Bone-in ban stays

13 February 1998

Bone-in ban stays

OPPOSITION parties failed to overthrow the bone-in beef ban on Tuesday night, with the government securing a comfortable majority of 116 in the vote.

Lib-Dem and Conservative MPs joined forces to denounce the ban, introduced late last year. The risks to human health associated with beef-on-the-bone were so remote that the public should have been informed and then left to decide for themselves what action to take, the politicians insisted.

Farm minister Jack Cunningham, although obliged by a three line whip to vote on the motion, was not present during the debate. Instead, he spent the evening in the members smoking room, leaving junior farm minister, Jeff Rooker, to present the governments case.