Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to take steps to help ensure that the labelling of food originating in Western Sahara is not (a) mislabelled and (b) misleading.

The Government is committed to ensuring that UK consumers are not misled about the origin of the food they purchase. In accordance with assimilated EU Regulation 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, food labelling must not be misleading, including in relation to the origin or provenance of food.

It is the UK position that where origin information is given for food products made or grown in the Western Sahara, it must give accurate origin information and cannot be labelled as Moroccan.

Produce originating in Western Sahara that has been mislabelled as produce of Morocco would be considered misleading under food labelling regulations.

Defra officials and the Food Standards Agency work closely with Local Authority Trading Standards Officers who enforce food labelling rules in the UK, including addressing labels that may be misleading or non-compliant.