| Cocoa and Chocolate
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Mr. Hugh Bayley (City of York): I warmly welcome the Minister's robust statement about the Government's decision to stick up for the British product and Britain's ability to market its products throughout the European Union. I also welcome the Opposition's support for that approach. I wish to keep alive that sense of common purpose, but I also wish to point out that Labour Members have an obligation to carry on talking to socialist members of the European Parliament who have not supported our position. Equally, Conservative Members have an obligation to talk to European People's party members who voted against the interests of diversity and the British product. I note in passing that the Conservative party made no input in the European People's party group meeting that discussed its position before the debate in the European Parliament. I do not know the reason for that, but we must all continue to try to change attitudes, which would be good for our product and good for European parliamentarians. I stress that because the anti-UK, Irish, Scandinavian, Austrian, Portuguese position that was taken in the European Parliament was by a very narrow majority and could be overturned if we could get a few of our colleagues in the different political groups to see sense. One of the arguments deployed by the continental countries which favour the cocoa butter-only recipe, which has had some influence in the European Parliament, is the false argument that banning the use of vegetable oils other than cocoa butter, which is, of course, itself a vegetable oil, will improve prospects for third world farmers' cocoa. The consumption of cocoa in the European Union has doubled in the past 15 or 16 years. In 1980 the EU imported 542,000 tonnes and by 1994, the same EU states imported 1.1 billion tonnes. The EU cocoa market has therefore increased substantially and the vast majority of that increase has not been the consumption of chocolate blocks but chocolate-filled products. They are called ``count lines'' in the trade--I must be careful to select products manufactured by a number of companies--such as Aero bars, KitKats and Mars bars. Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak): Flake. Mr. Bayley: I was about to say Cadbury's Flake, but it is not a chocolate-filled product. My hon. Friend the Minister made an important point about Flake and Aero, which is made in York. Such products could not be manufactured if the continental recipe were imposed on the UK because the chocolate used is much more brittle than a cocoa butter-only product. The Flake would not be flaky and the Aero would not retain its bubbles. People must have variety and choice, so we must retain our recipes. Resistance is coming from European manufacturers because the UK-style snack products are selling more and more strongly throughout Europe and they are frightened of losing their market share. There is a simple answer to the continental chocolate manufacturers. They can carry on making their high-quality Belgian chocolates but they can also start making count line products. There will then be more variety for the public. The argument that cocoa farmers would gain from disallowing cocoa butter substitutes is wrong because it is the very manufacturers who use substitutes who are increasing the demand for cocoa and providing opportunities for cocoa farmers. There is another factor, which I hope my hon. Friend will take into account and argue at the Council if the third world dimension becomes an issue. The cocoa butter equivalent vegetable oils and the cocoa butter improver vegetable oils, which are used in products such as Flake and Aero, come from poor developing countries. The principal component of those alternative or additional tropical vegetable oils is shea oil which comes from a nut. The vast bulk of shea oil production in the world comes from two of the poorest countries in Africa--Burkina Faso and Mali. The people involved in that production would be left destitute if there were no market for incorporating small quantities of those oils in chocolate products in the many European Union countries that traditionally have used them. If we want to help the poorest of the poor in developing countries, we should be especially concerned about shea oil. In some cases, cocoa is farmed by small farmers, especially in west Africa, but it is also farmed on huge plantations in Malaysia, Brazil, and Cote d'Ivoire. However, shea oil is not produced on farms; it is a wild product which is collected usually by women who are too poor to own, or farm, land in Burkina Faso and Mali. They are living absolutely on the margins of poverty. If the market for their product were to disappear, there would be serious development consequences. That point must be made in the Council if the false argument that the proposal is good for third-world cocoa producers becomes an issue, which, I suspect, it will not. Although that argument was deployed in the European Parliament, its basis is, in fact, poor because of the growth in consumption of cocoa and, therefore, the increased market available to cocoa producers. Ministers may be slightly better informed than some European parliamentarians.
11.35 amMr. John Swinney (North Tayside): First, I should make it clear that I support the Government in their aim of strengthening the position of this country's chocolate industry under the draft directive. I feel a bit of a fraud speaking here. Someone from one of the local newspapers in my constituency phoned me to find out my new year's resolution. I said that it was to try to temper my voracious appetite for chocolate. However, I could not attend the Committee without saying a few words in defence of the industry. One of the most important points, which the Minister accepts, that emerged during questions to the Minister, is the need to recognise diversity in pursuing European legislation. When we try to secure a single market for a product, we do not mean a single market for a particular aspect of that product or one definition of it. Obviously, diversity must be tempered with an assessment of quality. The Minister was right to argue that we all have different definitions of quality, some of which will be moderated by scientific advice among other matters. However, the industry in this country is entitled to be treated fairly in the consideration of the quality of its product. I encourage the Minister to argue as strongly and as positively as he can to enable producers to take responsibility for designing, labelling and promoting the products that they are trying to sell. Our industry has nothing to fear; it can create a positive and assertive marketing strategy to secure the sale of its product. We must leave the responsibility for determining the best way to do that in the hands of producers. They must also determine how to convey the information that consumers are entitled to receive about the nature and charateristics of a product.
11.37 amDr. Rudi Vis (Finchley and Golders Green): The documents were sent to us rather early, so I read them in part during the recess, when there was more time to do so. I thought, ``My God, what have we here?'' When one relaxes slightly during the recess, it is possible to think of all sorts of examples of British milk chocolate not being chocolate. I wondered whether a Robin Reliant was an automobile, or whether it should be called something else. If there is to be qualifying terminology, perhaps the term ``new chocolate'' should be used. Such a term worked elsewhere, so why not here? The Government's position, as always, is totally clear. We either retain the current position, about which I shall say more later, or we maintain the status quo plus additional aspects, such as a free single market in milk chocolate. I believe that we should go a little further than merely retaining the status quo, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said. I am pro-European and I back the European Parliament, which is a wonderful institution, but I would fight it on this issue. I do not know what happened when the Members discussed it--perhaps they had been on a visit to a brewery--but I cannot for the life of me understand how they arrived at such a decision. What we are discussing remains a bit of a mystery to me. There must be a legislative framework backing up the Single European Act 1985, through which we can say that what has been decided is totally contrary to the direction and thought behind the Act. If so, it should not be too difficult to overturn the ideas of the European Parliament. This is a serious issue. As my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley) said, there are employment implications in the United Kingdom--he mentioned the 64,000 people who work in the industry. He also mentioned the ownership of chocolate firms, saying that they were international and multi-national. I thought, ``Hang about, I do not know whether we are talking only about employment, or about ownership and profit.'' Capital flows freely in the European Union, so if British milk chocolate had a dominant position, the rest of the world would product it--it would be made even in Belgium, although it would probably be called something else. I have to make up my mind whether moving from the present position would be good for Britain. If British chocolate becomes dominant and consumers like it better than totally cocoa-produced chocolate, it will be made elsewhere, which will create new competition. We cannot resist international technical transfers; British chocolate can be produced anywhere in the world. My hon. Friend the Member for City of York also mentioned cocoa-exporting countries, some of which are poor. That is bad, and perhaps aid should be given, but we should not keep eating the same chocolate just because countries that export cocoa are poor. My hon. Friend said that if we did not eat the chocolate that we are used to, but ate new types of chocolate, people in those countries would not have work. I do not agree. We should give aid in different ways and finance agricultural diversification. Those countries should have no say in the kind of chocolate we produce and eat.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 1998 | Prepared 14 January 1998 |
