§ 3. Mr. Simon HughesTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps his Department is taking to ensure that food labelling is comprehensible to the public.[17547]
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mrs. Angela Browning)The law requires that mandatory information on food labels should be easy to understand and that all other information should be true and not misleading. We regularly consult consumer and other organisations and we commission surveys to identify where label information could be improved.
§ Mr. HughesI accept what the Minister says about consulting regularly. Will she look at the report produced last week by the National Consumer Council, which agrees with my view that most food labelling is twaddle, merely giving a list of chemicals, or Latin, or words that nobody understands? There is regulation for descriptions of nutrition—a claim that a food is low fat, for example, has to be regulated—but anybody can put "gives you a healthy diet" on a product, because health matters are not regulated. Can we start again and produce food labels that ordinary people such as me can understand when we go to Tesco?
§ Mrs. BrowningI assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall study the report with great care. The Food Advisory Committee is also looking at nutritional and health claims, particularly the latter. The issue can be confusing. The Ministry produces some literature to guide people through it. I agree that labelling must be clear and accurate.
§ Sir Cranley OnslowIs my hon. Friend satisfied that everything possible is being done at national and European level to provide adequate warning for those susceptible to allergies, such as that caused by peanuts, that can have fatal consequences?
§ Mrs. BrowningI assure my hon. Friend that we have pressed the European Commission to propose changes to labelling to help those who suffer from peanut allergies and similar conditions. I am also working on a programme for this year to put more information into the public domain, particularly for food processors. Many people find that there is more labelling for products that obviously contain nuts, but the processed nut is often not immediately obvious. That is the potential danger for people with such allergies.