The fight continues...

This week in Brussels I called together a group of health and consumer NGOs who are supportive of using multiple colour coding on food so consumers can ascertain and compare at a glance the nutritional content of food. I convened the meeting following the disappointing vote by MEPs in June.

In attendance were representatives from Which?, the British Heart Foundation, the British Medical Association, Cancer Research UK, BEUC (the European consumers' organisation), the European Heart Network, and a German NGO called Foodwatch as well as Nessa Childers, an Irish MEP colleague of mine and representatives from other MEPs' offices.

We had a very fruitful discussion, and the consensus was that we would continue with a joint campaign to promote colour coding, to lobby Member States in the Council and ensure that traffic lights can at the very least continue to be used throughout Europe as part of national schemes in the current draft legislation on food labelling, as exemplified by the UK's own traffic light scheme.

We also agreed to work together with a view to launching a Citizen's Initiative, once the rules are in place, to gather 1 million signatures from EU citizens, to pressure the Commission to come forward with a separate legislative proposal and build up support and visibility for this important issue.

Watch this space...

Hypocrisy from Tories on junk food

It is absolutely disgraceful that, as reported in the Guardian, (No anti-junk food laws, health secretary promises) the coalition government, in the form of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, has apparently given guarantees to the food industry that it will not introduce legislation to tackle the problematic issue of junk food and its role in the battle against obesity, contributing to heart disease, type II diabetes, increased risk of cancer, strokes, liver disease and even depression.

He even has the nerve to claim that his hands are tied on regulating because of European rules. I would like to remind Mr Lansley that just a few weeks ago Conservatives in the European Parliament voted against my proposals for a clear easy-to-understand labelling scheme ,which would have seen key ingredients such as sugar, fat and salt labelled on the front of pack with the colours green, amber and red. Not only did Conservatives vote to defeat this, they also voted to remove the possibility for the UK government to come up with its own plans to give consumers easy to understand information about what they are eating. The hypocrisy of it all is breath-taking.

Fortunately, Member States may still take action beyond the new food labelling rules, and indeed in other areas, for reasons of public health, and if Andrew Lansley doesn't think that Britain's obesity crisis is a risk to public health, then I would suggest he is in the wrong job and should reconsider his position. I'm sure there would be an opening for him in a well-known junk food outlet..

Euromyths by the dozen

Never mind the arrival of summer, it was silly season which broke out this weekend with the UK papers gleefully denouncing the EU's supposed ban on selling eggs by the dozen, whipping themselves into a fervor over this despicable attack by barmy Brussels bureaucrats on the traditional British way of selling eggs. The tabloids and the Torygraph were ready to send the valiant David Cameron into battle with his European counterparts to save our 'eggs by the dozen'.

Make no mistake, this was a classic Euromyth and the words 'eggs by the dozen' could have been replaced with any other term, with the story adapted accordingly.

Anyone who follows European issues will know the score. Last time it was the traditional British jug of milk and before it was barmaids' breasts! The familiar voices of disgust are wheeled out such as the Metric Martyrs, Open Europe or the so-called Taxpayers' Alliance, and there is always the odd (in both senses) Tory or UKIP 'rent-a-quote' MEP who is only too happy to add their voice to the outrage, despite having not the faintest idea of the issue at stake.

Of course there was absolutely no truth to the story. I should know as I have been working on this proposal for the best part of two years on behalf of the second largest political group in the European Parliament - although no newspaper saw fit to contact me before publishing their stories, it appears they were only interested in getting their story out. Armed with the facts, I would have only got in the way of their good story!

For the facts (which have fortunately now been published by most of the offending publications) you can check out the rebuttal from the European Parliament here and the Press Association article here.

A mixed bag of food labelling

Now the dust has settled, last week's plenary vote, as I blogged beforehand might well be described as a mixed bag.

We lost our headline campaign, which was to get mandatory traffic light labelling on processed convenience foods and unfortunately the provision for voluntary national schemes such as the FSA's traffic light scheme was also deleted, with the support of Tory MEPs, which means, somewhat bizarrely, that Tory MEPs voted to reduce their own government's scope to implement its own front of pack labelling scheme, preferring a harmonised EU scheme of percentage GDAs (Guideline Daily Amounts).

Their basis for opposition to my proposals for colour coding appeared to be wholly based on the arguments industry put forward and on industry-supported research.

The first criticism made by Tory MEPs was that the colours were too simplistic so they preferred GDAs. Despite all the information I had sent to them in advance of the vote, they must have failed to spot that the amendments on the table provided for a combination of GDAs and traffic lights - colour-coded GDAs - so rather than simplistic, it actually provided more information than GDAs alone.

The other argument used was that traffic lights would favour diet coca-cola over apple juice on sugar, given the high levels of natural sugars in apple juice and the artificial sweeteners used in diet Coke. If they had bothered to look at my proposal, again they would have seen that fruit juices would not be covered by my amendments.

Colour coding aside, we did win a major (but narrow) victory on mandatory country of origin labelling, with a majority of MEPs voting to ensure honest and transparent food labelling. My amendments as adopted would see food producers obliged to label all meat, poultry, dairy products and other single-ingredient products with the country of origin, and also the meat, poultry and fish contained in processed or multi-ingredient products.

We also secured front of pack labelling for the key nutrients such as calories, salt, sugar and fats and fought off industry-backed attempts reduce consumer protection from misleading advertising of health and nutrition claims.

Tense vote

In just a few hours time MEPs will be voting here in Strasbourg on amendments to the new regulation on food labelling and things are quite tense. The votes are shaping up to be very close on two key point: traffic light labels for sugar, salt and fats and mandatory country of origin labelling so that it is clear where our food comes from.

The industry lobby has been intense and unrelenting throughout - and it has caught the attention of much of the media over the last few days, including the Independent, Daily Mail and BBC with headlines such as "Food firms spend millions in push to kill traffic light labelling" and "Food companies in massive lobby to block colour coded warnings".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286804/Food-firms-spend-millions-push-kill-traffic-light-labelling-identify-unhealthy-products.html?ITO=1490


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/food-companies-in-massive-lobby-to-block-colourcoded-warnings-2000523.html

First European test for the coalition government's programme

MEPs will be voting next week in Strasbourg on a new legislative proposal which would see mandatory country of origin labelling on much of the food we eat, including meat, poultry, fish and dairy products, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables. My amendment to do this was already accepted by the EP's environment committee in March and now there will be a full vote of all MEPs next Wednesday.

The Conservatives supported this in March but rumours are now afoot that they will withdraw their support. This would surely fly in the face of their coalition deal with the Lib Dems, which on page 13 specifies "We will introduce honesty in food labelling so that consumers can be confident about where their food comes from and its environmental impact". Well, this must be done through European legislation and their one chance to do this is in the vote next week....