Food Labelling and Allergies

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on leading this debate.

Paul Carey, Owen’s dad, is my constituent. His son was lost when he ate a burger that had been soaked in buttermilk, to which he was highly allergic. Minister, I will be repeating what has been said already, so that it hits home. Owen knew about his allergies, and he explained them to the server, who did not know that the burgers had been soaked in buttermilk. Owen died at the London Eye, which is just over the river from Parliament. That is why I think it is particularly brave for my constituent and his family to come to this debate. I thank them for that, and I thank them for their tireless campaigning to stop another parent going through what they have gone through.

Many restaurants, including small outlets in my constituency, already have allergy information on their menus. I thank them for that. I call on other places to do the same now, before a change in the law. Quite simply, it could save a customer’s life—a customer who could come back time and again because they feel confident in the information provided without having to ask for it or to rely on a server who may not have the full information. That works already. The Republic of Ireland implemented a change to its law in 2014. The Food Standards Agency has already done a fact-finding mission to better understand how that law works in practice. It is doing a workshop next month to go through its findings. It would not need to be a big change in legislation. Food businesses already need to make allergy information available. Putting it on the face of menus would stop those with allergies having to ask for it.

I call on the Minister and the Government to make that a priority and to make that change to the law now. I am sure the whole House would back that minor change, which would incur very little cost to the public purse. I also ask the Government to look at how the training of service staff can be improved so that they ask customers about allergies, and so that they know about allergens and what to do if someone has an allergic reaction.

I have relations and members of staff who have allergies of one sort or another. Minister, it is time we took action. I look to the Minister in his reply to confirm that he will tell us when his Department plans to implement Owen’s law.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for introducing this debate and for doing an excellent job of setting out the issues, and I thank all hon. Members who contributed. I found myself making copious notes; there was a lot for me to take away and work on. I also thank the thousands of individuals who signed the petitions that triggered this debate, which show the strength of the desire and the demand to improve treatment for those who suffer from allergies. Above all, I thank the victims’ families and friends who are here in the Public Gallery. I am terribly sorry for your loss; it was awful to hear about. I pay tribute to you and thank you on behalf of the Government for all the work that you have already done to improve safety and make sure that others do not suffer in the way you have suffered.

I will set out some of the work that is under way on different aspects of the issue in the Department of Health and Social Care and the Food Standards Agency. Food businesses are all under the same legal obligation to provide information at the point of sale indicating the presence of the 14 major allergens. Natasha’s law, which the Government introduced in 2021, requires all pre-packed direct-sale food such as grab-and-go sandwiches to have a label that shows the ingredients and allergens. That is important in helping people with allergies to feel confident that they are choosing safe food.

There are about 2.6 million people with food hypersensitivities in the UK. As hon. Members have pointed out, that number is rising. It includes people with food allergies, intolerances and conditions such as coeliac disease, which my mother suffers from, so I have some sense of the challenges facing people with that condition. The Food Standards Agency is working to address the needs of those consumers so that they can make safe and informed choices about the food they buy. For people with a potentially life-threatening reaction to certain foods, that trust is much more important.

The Carey family are already driving awareness on the issues that people with life-threatening allergies face. The FSA has met the Carey family several times in the past few years and it recognises the positive impact that the Owen’s law campaign is having. We need to consider changes to the law carefully to ensure that there are better safety outcomes for allergen sufferers and to avoid unintended consequences for consumers.

As hon. Members have mentioned, a workshop is taking place at the start of June with the families and others to look at how we can go further. To answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), the FSA team have been over to Ireland to look at its law and study how it is working. I am not in a position to make an announcement today, but I am struck by the fact that everyone involved agrees that there is room to do better. Nothing is off the table at this point.

There are a number of issues relating to improving labelling for people with serious allergies. They are not arguments against doing anything; they are just issues that we must grapple with as we work out how to make progress. One is how we avoid potentially dangerous out-of-date information on menus, particularly for smaller restaurants, which change their ingredients more frequently. We cannot have false reassurance. When I worked in a Chinese restaurant, I was often sent out to a supermarket to find ingredients on the day, and that would often change what was in what we were serving up. Small businesses absolutely cannot have out-of-date information on menus.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Will the Minister explain how some small outlets in my constituency list the allergens on their menus when, as he says, doing so is an obstacle?

[Neil O’Brien]

To reiterate what I said at the start of my remarks, I am mentioning some of the issues that we have to solve, not presenting them as insuperable obstacles to doing what a lot of people are calling for.

Another challenge that we have to grapple with, and are grappling with, is how to avoid some smaller businesses taking away a lot of choices for people with allergies by simply labelling too many items as containing allergens. Such businesses may have small kitchens that work with lots of different products and multiple allergens. We cannot take away lots of choices for people with allergies; we want them to have the freedom of choice that everyone expects to enjoy, but to have safety at the same time.