Horsemeat (Supermarket Products) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Tony Baldry
Main Page: Tony Baldry (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Tony Baldry's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Horsemeat (Supermarket Products)
Tony Baldry Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Heath
I have set out exactly what the FSA is doing in response to the immediate problem. The point I am trying to make is this: yes, this is probably an example of criminality—we must wait and see—but it has been detected and is being dealt with. It is quite wrong to extrapolate from that and say, “This is common across the whole of the food industry.” That would be a mistake, and it would undermine an important industry.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
There are a finite number of abattoirs, slaughter houses and renderers both here and in the Republic of Ireland, so must it not be possible, in fairly short order, to discover where the horsemeat entered the food chain and react accordingly?
Mr Heath
Of course, the first responsibility for that lies with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which is carrying out investigations and we are assisting with them as far as possible. I think we will quickly identify where the meat came from and discover whether it was falsely labelled at the point of origin, which I suspect may be the case.