Horsemeat Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Owen Paterson
Main Page: Owen Paterson (Conservative - North Shropshire)Department Debates - View all Owen Paterson's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mary Creagh
The beef on sale right now in UK supermarkets is probably of a higher quality than ever. Lots of local and independent butchers have seen a spike in trade lately as a result of what has happened.
I said that there was no safe dose of bute for humans. I am not a medical expert, but bute can cause serious adverse side effects so should be consumed only under medical supervision—[Interruption.] Government Front Benchers are chuntering already, Mr Speaker; that is not a good sign.
The positive test on Freeza Meats led the inspectors to the meat trader, Martin McAdam, who admitted to buying the meat from a UK company, Flexi Foods, in Hull last July. A spokesman for Mr McAdam said:
“That shipment was the first one that came to light. Subsequently other tests identified other shipments of meat.”
He has identified the names of other companies involved, and on Friday I received that information. These UK food companies may or may not have supplied suspect meat products to Mr McAdam, but while there is a question mark over them, the food industry has a right to have that information.
On Friday I wrote to the Secretary of State offering to share that information with him. When he replied to me yesterday, he urged me to hand it over to the police and to the Food Standards Agency, as I already had done, and I assume that he now has it. On Saturday, however, after a conversation with one of the food industry representatives, I realised that the Secretary of State had not revealed the names of those firms to the food industry at the meeting. Yesterday, when I asked him why not, he failed to answer. Why did he not tell the food industry where to look? Why has he not released those names to the public so that we can have full transparency on this problem? If the Government want the industry to test on the basis of risk, why did he not share the names of the companies at Saturday’s meeting?
In the FSA advice to the public sector issued at 10 o’clock on Sunday night, the Secretary of State laid the responsibility for food safety squarely on other people’s shoulders. He said:
“We are reminding public bodies (schools, prisons, hospitals, armed forces) of their responsibility for their own food contracts. We expect them to have rigorous procurement procedures in place with reputable suppliers.”
If he knows that there are problems with some UK-based companies, why has he not told head teachers, local authorities and hospital bosses about the companies that are being investigated? I am happy to give way now if he would like to intervene.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
I am very happy to do so. I have been restraining myself, Mr Speaker, because of your injunction to be as brief as possible. The Food Standards Agency, set up by the hon. Lady’s party when in government, has been quite clear in giving advice to all those who supply to public institutions such as prisons, schools and hospitals. As I said yesterday in my statement and will say again in a few minutes, food suppliers have the ultimate responsibility for the quality of what they sell.
Mary Creagh
We are none the wiser about whether the Secretary of State knows the names of these companies, which prompts the question of whether the FSA has told him or whether he has asked it. Perhaps he will clarify that.
On Friday the FSA said that the police were involved, and I thought that things were under control. However, on Friday night the Met police said that they had had talks with the FSA but there was no live criminal investigation. Will the Secretary of State tell us what action the FSA has taken against these companies? Has it been into their premises and seized evidence, and why have the police not been called in? If there are no problems with these companies, will he say so clearly now, on the record?
Last Thursday, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced its statutory testing regime, with 28 local councils purchasing and testing eight samples each. However, the Secretary of State cannot seriously expect people to wait 10 weeks for the results. Does he think that surveying just 224 products across the country rises to the challenge of this scandal when he has asked the supermarkets to test thousands of their products by Friday? How many of the 10 million withdrawn burgers have been tested? Are there any plans to test them now? If they had been tested when they were withdrawn, Ministers would able to reassure us or tell us the extent of this scandal, but because they were paralysed by fear or incompetence, or both, we are still in the dark. Will the Secretary of State confirm that only a fraction of the supermarket tests will be completed and reported by this Friday?
Will the Secretary of State tell the House how many products the large public sector catering suppliers will test and how many product lines members of the British Meat Processors Association will test? Yesterday I asked him which members of the British Hospitality Association and the British Retail Consortium have withdrawn their products as a precaution and whether any of them have withdrawn products that may have gone to schools and hospitals. Is he prepared to answer those questions today?
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
It is good to be back at the Dispatch Box to talk about this subject for the second day running. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on persuading her party hierarchy to bring this important issue to the Floor of the House of Commons again. I made an oral statement to the House yesterday, in which I set out the facts about what had happened and the ongoing investigations into those incidents. I am pleased to take this opportunity to update the House on further developments.
