Food Labelling Regulations (Amendment) Bill

I completely understand my hon. Friend's concern about introducing a ““notwithstanding”” clause, because it does seem to some to be the nuclear option when it comes to our European relations. We would have to debate whether it was suitable to use such a powerful clause in relation to food labelling, and whether food labelling is an issue of such importance that it is worth fracturing our relationship with Europe over, because the ““notwithstanding”” clause does ultimately fracture our relationship with Europe, or leads to a fundamental renegotiation. The question, I suppose, is whether that is what the British electorate want. I have huge sympathy with my hon. Friend on the point about most people in this country wanting to know where their food comes from, how it is processed, and what is in it. It all gets frightfully stomach-churning when we read in the detail of the Bill what is classified as meat:"““the heart, any other internal organ…the muscles of the head, the carpus, the tarsus, or the tail from any mammalian or bird species recognised as fit for human consumption.””" Some of those bits do not sound fit for human consumption at all. They sound more like dog meat, which probably should be equally carefully labelled, so that the great dogs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not mistakenly consume foreign-produced dog food; I expect that would cause them great concern, because we know that the English bulldog is a particularly patriotic symbol. I come back to the concerns of consumers. We have had lots of rows with Europe about how food is labelled and processed, and Europe always seems to be on the wrong side of the argument. It always seems to be restraining some form of trade without allowing people to have proper information. I remember the great row about where Parma ham was cut, and whether it could be described as Parma ham if it was not physically cut in Italy. That seemed fair old nonsense; if a person has a great slab of ham and cuts it up at home, it is the same ham as if they had cut it up in Italy. I think it was Asda that wanted to do that in some plant in the United Kingdom. Europe goes for a tough and restrictive anti-free-trade regulation. It seems to put us in a position where we cannot really be honest with the British consumer and let him or her know what they are buying. That is important, because we have read the most appalling stories of the labelling of food that is pretty much no more than packaged in this country as if it were British. My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) so rightly mentioned the use of the Union flag on food. When we see the Union flag, we want to think, ““That's a best bit of British beef.”” We do not want to think that it has possibly come from Kobe, where the beef used to be very good and delicious, but which we might now worry was becoming radioactive. We need to know what it is, and what is in it. If it has come from Kobe via some European country and we are not being told, that must be to the disadvantage of the British consumer when they go out to do the weekly shopping. When one is in North East Somerset, one wants to know that one's food is really from Somerset, because some of the best food produced in the United Kingdom comes from God's own county. We have the finest beef, lamb, chickens—you name it; turkeys, even. It has a quality, a taste, a melt-in-the-mouth flavour that makes one proud to come from Somerset. That ought to be on a label, and some bureaucrat Johnny in Brussels should not be saying, ““We really can't have this, because it might deter you from buying a German sausage.”” I would not like a German sausage at all; they are much too spicy and flavoured for my taste. I like a good, proper, plain, British banger. Those hon. Members who remember watching ““Yes, Prime Minister”” all those years ago will know that that has been an issue in British political life for decades. We want our right to eat our sausages stuffed full of bread and things like that, because when they are, they taste nice. We do not want all this garlic and stuff that we get in foreign sausages. I am tempted to mention the Flanders and Swann song but, Mr Deputy Speaker, I know that when I get too poetic I sometimes incur your wrath, of which I live in trembling fear, so I will avoid Flanders and Swann when thinking about garlic-eaters. We really need to know that information, so that we can get the food that we want, like and love—ideally the food from Somerset, where the grass is of particularly high quality. Those hon. Members who understand the digestion of cattle will realise that if the grass has the right flavour, and the water that falls is the best-quality rain, only to be found in Somerset, the meat and its marbling develops in a particular way.