European Standing Committee A
Wednesday 14 January 1998
[Mrs. Marion Roe in the Chair]
Cocoa and Chocolate
10.30 am
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Jeff Rooker): I welcome the opportunity to discuss the new directive on cocoa and chocolate products for human consumption. The European Commission's proposals were published in May 1996 in document 8164/96. They aim to simplify and update the current directive that dates from 1973 and to set out the provisions necessary for the proper operation of a single market for chocolate in the European Community.
The Committee might find it helpful if I give a few background details. The 1973 directive, which, of course, would have been negotiated at that time on the basis of Britain's entry into the European Community, allows the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark to incorporate up to 5 per cent. vegetable fats, other than cocoa butter, in chocolate. That practice is similar to that used in Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Austria, although other member states prohibit the use of vegetable fats by manufacturers.
The directive also provides a derogation allowing the United Kingdom and Ireland to sell in their own countries--but not throughout the Community--milk chocolate that is made with more milk and less cocoa than in the rest of the European Union. However, if such chocolate is exported, it must be called something different and some countries require it to be labelled in what we consider to be a derogatory way, such as ``household milk chocolate''.
It is important that a new directive should respect all the different traditions of chocolate-making in Europe, of which there are many. They should provide maximum choice for consumers. The issue of vegetable fats is also important for the United Kingdom, as small additions of speciality non-cocoa fats have been made by the United Kingdom chocolate industry for 50 years. That is not to enable manufacturers to make cheap and nasty products--just the opposite. Such practice allows for a more diverse range of products with better handling and keeping characteristics of the chocolate, tailored to meet the needs of British consumers.
Furthermore, for more than 90 years in Britain a variety of milk chocolate has been made with a much higher proportion of milk than is used on the continent. It is fairly obvious what that variety of chocolate is--``Cadbury's Dairy Milk''. It has a higher-value formulation and is an important part of the United Kingdom's chocolate-making tradition, and, indeed, some would say our heritage.
The new proposals allow each member state to decide whether to authorise the use of non-cocoa vegetable fats up to a maximum of 5 per cent. provided that the existing minimum percentages of cocoa butter and cocoa solids are met. However, there must be a declaration on the label in addition to the ingredients list that the chocolate contains other vegetable fats. The derogation for the United Kingdom and Irish milk chocolate is retained. All products conforming to the directive are explicitly entitled to free circulation as ``chocolate'' throughout the Community--that is, the single market. With one or two reservations, the Government can support the proposals. Our reservations include double labelling, which we do not consider to be entirely necessary.
Under article 100a, the proposal is subject to co-decision with the European Parliament. After a long delay, the Parliament completed its first reading last October and proposed several amendments, which I must make absolutely clear that the United Kingdom cannot, and will not, accept. In particular, the amendments seek to deny the United Kingdom the right to continue to use the term ``milk chocolate'' for our high-milk product and require a statement about the use of vegetable fats on the front of the product as well as on the ingredients list. That is part of the attempt to use derogatory labelling. We agree--as much as anyone, and more than most--that consumers must be properly informed of the contents. That is the purpose of an ingredients list. We believe that it is for manufacturers to decide where to print such information, but they usually put it all together on the back.
The European Parliament voted to make the coming into force of the directive dependent on the development of a new method of analysis of vegetable fats. In fact, existing methods are no less precise than those for the other ingredients of chocolate. That vote, therefore, has every appearance of being a delaying tactic employed by those who do not wish to see a genuine single market for chocolate and who want to stop British products reaching those parts of the European Union to which they have not hitherto been exported.
The Commission has indicated that it rejects all the European Parliament's amendments, which is wholly in line with Government policy--and, I suspect, with the views of the House of Commons. However, the Commission does not reject those amendments relating to subsidiarity on the use of vegetable fat, which should be up to the country concerned, on the free movement of goods and the protection of consumer interests through proper labelling.
I understand that the Commission will soon publish an amended proposal taking account of the European Parliament's opinion. Frankly, the Government had expected that to be published before today, which would have made our debate more meaningful. Nevertheless, we expect to receive it within days, and we expect there to be relatively few changes.
Apart from making two or three small clarifications to the text, the Commission is likely to propose that chocolate containing non-cocoa vegetable fats should be labelled with a ``conspicuous and legible statement'' in addition to the ingredients list and separate from it. As long as it is there and can be clearly read, its positioning should be left to the manufacturers. I expect all the other amendments proposed by the European Parliament, including the removal of the United Kingdom's milk chocolate derogation, to be rejected by the Commission.
We shall provide the Scrutiny Committee with a further explanatory memorandum as soon as we have the Commission text. Although we remain strongly opposed to double labelling, we shall, as the Presidency, examine the new proposals in a genuinely constructive spirit to see what further compromises may be found.
This is a very emotive subject, and reaching an agreement in Brussels will not be easy. I make it absolutely clear that the Government will not agree to any solution that discriminates against traditional British products or that narrows the effective range of choice of British consumers. We simply will not have it; and we will not support it. However, as the presidency, we shall do our utmost to search for a genuinely inclusive solution, which accommodates all the different chocolate-making traditions in the Community within a fair and genuine single market.
This matter has obviously been debated in the European Parliament, and it was part of the Government's role to brief the United Kingdom's European Members of Parliament. I have made available to the Committee the same brief that we provided to our MEPs. Although it was produced in August, I hope that the information that it contains is helpful. I certainly hope that the Government will have the support of all parties on this matter.
The Chairman: We have until 11.30 am at the latest for questions to the Minister. I remind hon. Members that questions should be brief and should be asked one at a time. There is likely to be ample opportunity for all Members to ask several questions.
Mr. Paice: I am grateful to the Minister for his introductory remarks; indeed, he has already answered some of my questions. He spoke of the European Parliament's series of amendments, which, to the United Kingdom, can only be described as wrecking amendments. He referred specifically to the proposal that the directive would not come into force until a test for vegetable fat had been found. I am grateful for the Minister's assurance that that is not acceptable to Britain, but what was the Commission's response?
Does the Minister know whether such a test is being developed and what sort of time scale is involved? If, despite his best endeavours, the European Parliament amendment were carried and therefore became part of the directive, what would be the status of our current exemption before the new directive came into operation?
Mr. Rooker: That is a wholly fair question. The Commission has commissioned research, which is referred to in paragraph 8 of the brief to MEPs, into methods of checking the amount of vegetable fat in chocolate--although vegetable fat is something of a misnomer because we are talking about only the inclusion of up to 5 per cent. of non-cocoa vegetable fats. The minimum cocoa content of chocolate is 40 per cent., but chocolate includes many other ingredients. The test for checking those other ingredients has not changed and the question of its accuracy is not an issue.
I have looked into that research because it concerns the UK and because the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is co-operating with it. The British end of the research is a collaborative project that is being funded by my Ministry and which is being carried out at the Central Science Laboratory in Norwich. Until it is concluded, we believe that the test is unnecessary because the method of checking for vegetable fats is no different from that of checking for other non-cocoa ingredients.
I am not sure when the research will be finished; there is a problem with end dates for Commission research projects not being given. However, it need not hold up matters. The existing tests are sufficient and until the results of the Commission research into the possibility of more accurate tests are available, we cannot take matters further forward. I believe that the European Commission will reject all the European Parliament's proposals, including our one on the test. However, the Commission went ahead and commissioned research in case a more accurate measure could be found--which would, admittedly, be of benefit in checking the non-cocoa element of chocolate.
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