MPs call for action over desinewed meat
MPs have called on the government to speed up action to lift the ban on producing desinewed meat.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee said UK firms have, since April 2012, not been allowed to produce desinewed beef and lamb, which is similar to minced meat, because of a legal disagreement between DEFRA and the European Commission.
Committee chairman Anne McIntosh said: “This supposedly temporary ban has been in place for 18 months with no prospect of it being lifted urgently. British producers have been left in legal limbo with jobs lost, meat wasted and prices pushed up as a result of the ban.
“We need much more urgency from the government in ending this unnecessary moratorium that they themselves do not think right.”
The EFRA committee said DEFRA secretary Owen Paterson had confirmed to the group that the UK government also considered the ban “temporary”, and did “not agree with the EU interpretation of legislation” on desinewed meat.
Mr Paterson had said: “There is no evidence of an increased risk to human health from eating meat produced from the DSM production process”.