UK govt response to horsemeat crisis slammed
The MPs criticised the way the government and the Food Standards Agency had dealt with the crisis.
LONDON (Agencies) - UK government s response to the horsemeat scandal has been criticised as "flat-footed" by a group of MPs, British media reported on Thursday.
They have called for greater testing of products to reassure people there is not a threat to human health.
The Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee also said that if criminals were illegally passing off horsemeat as beef they were unlikely to be applying adequate hygiene standards.
Ministers insist there is no evidence of a risk to health.
The committee said the public appeared to have been "cynically and systematically duped" for financial gain by parts of the food industry.
It said in a report: "It seems improbable that individuals prepared to pass horsemeat off as beef illegally are applying the high hygiene standards rightly required in the food production industry.
The MPs criticised the way the government and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) had dealt with the crisis since horsemeat was discovered in some supermarket beef products last month.
They said: "Whilst ministers are properly responsible for policy, the FSA s diminished role has led to a lack of clarity about where responsibility lies, and this has weakened the UK s ability to identify and respond to food standards concerns.
"Furthermore the current contamination crisis has caught the FSA and government flat-footed and unable to respond effectively within structures designed primarily to respond to threats to human health."
The committee called for the FSA to be given statutory powers to force producers to carry out testing.
Committee chairman Anne McIntosh said the scale of contamination in the food chain was "breathtaking".
Last year, the committee called on the government to set out plans to prevent illegal meat imports.
It said then: "The agriculture minister s evidence suggested that it was inevitable that that wrongly labelled or unlawful meat products would be importing into the UK to replace UK produced [banned] desinewed meat."
Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said the report was a reflection of government cuts at the FSA.
A Defra spokesman said: "We have been working urgently with food businesses, police and authorities across Europe to get to the bottom of this unacceptable situation.
