Horsemeat

Russell Brown Excerpts
Tuesday 12th February 2013

(11 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
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My hon. Friend raises an important question that came up yesterday. We have to take note of the clear advice given by the chief medical officer yesterday:

“It’s understandable that people will be concerned, but it is important to emphasise that even if bute is found to be present at low levels, there is a very low risk indeed that it would cause any harm to health”.

The meat content of the lasagne that was mentioned at the weekend, for example, was as low as 15%, so one would have to eat an extraordinarily large amount of this material to ingest a quantity of bute that would exceed the warning of the chief medical officer.

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Owen Paterson Portrait Mr Paterson
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I will give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), because he tried to intervene earlier.

Russell Brown Portrait Mr Brown
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The Secretary of State has spoken of criminal and fraudulent activity, as he did yesterday. There are many cases of contamination. Is he indicating that we are witnessing organised criminal activity?