Minister rejects farmers’ calls for new food labelling laws

The Government’s Environment Minister has ruled out introducing fresh laws to improve food labelling and make it easier for people to buy British produce.

Richard Benyon told the Conservative conference that “as a party we don’t legislate unless we have to” as he faced calls from farmers for clearer labelling to support their industry.

Mr Benyon said great progress has already been made on food labelling by working closely with the industry.

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“As a party we don’t legislate unless we have to,” he said. “It’s in our DNA; legislation as a last resort. But we can achieve things and we have achieved great progress on labelling by working with different sectorial interests.

“We are about to announce the next phase with the hospitality sector – which is an enormous industry – as we have with various others, and we’ve got the Red Tractor as a key measure.”

Mr Benyon criticised the EU for its involvement in food labelling.

“Trying to do this at a European Union level is bonkers,” he said. “We can deal with this in our own country and we are doing work to get to where you want.”

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And he attacked the previous Labour government for not
doing enough to ensure White-
hall departments led the way
by purchasing local food for
 staff.

The Coalition, he said, was successfully changing internal procedures to support the farming industry.

“First of all we believe the Government should get its own house in order,” he said.. “So (we have) the introduction of new government buying standards – it seems incredible that we had to do this when we came into government.

“But government departments weren’t buying enough or all of their produce from local sources. We’ve got new government buying standards that make a difference.”

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