Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

What recent steps he has taken to promote UK food producers.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

Our food and farming industry plays a crucial role in challenging times, and we are co-funding a £1 million campaign to promote milk, alongside industry and devolved Government partners. We are also supporting the fishing industry by promoting a wide variety of seafood species from UK waters. A further campaign is promoting beef across the devolved nations, and our Food is GREAT campaign, which showcases internationally products from across our four nations, has delivered successful trade and consumer focused marketing activities.

[Mr Bacon [V]]

Given that there is already mandatory country of origin labelling for fish, fruit, vegetables, eggs, wine, honey, olive oil and beef, does the Secretary of State agree that now is the right time for mandatory country of origin labelling for all meat, so that consumers can never be misled by dodgy imports produced in conditions that would be unlawful here and which are sold as if they were British?

[George Eustice]

As my hon. Friend has pointed out, there has been a long-standing legal provision for mandatory country of origin labelling on beef, in which, to claim that the country of origin is the UK, the animal must be born, reared and slaughtered in the UK. Those regulations on mandatory country of origin labelling were extended several years ago to cover all principal meat species. They do not yet extend to processed goods that might contain multiple goods, but there have been significant steps forward in broadening the scope of mandatory country of origin labelling.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) [V]]

The National Audit Office’s work programme is ultimately determined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, and it is regularly reviewed to ensure that it reflects current issues. Dealing with covid-19 is, of course, a major task of the Departments, on which the NAO will report. The hon. Lady may be interested to know that later this week the NAO will be publishing a report summarising the Government’s actions on covid-19 to date, which will provide the basis for further work. This first report will set out the main measures adopted under the Government response, including the coronavirus job retention scheme.

[Kerry McCarthy [V]]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that response, which may well have answered my question—that is unusual. The point I wanted to flag up with him is that although the Government coronavirus support packages have helped a great many people, far too many have fallen through the gaps and, for one reason or another, are not getting the help they need. I therefore ask him to bring this issue to the attention of the Comptroller and Auditor General, so that the NAO could look into the operation of these schemes to see whether they represented the best use of public money or whether lessons could be learned as to how we would approach an issue such as this if, God forbid, we ended up with another situation as serious as the current pandemic.

[Mr Bacon]

I would hate to be thought of as responsible for starting a new trend by actually answering the question, but as I mentioned in my initial response, the NAO is soon to publish this report, which will be just the first in a programme of work supporting Parliament in its scrutiny of covid-19. I am certainly happy to draw the hon. Lady’s concerns to the attention of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The future work programme will include how the large sums that have been committed to the health and social care response, and indeed, to mitigating the economic impact, will be being spent, and the quality of that spending. It will be important for the NAO to review whether the money is achieving the intended impact, as well as how the risks of fraud and error are being managed.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—