Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2021-01-06
Topic: Agriculture
Rosel Boycott (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 26A, which concerns the importance of labelling, and will support Amendment 31A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. Both are connected with public health and human health People do not realise how hard fought the campaign for clear labelling was. Someone I was at school with called Caroline Walker, a great food campaigner in the 1980s, made the wonderful point that we knew more about the ingredients that went into our socks than we knew about the ingredients that went into our food. She fought long and hard for good, clear labelling, and it would be an incredibly regressive step if, for any reason, the UK lost control of this Other countries that we are considering signing trade deals with take very different approaches to labelling. To choose just one example, I am sorry to come back to the USA again but it is permitted to refer to mechanically recovered material as "meat." This could be any parts of anything that runs around on four legs or two, scrambled together from anywhere If the UK opts to accept another country’s labelling as part of a free trade deal, we could end up with food that has less information on labels and perhaps nothing at all. Our own labelling is not brilliant. For instance, pigs can be reared in Denmark, imported into the UK and turned into sausages in the Midlands. They can then be labelled as made in Britain. That is legal, but I think it is slightly deceitful, because it hides the fact that those pigs have been reared in conditions that we find to be unacceptable ill-treatment of animals Consumers here are very accustomed to using labels not only to buy what they want but to buy according to their values. They know that they can also eat to stay healthy. It is incredibly important to understand how much salt or sugar there is, and if you are diabetic this is a matter of life and death. The UK’s front-of-pack traffic light labelling scheme, which uses colours, words and numbers to help UK consumers to understand fats and saturated fats, was introduced in 2013. Our Government describe it as "a crucial intervention to support healthy choices and reduce obesity rates by communicating complex nutritional information to shoppers in a way that’s easy to understand." To understand the risk that future trade deals could have on our food labels, leaked US-UK trade negotiation papers show that the US side says that food labels are "harmful" and that they are "not particularly useful in changing consumer behaviour." They say this particularly about sugar, and I would bet my bottom dollar that that comes from the sugar lobby. I and many health experts would beg to disagree Health matters are intrinsically interwoven with all food and farming. It is very hard to see how Ministers can try to unpick them and put one bit here and one bit there. Research shows that some of our prospective trade partners have really irresponsible approaches, for instance, to using medically critical antibiotics in farming. It could have a serious impact on health in the UK, despite our own standards, if we water them down in any way. Similarly, prospective trade partners use a great many more pesticides. Some of these are known to be linked to cancers and are currently banned in the UK. We know that the UK is reliant on foreign trade for a great deal of its fruit and vegetables, but other trade can also have a negative impact on diets. The obesity rates rose in Mexico and Canada post-NAFTA due, most researchers now believe, to the greater availability of food and drink products that are high in calories but very low in nutrition—in other words, snacks and fizzy drinks, out of which the manufacturers make a great deal of money Thanks to their greater transparency, the US produces barriers to trade reports. These show their hostility to the sorts of measures which the UK has already introduced or would like to undertake as part of its obesity strategy. It includes front-of-pack labelling, sugary drinks taxes, a ban on junk food adverts, and limiting the use of cartoon characters in marketing and reformulation policies. Free trade agreements could change our food environment not only by increasing the availability of such foods but by limiting our Government’s ability to introduce policies that will help to encourage healthier diets Turning to Amendment 31A, I am still confused as to why the Government are happy for the Trade and Agriculture Commission to consider plant and animal health but not human health. The Minister has previously said that consideration will be given to the impact of trade on human health and that advice will be shared with Parliament. However, despite many helpful briefings I am still somewhat confused as to where this incredibly critical issue is going to live. I would like to see it in the Trade and Agriculture Commission, because the commission is statutory and to some degree independent. If it is not going to be there, could the Minister say which agency has the equivalent status and would be best placed to provide advice? Government health agencies do fantastic work, but will they have the independence and clout of the TAC There are many issues of human health at stake here. World health rates are not going up, due to bad diets, and I find it deeply alarming that the TAC will not be allowed to consider the impacts of trade on human health. I beg the Minister to reconsider when the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is put forward. I beg to move.