We acknowledge that there may be an expectation that the House of Commons should be buying British wherever possible, but as a contracting authority as specified in the European Parliament and Council Directive, we are subject to EU Public Sector Procurement directives. It is therefore impossible for us to demand that we wish to buy only British products simply on the merits of origin and must instead ensure that our specifications at tender stage, and ultimately our decision to award a contract, does not discriminate against products or supplies from other EU member states.<\/p>
The vast majority of fresh products purchased by Catering are in fact British \u2013 meat, poultry, dairy, eggs and most fruit and vegetables (when in season) are sourced from within the UK. We demand that UK or equivalent standards of welfare and/or production must be met as this is a consideration of quality rather than origin. UK standards on the whole are easy to follow, robust, commonly accepted and enforced across each sector.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/151", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Tom Brake"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Carshalton and Wallington"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Tom Brake"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2018-12-13", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "previousAnswerVersion" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1019379/answer/previousversion/90662", "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/151", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Tom Brake"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Carshalton and Wallington"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Tom Brake"} } , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2018-12-13T12:12:12.837Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "18"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "House of Commons Commission"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "House of Commons Commission"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2018-12-03", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "House of Commons: Food"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, representing the House of Commons Commission, pursuant to his oral contribution answer of 29 November 2018, Official Report, column 403, what practical problems prevent the implementation of a buy British policy.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/318", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for John Spellar"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Warley"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "John Spellar"} ], "uin" : "198174"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 1, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }