The last decades of the twentieth century have been punctuated by a series of food scares. In many cases genuine concerns are blown out of proportion as the media indulge in a feeding frenzy, seldom letting the facts get in the way of a good story. Maybe we do not have enough journalists with a scientific background able to quantify issues like risk or possibly, as I suspect, a sensational front page headline which will sell a newspaper is more important than giving consumers information on which to judge their buying decisions. Product labelling is one important way in which this misinformation can be countered. It is, of course, possible to go too far and give technical data that confuses rather than informs. When the details of this and other directives are considered I hope we can have at the back of our minds the mother trailing two or three irritable children around the supermarket. She does not have time to read a detailed data sheet. She needs to see at a glance the information on the origin, production method and other details in a simple, unambiguous way. At present food labelling is at best vague, at worst deliberately misleading. For example, one could be forgiven for thinking that bacon labelled 'packed in the UK' was produced in Britain under our most stringent welfare standards; not so. And shepherd's pie labelled 'product of the UK' may contain beef from Botswana, Zimbabwe or anywhere else in the world. This is not good enough. Labelling rules should address these problems. I now come to the intolerable situation we find ourselves in today regarding the extension of the voluntary beef labelling scheme. What would be the attitude of the EU if it were a company, not a country, that chose to ignore legislation which other similar businesses were complying with? The full force of the law would be unleashed of course. We have the situation that 12 of the 15 Member States have not introduced a voluntary system of beef labelling and are therefore not in a position to move to a compulsory scheme in January. The Commission blames the Member States for not providing information about the lack of action in time for the proper democratic procedures to ensue. They should, however, have been aware of how the situation was developing and I am sure a few telephone calls would soon have put the Commission in the picture. Today, despite the fact that both the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment of this Parliament were asked to consider this extension, the Council has decided to ignore this House and change the legal basis for this decision, despite the fact that the amendments proposed were both practical and reasonable and could have been adopted under codecision. This is an insult to the Members of the European Parliament. It is particularly important, finally, that consumers know where the beef they are consuming comes from. In the wake of the BSE crisis we must make it simple for people to identify the safest beef available, which is, of course, British. Could I also urge Commissioner Byrne to introduce a compensation scheme for British beef farmers who are being hit by the illegal action of the French Government? The cost of this scheme can be recouped from the French when, as surely as day follows night, they lose their court case. British farmers need help now, not the promise of compensation later when some of them will be bankrupt and beyond help.

Political group: PPE-DE