Horsemeat (Supermarket Products)

Neil Parish Excerpts
Thursday 17th January 2013

(11 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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As I have already said, I do not accept that there is any difficulty with split responsibilities. The responsibility for food safety lies entirely with the Food Standards Agency.

Neil Parish Portrait Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
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In this country, there are robust rules to separate the processing of beef and horse meat. Is that not the case in Ireland?

David Heath Portrait Mr Heath
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That will be the subject of the investigations being carried out. The low-level contamination suggests that it may not have been through deliberate falsification of labelling. It may well be that it is simply cross-contamination by error, but I am sure that the Irish authorities will look carefully at this. We are co-operating with them as far as we can, and we are very eager to know the answer.