Since yesterday, Tesco has confirmed that frozen spaghetti bolognese from the same factory as the other withdrawn Comigel products has tested positive for horsemeat. The product has been withdrawn as a precaution. That result does not suggest that there is a new source of illegal horsemeat.
I am meeting senior figures from the UK food chain at the Institute of Grocery Distribution later today with the chairman of the Food Standards Agency, Lord Rooker, to whom I spoke this morning. I can also confirm that the meeting with key European Ministers and the Commission that I proposed is taking place in Brussels tomorrow evening. I will be speaking to the Dutch Minister, Sharon Dijksma, and the Polish Minister, Stanislaw Kalemba, later today.
In my statement yesterday, I set out the action that I have taken to ensure that retailers, meat manufacturers and processors are carrying out urgent testing of processed beef products and making their test results public.
It is clear from my conversations with European Ministers and Commissioner Borg in recent days that the European Commission recognises the urgency of the incidents.
Mr Donohoe
When the Secretary of State meets his counterparts in Europe, will he raise the problems that I raised earlier, which he would have heard if he had been in his place, about exporting from our marketplace to the new markets in the far east?
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to note that I jotted down his constituency and was going to mention his point later in my speech, but I will do so now. He raises a pertinent point. It is vital that we get to the bottom of this matter as fast as possible, because we have very strict traceability in this country, very rigorous production systems and very high quality, and we do not want any slur to be cast on that or any attempt to export our excellent products to be slowed down by incidents that so far appear to be the result of criminal acts carried out abroad.
Mr MacNeil
Many farmers, crofters and primary producers have an onerous burden of responsibility and bureaucracy. I seek assurances that this matter will not be used as an excuse for a cloak-and-dagger increase in that already onerous burden. The traceability should retain the vote of confidence and we should not add to the burdens.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman is right that we must make absolutely sure that we do not create further regulatory burdens. What we need to do is to make the checks more relevant to the products. I will come to that point in a moment.
Mary Creagh
It is great to hear this most Eurosceptic of Secretaries of State doing his bit for European co-operation in this area. Will he press his European colleagues to carry out random testing in their countries like that being carried out by UK supermarkets?
Mr Paterson
The shadow Secretary of State is again ahead of the game with respect to what I will say in my speech. I said yesterday in my statement that I have a gut feeling—actually, it is a clear belief—that too much is taken on trust in the current system. Too often, it is taken on trust that when a truck is loaded, the contents of the pallets are marked on the manifest and the certificate. From that point on, nothing is looked at. I agree entirely with the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) that we need to do more testing. I discussed that yesterday and again this morning with Lord Rooker. When this is all over, there will be a process of learning the lessons. I will be keen to establish more systematic testing of products so that we actually look at the material. That answers some of the hon. Lady’s questions about the Freeza plant in Northern Ireland. At the moment, the system is very much paper-based and too much is taken on trust.
Ian Paisley
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the lessons that has already been learned is that it is a fallacy that people can have cheap food and quality food? The two do not go hand in hand. We have to educate the marketplace and the consumer that if people want good-quality, tasty food, they have to pay for it. Chasing the notion of cheap food, which many supermarkets have done irresponsibly, will be the ruination of a vital industry.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, but I think that we have to be careful. There are citizens in this country who want to buy a product for speed and convenience, but who do not want to pay a premium price. They deserve exactly the same rigorous quality standards and exactly the same adherence to what is on the label as everybody else. If they buy a cheaper product marked “processed beef”, they should jolly well get processed beef. They should be as aggrieved as anyone who buys the most expensive sirloin steak if what they buy is not what it says on the label. If people in this country buy a cheap product, they should get a good product that conforms to the label. That is an important principle for consumers and one that I have discussed with the retailers.
Miss McIntosh
Before the meetings tomorrow, will the Secretary of State ensure that product checks have been carried out on exports from other European countries that have come into Britain? Will he take the best legal advice from the Department or the top Government lawyers on the possibility of using the Cassis de Dijon case as the basis of turning down inferior products until such time as it is shown whether they are being passed off as something that they are not? That would be entirely legal under the Food Safety Act 1990 and EU food labelling regulations.
