Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Bill Wiggin

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

Ministers and officials regularly discuss all aspects of food security, including accessibility. We have long-established relationships with industry and work collaboratively to ensure that the UK continues to have access to safe, nutritious and affordable food from a wide range of sources, particularly from British farmers. I plan to visit the Game Fair tomorrow, so I will make a plug for British game and the grouse that will be coming into our larders following the glorious twelfth.

[Bill Wiggin]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer, particularly because my newly appointed right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not had a chance to speak to her Cabinet colleagues. The problem with safe food is that we need to be able to read on the label that it is safe. Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died because she ate food that was contaminated with sesame seeds, but the label did not make that clear. We still have a problem in this country with honesty in labelling. Can more be done, to ensure that the label says what it is?

[Mr Goodwill]

Clear labelling is vital, particularly when it comes to ingredients that may provoke allergic reactions. We have learned a very sad lesson from that situation, and the Government have responded.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

T3. I am grateful for the answer that my right hon. Friend gave earlier. Grass-fed must mean 100% grass-fed, so that people with food allergies, and particularly those with a sensitivity to meat, know what they are buying.

[The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

My hon. Friend is right: people expect clear, honest labelling on their food, and if marketing terms are not used consistently, the Government should act. Clear labelling is important not just for pasture-fed livestock, but for organic food, which is trusted around that world.