MP backs traditional Sunday lunch

30 July 1997

MP backs traditional Sunday lunch

A TORY MP today pressed the case for the traditional Sunday lunch of “red meat and two veg against what he warned was an increasing tendency to dine on convenience foods.

Calling for an end to party politics over attempts to end the EUs worldwide ban on British beef, Peter Temple-Morris (Leominster) told the Commons that in general “we are all in this together and must do the best for our farmers to get the ban lifted.”

But, he went on, “The overall problem here goes beyond BSE; its a matter of the consumption of red meat in general and beef in particular.”

Pointing out that the European market for beef was probably in a worse state than in Britain, Mr Temple-Morris declared: “We are dealing with
the declining consumption of red meat and this goes right across the EU.

“We are dealing with the decline of the family meal, the great Sunday lunch I continue to enjoy in a personal capacity. Good British beef will always sit on the Temple-Morris table,” he said.

He told MPs: “We are dealing here with, I shudder to say, convenience foods as much as we are with beef.

“We are dealing with chicken meat and its associated flavourings and all the rest of the sad gastronomic par which all too many people across Europe appear to be tempted into.”

Finlay Marshall, PA News