madam president i would echo many of the comments of my scottish colleague albeit not group colleague george lyon
there is much in this report to admire and a couple of things where i think we could do a little better
we have brought forward a number of points and i will focus on two of them only
i and others believe that our consumers want to know where their food comes from
we believe that the provision of that information should be compulsory so amendment four on precisely that point replaces some rather weak wording with a much stronger requirement that where we can actually have information on place of farming labelling it should be compulsory because that is what our consumers want to see
i would also pick up on amendment three as my colleague did which deletes the attempt to reintroduce cumbersome and unworkable rules on the direct sale of fruit and vegetables to the consumer
we agreed only last year to repeal those rules and while the consumers have not noticed much of a difference our producers have noticed and still notice
any attempt to bring those rules back would essentially be another stick for the processors the multiples and the supermarkets to beat the producers with and the consumers would not benefit directly
so there is much in this report to like
i would echo mr lyon's comments on the eu logo
i think that is more to do with the ambitions of this building rather than what our consumers want
if it does not resonate with the consumers we should not do it and we should replace it with a compulsory origin labelling scheme which is what our consumers want
the amendments are constructive i hope they will be successful and that colleagues will support them tomorrow
