§ 7. Mr. Darlingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will introduce regulations to ensure that all meat sold in retail shops is accurately marked as to quality according to the schedules of the Fatstock Marketing Corporation.
Mr. VaneThe Fatstock Marketing Corporation pays producers for fatstock by grade of carcase as do some other meat traders. The assessment of quality for retail cuts, however, depends very much on local preferences and for the government to impose nation-wide statutory regulations on quality marking in retail shops would create many difficulties.
§ Mr. DarlingWhile I appreciate the difficulties, is not the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware of the reports from local weights and measures inspectors from many pparts of the country about the misleading labelling of meat in shops? Have there not been cases of imported meat being labelled as English, Argentine beef labelled as Scotch and Dutch pork labelled as English pork, and so on? Would he not agree that some kind of schedule is needed in order that this misleading labelling can be dealt with?
Mr. VaneThe burden of that question goes a long way from the question of grade in the original Question and is a separate issue, which I should have thought deserves investigation on its own merits. It is a fact that parts of animals do not necessarily reflect the quality of the whole animal which was of a particular grade when it was passed through the market. It does not mean that all the cuts off that animal are of the same grade when they reach the butcher's slab.