Well, when tempers got a bit frayed on Monday evening, I thought, “Well, I’ll make the next one my last one, so I don’t upset anybody even more”. It is my fourth but it will be my longest. I also support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Monks.
I cannot understand why—as one of my noble friends asked on Monday—after the December agreements the UK Government did not do exactly what the EU did and set out a legal document. It looked as though it was the EU’s job to do that but, when you read about it, you found out that it was not. The EU took the view that it would put that agreement into a legal form; we could have done exactly the same but we chose not to. In some ways, to put it at its crudest, I would rather have Monsieur Barnier looking after my interests than the amateurs representing the UK at the present time. It is a really serious issue that we have come to.
I want to raise food standards and have a couple of questions. First, will the UK remain a member of RASFF, the rapid alert system for food and feed? Its members are the Commission, the European Food Safety Authority and the EEA only. There is a legal basis for it; it started only in the late 1970s; it did not exist before we joined the EU and it has been evolving since then. It is a 24/7 system for exchanging information on serious risks detected in food and feed. It is a very simple system with clearly identifiable points.
The latest report on RASFF is from 2016. There were 2,993 notices issued—eight a day—all across Europe to the ports and authorities dealing with these issues. The system keeps people safe and it is run by the EU. You cannot be half in and half out of getting the notifications, or issuing your own.
When I was in government I discovered, much to my surprise, that only two departments run a 24/7 system: one is the Ministry of Defence, for obvious reasons,
and the other is Defra. I would like to think that that is still the case, because they are the only two. Part of the reason is these notifications and other issues relating to food.
Research done by the Food Standards Agency for the balance of competences review when I was there back in 2013-14 showed that many people did not feel protected, but the thing that really stuck out when I was re-reading the research report the other day was that 80% of people in the UK did not know that the EU was responsible for the majority of food and feed laws in the UK. Part of the reason for that, of course, is politicians in Brussels masquerading as lying journalists telling falsehoods about the EU over three or four decades—so it was never really understand who was responsible for what.
The UK is a big player in the RASFF system. We are in the top 10 of notifying countries. In 2016 we notified on 79 occasions regarding salmonella and aflatoxins. The countries of origin that are reported most on the system are Turkey, Spain, Iran, China, the United States, India and Egypt, on matters relating to fruit and vegetables, nuts, herbs and spices, and fish and fish products. It is a 24/7 rapid-alert system for what is discovered at ports of entry and in manufacturing.
What are we talking about in terms of food law and what the EU does? I will go through the list. First are the general principles of food law, including traceability and incident reporting; the principle of control on farm to fork; and the establishment of the European Food Safety Authority. Then there are hygiene rules from the farm to the point of sale; official feed controls; and checking out abattoirs each time they are working, 24 hours a day—if there is no vet there, they cannot open. There are massive issues relating to feed safety. I spoke briefly about it the other night, so I will not repeat what I said then. One-third of the land that we use is growing feed; 85% of EU compound feed is now GM or GM-derived material; two-thirds of feed is produced by farmers; there are 4,000 feed mills in the EU; 500 million tonnes are needed each year; and there are serious issues with dioxins and PCBs. Feed safety is crucial. The animals cannot read the labels. We have to do it for them. We have to check this because the reality is that that feed becomes our food. We have to make sure that pathogens and other problems are not passed on through that food chain into the human one.
There are regulations on hygiene practices. On treatment of contaminants in food, there is an EU-wide framework for maximum levels of certain contaminants to protect public health. Food additives are controlled on an EU basis, as are flavourings. If you visit the ports of entry for food, as I did both as a Minister at Defra and with the FSA, you will find bonded warehouses of things that have been put on one side. Something might look like the product, will be labelled as it, might even smell like it, but it damn well is not the product. The crooked chemists have been to work to try to put filth through the system to cut corners and costs. These are massive issues that we need protection from. Flavourings are an area where corners can be cut. Smoke flavouring, food enzymes and extraction solvents used in the production process are controlled throughout.
Another key EU food standards issue is food contact materials. We cannot put food in any old pack. It might look like a cardboard box, but it has to be one that does not contaminate the food with whatever is in the cardboard, paper or printing. Because of trade issues, it is absolutely fundamental that these matters are dealt with on an EU-wide basis and contact materials are crucial. There are regulations about ionising radiation. I will not frighten people, but we do eat irradiated food, like herbs, though this is not an issue. Novel food regulations relate to food production and foods that have never been used in the EU before. When someone invents a new product or process, it has to go through these regulations. This is crucial because it was not done across the EU before. GM comes under that heading, but so do other products. On quick-frozen foodstuffs for human consumption, rules are laid down for the speed of freezing, the packaging, labelling and inspection. These are fundamental to protecting trade and people. There are general rules on food labelling. One might want to complain about labels, but they are much more accepted and accurate than they ever were. I can find faults with them, but they work across Europe.
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Beef and beef products are specially labelled—the only meat for which there are rules across Europe. We are the country that gave the world BSE. We do not have a lot to boast about. We know more about it than anybody else because our scientists did more work on it, but the fact is that we gave it to the world and we have to make sure that we keep the situation safe. Standards are laid down, across the piece, for bottled waters, soluble coffee products, cocoa and chocolate products, and fishery and agriculture products. There is a lot of money to be made selling expensive honey that is not actually that, so it has to be tested. You only have to look at the huge price range: the really expensive honey costs a fortune and there are people out there who want to do things that they should not. There are regulations for the labelling of sugars and fruit juices. The stuff that chemists have tried to produce in the past—I have seen it—looks like orange juice, smells like it and almost tastes like it, but laboratory studies have shown that it certainly is not orange juice. The EU lays down the rules on other products: jams and marmalades, dehydrated milk products—a fundamental one—spreadable fats and oils, which are used in massive numbers of food products. We do not invent the rules; it is done for our safety and the public interest. Natural mineral waters are also on the list.
That was just a run-through of about 25 regulations and what they cover. There is an idea that the EU does not involve us and is no good at all, but we are kept safe by those rules and regulations. We are kept safe by notification systems working instantly across the whole of Europe and the EEA when untoward things are found. Basically, we should just keep them. What is more, the Minister for Food and Rural Affairs also thinks that we should keep them. I invite noble Lords to look at Question Time on 11 January this year. There were six questions on food standards and Brexit. The noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble—a good Minister—listened to the House and did his best to respond to the points made. He said these six things:
“Our current high standards, including import requirements, will apply when we leave the EU”.
He said that,
“we have been very clear that we are not going to water down or compromise on the standards I have set out”.
He said:
“I want to be clear again: we will not compromise on the standards that will be on the statute book. Those are the requirements that we will adhere to in any trade deals”.
He then said:
“My Lords, as I have said, on our statute book will be all the current EU welfare standards”,
and,
“I am absolutely clear that we will not water down any of our standards”.
Finally, he said that,
“we are not watering down; there will be requirements on the UK statute book”.—[Official Report, 11/1/18; cols. 306-08]
You cannot be clearer than that.