Owen Paterson: GM food "is not a strange, new, spooky innovation"

 

Food businesses must take steps to reassure consumers, says Owen Paterson

There may be more bad news on false food labelling, warns Owen Paterson

Owen Paterson insists he would feed a beef lasagne to his family but faces tough questioning over horsemeat scandal

Tracey Crouch MP says "significant minority" of Tory MPs oppose repeal of fox hunting ban

Ms Crouch was speaking after Owen Paterson had told The Telegraph that any repeal would be unlikely to succeed in any House of Commons vote.

Listen again to Tories on Radio 4's Today programme

ConservativeHome's new regular selection of recent Tory appearances on Radio 4's Today programme.

(1) On Thursday 19th August Universities minister, David Willetts, talked to Evan Davis about this year's A level results and the merits of making it harder for people to achieve high-end grades (4 minutes, 6 seconds).

(2) On Friday 20th August Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson talked to Jim Naughtie about dissident Irish terrorist groups and insisted that the government will not engage with them until they end violence (interview starts at 2 minutes, 55 seconds in the 10 minutes, 38 seconds feature). He also talked more generally about Coalition policy in the province.

(3) On Saturday 21st August Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome talked to Jim Naughtie about Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reform agenda. Tim's contribution is followed by an interview with former Labour Cabinet minister David Blunkett (8 minutes, 44 seconds).

(4) On Monday 23rd August Local Government Minister Bob Neill explains why Eric Pickles decided to close the high-spending Audit Commission (Mr Neill starts speaking at 4 minutes, 46 seconds in to this 12 minutes, 6 seconds package).

(5) On Wednesday 25th August the Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mark Hoban defended the fairness of the Budget during an interview with Justin Webb (4 minutes, 29 seconds).

(6) On Friday 27th August Education Secretary Michael Gove said that banding by ability "has a role to play" in schools in England after Barnardo's called for schools to be required to take pupils from a range of academic abilities.

(6) On Saturday 28th August International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell discussed whether the UK's international aid effort strikes the right balance between prevention of crises and the alleviation of their effects. (2 minutes and 10 seconds into the audio)