I beg to move,
That this House has considered food fraud.
First, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate on this important and topical issue. I must say that some of us had anticipated that the Government business would take rather longer this afternoon and that this debate would start rather later. I was given the information that we might have the debate this evening rather late last week, and despite the best efforts of my staff to contact right hon. and hon. Members to urge them to make a contribution, the message obviously got out rather late. Perhaps there was not much contentious business to debate today, either. Nevertheless, the debate is topical, coming soon after the Elliott report, which the Government commissioned following the horsemeat scandal of just over a year ago. I should declare my interests related to meat production, which appear in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I first became interested in food crime when I was elected in 2001. We were in the middle of a foot and mouth disease outbreak, and the election had actually been postponed for a month until the first Thursday in June so that the outbreak could be contained and dealt with. Unfortunately, it went on well after the election, particularly in my constituency. Thousands of sheep were slaughtered on the Brecon Beacons in an attempt to control the disease, which did happen. At that time, farmers were concerned about the lack of checks taking place at the ports on meat coming into this country. They were particularly concerned about the seaports through which meat was imported and the airports through which illegal meat was thought to come. I tabled a ten-minute rule Bill to ask the Government to re-examine the checks and balances, and that was what happened.