonably set out to achieve.