Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Government will carry out a public consultation on bread composition, labelling and marketing.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The United Kingdom has high standards on the information provided on food labels. Existing food labelling rules make sure that food is produced safely and labelled effectively. This means people can make informed choices about the food they buy and consume. HM Government is committed to optimising the information that is available to consumers, and the Government Food Strategy sets out work that we will be taking forward on consumer information and transparency.
On 1st September 2022, HM Government and devolved administrations jointly launched a public consultation seeking views on proposals to update and amend the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998 and the Bread and Flour Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998. These regulations cover specific rules on composition and labelling for bread and flour.
The proposals are primarily focused on the requirements relating to the mandatory fortification of non-wholemeal flour. The proposals included in this consultation look at ways to make sure that the regulations lead to improved public health, support UK industry, assist enforcement authorities and protect consumers. The consultation remains live until 23rd November 2022 and we would like to hear from anyone with an interest.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if the Government will commit to annual funding of £5 million for FareShare, the food waste charity.
Answered by Jo Churchill
This is a devolved matter and the information provided relates to England only.
The Defra food waste prevention programme has provided grants of nearly £12m to over 300 organisations since 2018. FareShare was awarded around £3m of funding, helping to set up the Surplus with Purpose Fund, and supporting the infrastructure required to distribute surplus food. Whilst we are not planning any further grants, we remain committed to food waste prevention action, investing £2.6 million this year to combat food waste in the supply chain and in the home through working with the Waste and Resources Action Plan (WRAP).
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support companies developing new technologies to help make food and drink packaging more accessible to people with sight loss.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The availability and accessibility of essential food information to all consumers is vitally important. It is already a requirement that food information must be easily visible and clearly legible. Information shall not in any way be obscured and depending on the package size, there is a minimum font size.
That said, we welcome work by industry, especially companies developing new digital technologies like NaviLens with the potential to provide the means for people with visual impairment to access food information. As part of the upcoming Food Strategy White Paper, we will look at optimising food information, including labelling, so all consumers, are better able to make informed choices.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure food and drink packaging is more accessible for people with sight loss.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The availability and accessibility of essential food information to all consumers is vitally important. It is already a requirement that food information must be easily visible and clearly legible. Information shall not in any way be obscured and depending on the package size, there is a minimum font size.
That said, we welcome work by industry, especially companies developing new digital technologies like NaviLens with the potential to provide the means for people with visual impairment to access food information. As part of the upcoming Food Strategy White Paper, we will look at optimising food information, including labelling, so all consumers, are better able to make informed choices.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will hold discussions with representatives of the manufacturing sector on encouraging wider use of technologies, such as NaviLens, to make packaging more accessible to people with sight impairments.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The availability and accessibility of essential food information to all consumers is vitally important. It is already a requirement that food information must be easily visible and clearly legible. Information shall not in any way be obscured and depending on the package size, there is a minimum font size.
That said, we welcome work by industry, especially companies developing new digital technologies like NaviLens with the potential to provide the means for people with visual impairment to access food information. As part of the upcoming Food Strategy White Paper, we will look at optimising food information, including labelling, so all consumers, are better able to make informed choices.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to hold discussions with representatives of manufacturers to encourage wider use of technologies like NaviLens to help make packaging more accessible to people with sight impairments.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The availability and accessibility of essential food information to all consumers is vitally important. It is already a requirement that food information must be easily visible and clearly legible. Information shall not in any way be obscured and depending on the package size, there is a minimum font size.
That said, we welcome work by industry, especially companies developing new digital technologies like NaviLens with the potential to provide the means for people with visual impairment to access food information. As part of the upcoming Food Strategy White Paper, we will look at optimising food information, including labelling, so all consumers, are better able to make informed choices.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to circumstances where EU REACH applies, whether UK-based companies purchasing or supplying chemicals to (a) the UK and (b) the EU will be required to access the information on each chemical they use from the original company or carry out duplicate testing if that information is not available.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
Under European Union Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (EU REACH), data is owned by individual businesses and industry consortia. Great Britain (GB) companies who do not own the data they need to support their REACH registration will need to negotiate access to it from existing data owners. Industry has some time to make these arrangements. This is because we have put in place provisions for the deadlines for the full submission of data to underpin registration dossiers to be staggered, according to the quantity and hazard profile of a substance, over a period of 2, 4 or 6 years from 28 October 2021.
The UK has been at the forefront of opposing animal tests where alternative approaches could be used. Under UK REACH, registrants will submit their testing proposals to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), who can reject them if they contain unnecessary tests on animals. We will encourage the HSE to accept duplicate submissions where possible, recognising the validity of any animal testing that has already been undertaken.
GB is now considered a third country for EU REACH purposes. GB-based EU REACH registrants wanting to maintain access to the EU market needed to transfer their existing registrations to an EU/EEA/NI entity organisation by 31 December 2020. Completing this process removed the need for either purchasing access to testing data or further animal testing.
For GB exporters to the EU that have not completed this process, registration obligations fall to the European Union/European Economic Area/Northern Ireland (EU/EEA/NI) based importer of a substance. It is possible for a GB manufacturer to appoint an Only Representative to fulfil this function and either submit a new registration if one does not exist, or pay existing EU based EU REACH registrants for a letter of access to their data and/or member status of their registration.
Asked by: Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to ensure that the use of animal testing is (a) minimised and (b) not duplicated following the UK’s departure from membership of the European Chemical Agency.
Answered by Rebecca Pow
We will recognise the validity of any animal tests on products that have already been undertaken and so avoid the need for further testing.
The grandfathering of all existing GB-held REACH registrations into the domestic system will further avoid the need to duplicate animal testing associated with re-registration.
The UK has been at the forefront of opposing animal tests where alternative approaches could be used. This is known as the "last-resort principle", which we will retain and enshrine in legislation through our landmark Environment Bill
We are determined that there should be no need for any additional animal testing for a chemical that has already been registered, unless it is subject to further evaluation that shows the registration dossier is inadequate or there are still concerns about the hazards and risks of the chemical, especially to human health.