Opposition Day — [17th( )Allotted Day] — Horsemeat

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 12 February 2013.

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Photo of Tom Watson Tom Watson Labour Party Deputy Chair; Campaign Co-ordinator, Deputy Chair, Labour Party 2:30, 12 February 2013

I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State mention trust in his speech, because it lies at the heart of this public policy issue. We need to ensure that the regulatory and legislative framework provides trust to consumers eating food off the plate. They need to know that what they buy in the supermarket is what it says on the label.

The incident involving Findus UK is instructive. I am speaking today because, when I asked the Secretary of State a question yesterday, his answer led me to believe that he was not in possession of the facts. On this occasion, I have a reasonable suspicion that it was not his fault. I think at best it was because very clever crisis public relations people had obfuscated the facts, but it might also be possible that people have been deliberately withholding the facts from the Secretary of State and his Department. In order to make my case, I need to go through the timeline of events.

I want one thing to come out of my contribution: for the Secretary of State and his team to redouble their efforts when they scrutinise what happened at Findus. In the past 24 hours, since yesterday’s Question Time, I have assembled a timeline of what I think happened. On Tuesday 29 January, Findus Group received initial test results from the Eurofins lab in Germany suggesting that horsemeat DNA had entered its beef lasagne products. By Wednesday 30 January, Findus UK had decided to quarantine the beef lasagne in its wholesale warehouses. At some point over the next few days, it would have had confirmation of the initial lab results. Experts in the industry tell me that would usually happen within 48 hours, so I am working on the assumption that it had confirmation of the test results by Thursday 31 January.

On Saturday 2 February, Comigel wrote to Findus UK asking it to withdraw its beef lasagne products, explaining that it could not guarantee the integrity of the supply chain of its products from as early as the previous August. It wanted its beef products withdrawn. On Monday 4 February, Findus communicated this information to major UK retailers, and I understand that the big retailers started to withdraw those products late on Monday evening. The rest of us understood that on Wednesday 6 February, because The Sun revealed it in a news report. Late afternoon on Thursday 7 February, the company confirmed that its beef lasagne products contained horsemeat. On Friday morning, my researcher in West Bromwich bought a Findus frozen lasagne in a shop in my constituency—so they were still available to my constituents—and yesterday the Secretary of State announced that on Saturday 9 February he had a conversation with Leendert den Hollander, the boss of the sister company to Findus UK, Young’s.

From that timeline arise several searching questions that we need to put to Findus, and I would like to share them with the remaining Ministers on the Front Bench. I know that they cannot answer them straight away, but I would like to get them on the record. First, given that the company had a reasonable suspicion that its supply chain was contaminated—or whatever word we want to use—on Tuesday 29 January, why did it not issue an immediate withdrawal of products, a product recall and a refund strategy for its customers? These were frozen goods that people stored in their freezers to eat at some point in the future, so the refund strategy would have been important.

The test results were obviously important enough to the company for it to decide to quarantine products as early as Wednesday, but not for it to remove products from the retail section. On what day did the lab results confirm beyond doubt that there was horsemeat in Findus food? That would have been the day when any company adhering to basic forms of corporate social responsibility would have pressed the red button. The company said that it was informed, in writing, on Saturday 2 February by Comigel that its supply chain was contaminated. When was it told by telephone and/or e-mail? Finally, given that the company was told on Saturday 2 February that its second and third-tier suppliers could not guarantee the ingredients in the product, why did it not urgently and immediately issue a product recall on the Saturday, but instead leave it until the Monday evening?

Why do I think this is important? I honestly say to both Front-Bench teams that our respective views of the markets do not matter here—obviously, Ministers and I will differ about the markets—because even the driest economist and greatest adherent of laissez faire in the market would still consider this a market failure that needed addressing. On my side of the political and economic debate, this is probably the most perfect example of predatory capitalism I have ever seen. Findus UK was a company in crisis. Private equity investors took possession of the company a few years ago, started putting pressure on the supply chain and refinanced the company. I think that that pressure led to corporate failure and its failure to do the right thing.

This is how capitalism eats its young. It gobbles up our money and our health, it scoffs down our dignity and our children’s safety. We eat whatever it puts in the box, and it calls it whatever it likes. I say “we”, but that does not include one man, and his name is Mr Dale Morrison, who right now is sitting on the 43rd floor of his Manhattan offices on Wall street, failing to get a grip of the biggest food fraud this country has probably ever seen. That is a failure of capitalism, whatever side of the House we sit on.