John Stuart Agnew, on behalf of the EFD Group. – Madam President, thirteen years ago the British Government stupidly allowed the EU to have competence in all aspects of food law. What has been uncovered in recent weeks is a demonstration of gross incompetence which has resulted in British people eating the meat of horses when they believed they were eating beef.

The paper trail system that the EU has adopted to ensure the provenance of produce is wide open to fraud, and as the EU becomes ever larger it expands into countries where fraud and corruption are a simple fact of life. Under our previous system in the UK, where food was regularly tested and inspected, the substitution of horse for beef would have been quickly detected.

It is depressing to note that many of our own British Members of Parliament assumed that our Secretary of State for Agriculture had the authority to act decisively in this matter, when in reality he is as impotent as a bullock or a gelding.