Food Labelling (Hansard, 13 June 1995)

§ Mr. Martyn Jones
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what European Community restrictions apply in respect to member states independently legislating for(a) food labelling and (b) food safety. [26659]

§ Mrs. Browning
Food labelling is a harmonised area of legislation in the European Community and as a result member states can make new national rules only if they have been notified to the Commission and other member states and if there have been no objections.
Similar arrangements also apply in most cases of food safety legislation. However, member states have greater scope for independent action to deal with emergencies or threats to the safety of their food supplies, in accordance with article 36 of the treaty of Rome.

§ Mr. Martyn Jones
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many foods produced using genetic modified organisms have been(a) licensed for sale and (b) labelled as from genetically modified organisms. [27212]

§ Mrs. Browning
Ministers have accepted the advice of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes and cleared, on food safety grounds, nine foods produced using genetically modified organisms. The food advisory committee has recommended that GMOs containing ethically sensitive copy genes must be labelled. None of the foods cleared so far requires such labelling, although applicants are encouraged to give informative labelling on a voluntary basis in response to public interest.

§ Mr Martyn Jones
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to introduce labelling of country of origin for(a) meat, (b) meat products, (c) eggs and (d) dairy products. [27198]

§ Mrs. Browning
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave him on 8 June 1995 to a similar question covering meat and meat products. The situation as regards dairy products is the same.
Eggs are covered by separate EC egg marketing regulations, which already contain an option for the use of country or locality of origin descriptions. For eggs imported from third countries, the country of origin must be declared.