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Mr. McWalter: I see that the hon. Gentleman is expressing dissent. I will be happy to take an intervention if he thinks that I have got something fundamentally wrong.
Mr. Letwin: I am grateful for that invitation as I was about to ask the hon. Gentleman to allow me to intervene. I do not understand why he believes that it is restrictive to force people to declare what they are selling. Regarded in its positive light, what is the nature of the restriction in the Bill?
Mr. McWalter: If we could introduce the policy in an all-European Union way, one bit of the EU would not say,
"You must meet some additional condition that you do not have to meet in the rest of the market." The Government's general aim is to achieve an all-EU system of labelling, working through the Codex committee to get the whole of the EU to agree on co-ordinated rules about country of origin--but if one country decides to make it 33 per cent., and another, 50 per cent., that will introduce precisely the constraints on market lubricity that the free market was designed to avoid.
Mr. Letwin: I accept that both from an international point of view under Codex and in relation to the EU itself, there is every advantage in universalisation. No one is challenging that. The question is: in what sense is it a restriction? Where is the precedent for supposing that it is a restriction in law to force transparency concerning country of origin, or any other marking? I know of no such instance.
Mr. McWalter: It would be a restriction if other countries, in producing and labelling their products said, "Gosh. We cannot now send the product to Britain because it has imposed an extra condition." Perhaps they have not been so careful about their tracing, which, as we have heard, is at least possible in places such as Sweden, so there is an element of compulsion.
I want British consumers to get to the position where, instead of being confronted by a cabinet full of stuff and having no idea where it came from, or what the welfare conditions governing its production were, they know about the products and can support British farmers. However, if we are to make the Bill Euro-compliant, as opposed to Euro-clobbering, we may have to be much more careful about such unilateral compulsion. The Committee will have to examine whether it can get round that potentially major difficulty.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien:
I emphasise that there is no attempt on my part to engage in any Euro-clobbering. In response to the hon. Gentleman's intervention, I said that Euro-compliance would be required, but, although I acknowledge the technical and cogent point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), the issue is about leadership. Europe is looking for a steer. We have the expertise and experience to give that leadership. What really concerns me--the hon. Gentleman's comments do so, too--is that the Government, by failing to support a Bill that would provide an opportunity for change, are hardly demonstrating that they wish to go any faster than at the slowest pace, supporting the lowest common denominator of the EU. My feeling is that, on this issue, we have a real opportunity to demonstrate leadership, and that others will want to follow us.
Mr. McWalter:
I am not convinced that the hon. Gentleman is quite right about that. The Government are taking a lead on the labelling initiative precisely because of the major difficulties precipitated by the BSE crisis and other events. Nevertheless, I think that the hon. Gentleman's Bill will help in achieving the objective that he described, and that the Bill and this debate are a wonderful mechanism for concentrating Agriculture Ministers' minds, so that, when next we ask them questions, they will be able to show that they really are giving such a lead.
I am sorry to say that clause 2 is undoubtedly not Euro-compliant. However, I look forward to debating that point in Committee and to examining the relevant European statutes, to determine whether there is a way in which the sense of the clause could be reformulated and reintegrated into the legislation.
Some countries will say that, for some products, country of origin is not a relevant issue. Clause 2 would require every producer of every commodity to provide a type of traceability. Such a requirement should not apply to many products, and producers would regard one as only an incumbrance and an irrelevance.
Mr. Bermingham:
Before my hon. Friend leaves clause 2, I should like to deal with the matter of a 25 per cent. threshold. Clause 2(1)(b) states that
Mr. McWalter:
I was not planning to dwell on clause 2(1)(b), but my hon. Friend's point is correct. However, I think that the Bill would require only ingredients meeting the 40 per cent. threshold to be labelled. I might also add that such a jam would be rather luxurious compared with those that are usually found in my household.
Clause 3 is currently very unsatisfactory, providing for labelling of food that has been produced to a quality that is "less demanding than" those applying in England and Wales. It is a clear example of how concentration on one commodity--pigmeat--could create major difficulties for other products. We all think that--although there is still room for improvement, and there is an awful lot more room for improvement in mainland Europe--British pigmeat and bacon are produced to the highest animal welfare standards.
Let us, however, consider the case of chocolate. If the provision in clause 3 were applied elsewhere, the Belgians, for example, could say, "Your chocolate is not chocolate at all. Furthermore, your product is produced to standards less demanding than ours." The Belgians would require us to label our inferior chocolate stating, "This is not chocolate", or "This chocolate is produced to lower standards". Some time ago, I had the pleasure of visiting a Belgian brewery. The Belgians were strongly of the view that their production methods resulted in beer of an infinitely higher standard than our British methods. Although we all know that our British beer is massively superior to Belgian beer, they feel that the hygiene standards and the quality of the hops that they use meet much higher specifications.
Mrs. Janet Dean (Burton):
As I represent Burton, I must say that the quality of water in Burton produces our excellent beer.
Mr. McWalter:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I agree that we should have the highest regard for the quality of water in Burton, particularly when it has been
Clause 3 states that if food is produced to a less demanding standard,
Having talked about the schizophrenic character of the Bill and drawn attention to the provisions that seem particularly Euro-clobbering--
Mr. Bermingham:
In relation to beer, has the hon. Gentleman considered the position of McEwans brewery in Scotland having to label its beer as being of a lower standard than English beer? That would cause a riot.
Mr. McWalter:
I take my hon. Friend's point. The reference to beer has got several of my hon. Friends extremely excited. Opposition Members have not joined in, but I have no doubt that they are also experts in the subject. Be that as it may, it is clear that the proposal would create difficulties.
Let me draw another dimension of the Bill to the attention of the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien). Some mechanisms in Europe might achieve his aims without violating European law. In Italy, there is a chain of supermarkets--I think that it is called Italmart--that sells only Italian produce: its wine counter, for example, sells no French or German wine. That method of favouring domestic production does not seem to fall foul of European regulations. Perhaps we should have a supermarket called Anglomart.
where the food has more than one ingredient, particulars of the country or countries of origin of each major ingredient
must be included on the label. In jam or preservative, for example, 40 or even 50 per cent. of the ingredients may come from one country, whereas the other 50 or 60 per cent. come from five or six other countries. The label would be wholly misleading if it said that the product was English, as it could be made essentially from ingredients from France, Germany and elsewhere.
a reference to that fact shall appear on the mark or label of that food.
So the manufacturer has to state on the label that the food has been produced to standard B or standard Z rather than describing the production method. It is unfeasible to expect manufacturers of products to state explicitly that they produce lower-quality products.
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