Pie and Mash: Traditional Speciality Guaranteed Status

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

I will call Mr Richard Holden to move the motion and I will then call the Minister to respond to the debate. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention normally for 30-minute debates. However, we have one or two other Members present who may wish to intervene. It is obviously down to Mr Holden to determine who may or may not intervene on him, if he has not been given prior notice.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of providing traditional speciality guaranteed status to pie and mash.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark, in this debate. What is this debate all about? Well, there is a big picture and a little picture, and I will start off small. In my constituency of Basildon and Billericay, there are two fantastic pie and mash shops: Robins Pie & Mash in the town square; and Stacey’s pie and mash shop on Timberlog Lane. Both of them provide fantastic local produce and they are absolute hubs of the local community. And it has been really interesting to see the feedback that I have already received from local people about this campaign to give protected status to this traditional British product.

What is pie and mash and why is it a traditional British product? It is a staple of cockney cuisine, moving out to places such as the east of England and Kent as the cockney diaspora moved post-war. That is why there are pie and mash shops in Basildon today. We seek recognition to safeguard the heritage of pie and mash, and to promote pie and mash, both here in the UK and internationally.

Back in the 1840s, pie and mash became an iconic food, closely associated with cockney culture and the social identity of non-posh Londoners. Over the years, more than a hundred pie and mash shops, typically family-owned, spread out from the inner London heartlands of Southwark and Tower Hamlets right across the areas across the country where the cockney diaspora had spread to.

Traditional pie and mash is an artisan food. The pie and mash and liquors are freshly made, using authentic family-owned recipes that have been passed down through generations like precious heirlooms. They are something that in Italy or France, let us say, would be instantly recognised as being worth celebrating and preserving, and I will say more on that broader point a little later.

--- Later in debate ---

[James McMurdock (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Reform)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this subject. Does he agree that we can be guilty at times of taking our heritage for granted? I would like to commend you for raising this, because you have made me realise just how fortunate we are to be a part of this. Would you agree with me that—

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. You speak through the Chair.

[James McMurdock]

Forgive me. Would the Chair please pass my message on that as with the Cornish pasty and the Bramley apple pie, this is something we should be very proud of, and we as a people should recognise that we have a lot to be proud of?