House of Lords written statement – made at on 27 February 2013.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Owen Paterson) has today made the following Statement.
I represented the UK at the first day of the 25 and
The council had a wide ranging discussion, following an update from the Irish presidency which summarised action to date, including the informal meeting of some Agriculture Ministers which I attended on
Member states endorsed EU-wide action to address the issue through the testing programme and rapid sharing of information on wrongdoing. There was also widespread recognition that this incident arose as a result of fraudulent practices outside existing EU legislation. The Commissioner reminded member states that they have responsibility for official controls in the food chain and food businesses have primary responsibility for compliance.
I outlined the urgent action the UK Government have taken to investigate the situation in the UK and noted that arrests have been made and investigations continue. I noted that the horsemeat fraud was a Europe-wide problem and urged all member states to share information rapidly in support of co-ordinated activity, including with Europol where appropriate in the case of active criminal investigations.
I drew attention to the scale of product testing by food businesses in the UK, with over 3,500 processed beef products having been tested by
I pressed the Commission, along with a number of other member states, to accelerate the production and publication of its report on extending mandatory country of origin labelling to meat in processed products and asked that this include a proper impact assessment so that we have evidence on the practicality and cost of extending mandatory origin labelling in this way and can avoid any unintended consequences.
I made clear that as this is a Europe-wide problem, while we would want to learn the lessons from this episode in the UK once the immediate incidents have been resolved, there needs to be a lessons learnt exercise at European level.
The Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs undertook to try and speed up the report on mandatory origin labelling of meat in processed products but did not commit to a specific timescale. The Commission would prepare an overview report of member state official controls on hygiene, veterinary drugs and horse passports.
The presidency concluded that many member states had called on the Commission to speed up delivery of the origin labelling report.
I asked for this subject to be on the agenda of the next meeting of the Agriculture Council on 18 and