‘We’ve a right to our own bangers’

A CONSERVATIVE MP has demanded changes to the law on food labelling, claiming it is the nation’s right to eat plain British bangers “stuffed full of bread” instead of garlic filled foreign sausages.

Jacob Rees-Mogg told the House of Commons yesterday that when he is back in his North East Somerset constituency he wants to know that his meat really is from “God’s own county”.

Food is often stamped “produced in Britain” but the meat contained in products such as pork pies or ready meals could be from overseas and simply assembled in this country, a practice Mr Rees-Mogg wants stopped.

His demands also extended to protecting Yorkshire puddings, which he said the “continentals” would have “no clue” how to make.

Mr Rees-Mogg told MPs he would “not like a German sausage at all – they are much too spicy and flavoured for my taste”.

He said: “We want our right to eat our sausages stuffed full of bread and things like that, because when they are, they taste nice. We do not want all this garlic and stuff that we get in foreign sausages.

“We really need to know that information, so that we can get the food that we want, like and love – ideally the food from Somerset, where the grass is of particularly high quality.

“Those who understand the digestion of cattle will realise that if the grass has the right flavour, and the water that falls is the best-quality rain, only to be found in Somerset, the meat and its marbling develops in a particular way.

“When one looks at a piece of meat in a farm shop, like the farm shop that I used to live next door to, it has a quality that makes one look forward to one’s Sunday lunch with some Yorkshire pudding – I know that is not meat, but it would be most upsetting to think that one’s Yorkshire pudding came from the continentals.

“I am sure that they have no clue how to make it.”

The Tory MP, elected last May, also called for canine products to also be more clearly labelled “so that the great dogs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not mistakenly consume foreign-produced dog food”.

During the Commons debate Mr Rees-Mogg also said he had discussed whether Christians could eat halal meat – from animals slaughtered by a single cut to the throat in accordance with Islamic law – with the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Right Reverend Peter Price.

The issue was raised with him by Canon John Baker, of Midsomer Norton, who feared it would be in breach of a Christian’s obligations, as set out in the Acts of the Apostles, to eat food blessed in honour of gods.

Mr Rees-Mogg said: “Members will be reassured to know, when they buy their meat, that whether it is halal or not, labelled or not, it is still perfectly legitimate to eat.”

Environment minister Richard Benyon said the Government was working with Europe to change labelling rules.