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for her question. I bow to her knowledge on these matters as a former Member of the European Parliament. I discussed that matter briefly with Commissioner Borg yesterday. He confirmed what I had said over the weekend: unless there is a threat to public health and safety, there are no grounds for stopping imports. Fraudulent labelling and mislabelling are quite wrong, but he made it clear during our brief conversation, on which I hope to elaborate tomorrow, that those were not grounds for preventing the importation of a material within the European Union. However, my hon. Friend makes an interesting point, and I will check the details of the regulations that she mentions. I promise that I will raise her point in the discussions tomorrow.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
The point is that when lasagne that are sold as beef contain up to 100% horsemeat, there is a clear danger of contamination by bute in those products. As such, surely they would satisfy the test of being a danger to human health.
Mr Paterson
My hon. Friend raises an important question that came up yesterday. We have to take note of the clear advice given by the chief medical officer yesterday:
“It’s understandable that people will be concerned, but it is important to emphasise that even if bute is found to be present at low levels, there is a very low risk indeed that it would cause any harm to health”.
The meat content of the lasagne that was mentioned at the weekend, for example, was as low as 15%, so one would have to eat an extraordinarily large amount of this material to ingest a quantity of bute that would exceed the warning of the chief medical officer.
Mr Paterson
I am conscious that other Members want to get in, so I will press on and make a little more progress.
It is clear that complex cross-European supply networks are involved in these incidents. I understand that Comigel was supplying customers in 16 European countries. That is why I have pressed hard for a European response. Yesterday, my Irish, French and Romanian counterparts, and the commissioner, were enthusiastic and united in wanting to work closely with us. I look forward to taking those discussions further tomorrow in Brussels.
I have made it clear to the food industry that I expect to see meaningful results from its product testing by this Friday. The results will be published as they become available.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
May I push the Secretary of State further on testing? Has he ordered the testing of gelatine and gelatine-based products for horse DNA? If horse DNA is found in gelatine, it would be a serious contamination of the human food chain, particularly because it would extend to food such as children’s sweets.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman asks a good question. However, like many Opposition Members, he is asking me to impinge on the operational independence of the Food Standards Agency, which makes decisions on the details. [Hon. Members: “Is the FSA testing that?”] I have made it clear to the food industry and the FSA that I expect to see meaningful results from the tests by Friday. I repeat what I said yesterday: consumers need to be confident that food is what it says on the label. It is outrageous that consumers appear to have been misled by what appears to be a deliberate fraud.
It is important to distinguish between test results that indicate trace levels of DNA of an undeclared species and gross adulteration. So far, the results indicating flagrant adulteration have been limited to those products from the Silvercrest plant in Ireland and Comigel. It is too early to say whether they are indicative of a wider problem or isolated examples of such fraud. Either way, any case of fraud on the consumer is unacceptable, and I want all such cases to be pursued vigorously and those responsible brought to justice.
Mr Paterson
The European law is clear that retailers are key. They are responsible for the quality and validity of what they say is in the box and what is on the label, and for ensuring that they conform. The prime responsibility is with the retailer.
Mr Paterson
I will give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), because he tried to intervene earlier.
Mr Paterson
That is a perfectly valid question, but it is too early to tell. I will probably learn more in meetings tomorrow. Minister Le Foll is investigating in France to try to get to the bottom of things. The French are checking invoices, manifests, trucking times and arrival times to find out what is behind the contamination. As I said yesterday, Minister Constantin was emphatic that the procedures in Romania are correct, which is why I made a call this afternoon to the Dutch Minister. We know that something somewhere is going horribly wrong, and we are determined to work closely to get to the bottom of it.
Mr Paterson
I am looking at the clock and must push on.
The criminal justice system in the UK and across Europe is taking this very seriously. We are ready to act in whatever way is justified by the emerging facts. I shall repeat myself, because it is important that Opposition Members understand this: overall, food safety is a European competence. Council regulation 178/2002 confirms that food operators have primary responsibility for food safety and quality. In the UK, under the system this Government inherited, the independent Food Standards Agency is the lead enforcement authority for food safety and authenticity.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr Paterson
That is absolutely glorious! Labour Members are attacking their own creation. That is one of the institutions they created and of which they are most proud. In previous food crises, they said politicians must not be involved and that there should be an independent agency. However, the hon. Gentleman is attacking the independent FSA, which is run effectively by Lord Rooker, who I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows well, because they are ex-colleagues. As a coalition, we are co-operating to see whether we can make the system work. There are improvements to make—I will come to those—but we are working with the FSA and respecting its independence. That is why, while the issue one of DNA and before the step change of the Findus case, we left the independent agency to take the prime lead. It is not appropriate for me to infringe on its independence.
Many cases of poor food hygiene and food adulteration are dealt with effectively by that route. The police would take the lead only if there were evidence of serious, organised criminality in the UK. The FSA identified that such criminality was potentially involved and last week alerted both the Metropolitan police and Europol. The FSA’s investigations are ongoing. The police are well aware of the developing situation, but at what point they take the lead is a judgment for them and the FSA, based on the evidence. It is not a decision for me or the shadow Secretary of State. We must respect the independence of the police.
The Opposition have made a great deal of the risks to consumers in Europe of horses slaughtered in the UK because of possible residues of the drug bute. In line with advice from the chief medical officer, the Government have tightened the system we inherited. Last week, we moved to 100% testing of horses slaughtered at abattoirs, and accelerated the rate at which tests can be completed. As of yesterday, no carcase will be released unless and until it has tested negative for bute. However, I remind the House that, to the extent that some carcases with bute residues may have in the past entered the human food chain in Europe, the chief medical officer’s advice is that, even if bute is found to be present at low levels, there is a very low risk indeed that it will cause any harm to health.
The British food and farming industries are two of this country’s great success stories. I will not let them be talked down. The food industry has continued to grow during the current difficult economic conditions. Its export performance in particular has been strong. In 2010, the UK food and drink industry contributed £90 billion gross value to the economy, and in 2011 achieved exports worth £18.2 billion, of which meat and meat products accounted for £1.7 billion.
Food and drink manufacturing is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, employing some 3.2 million people. Jobs in the UK depend in part on consumer confidence in processed meat products. That is why I have emphasised the importance of food businesses taking rapid steps to reassure consumers and overseas markets by testing all their processed beef products and making the results public. Transparency is key to confidence.
The Government will do whatever necessary to ensure that British farmers and food manufacturers have access to export markets. That includes ensuring that British food is recognised for its rigorous standards and traceability, and that our producers do not get a bad reputation owing to the Europe-wide horsemeat incidents—the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) was spot on in that respect.
The food industry also needs to look to the future and embrace new technologies.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
The Secretary of State made the point yesterday that tracing processed meat products is a paper chase. I am keen that we have proper inspections of the meat and meat products that come into this country, so that we can see what is in the lorries, which is otherwise signed off when it comes into the UK.
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I confirmed a few minutes ago that I am concerned that the problem is a paper-based system. The problem is that there is too much faith—the certificate and manifest on the content of pallets is taken on trust and there is not enough testing of the material. I will discuss that with Commissioner Borg tomorrow, as I discussed it yesterday and today with Lord Rooker. We agree we can improve on the current system within the current arrangements by introducing some form of testing regime. Lord Rooker had some interesting ideas on how we might do that. My favoured concept is a form of random testing, but he might be more systematic. There will be a lessons-learned exercise afterwards, which I am keen to push on with.
On new technologies, the UK Government invest more than £410 million annually in research in the agriculture, food and drink sector. I am working closely with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science on the agri-tech strategy. There is a lot that is positive that we can do and are doing to help the British food and farming sectors make the most of their excellent products and high standards. I think we are all agreed on the need to maintain confidence, and that is not helped by muddying the waters with misleading suggestions that the current investigations are not being pursued vigorously and seriously. From my exchanges with the FSA chairman and industry leaders, I know that this issue is being taken very seriously across the whole food chain. Of course, we shall look at the lessons to be learned from these problems once the immediate incidents have been resolved. As I have just said, I am convinced we have a system that involves too much trust in paper-based systems and we need to look at better testing of actual products.
My top priority in the coming days and weeks will be to back the FSA as it follows through its investigations, and to collaborate with European Ministers, the Commission and the UK food industry to root out unacceptable practices and to rebuild justified confidence in food, in support of consumers. Consumers must have confidence in the products that they buy for themselves and their families. We must all work together to ensure that that is the case.