14/10/2013 Inside Out London

Hello there. I'm Matthew Wright. You're watching Inside Out London.

Here's what's coming up tonight: We go under cover to expose

discrimination in London's housing market. 99% of my landlords don't

want afro Caribbean. Thought why should he discriminate me for not

having a place because of the colour of my skin? And in a food special,

we ask: How confident can we be about the food that we eat? Could

there be another horsemeat scandal? Who is looking after our food? Can

we be certain our food does what it says on the tin?

And how effective is the ban on battery farmed eggs? We are not

allowed to prevent eggs or egg products coming into the European

Union from countries which still use the conventional battery cage

system. It's hard to believe that just a few

decades ago signs declaring no blacks, no dogs, no Irish were used

to discriminate against potential tenants here in the capital. 50

years of race relations and equality laws are supposed to have done away

with all that. Tonight, in an under cover investigation, Inside Out

exposes the letting agents prepared to select tenants on the basis of

the colour of their skin. From above, you'd never know it was

happening. But something is going very wrong in parts of London's

letting market. 99% of my landlords don't want afro Caribbean. 45 years

after the UK first banned discrimination in housing... I

thought why should he discriminate me because of the colour of my skin?

Tonight we expose the letting agents willing to turn away tenants on

behalf of landlords. So if they're afro Caribbean, they won't be

allowed to come and view the properties. Disgraceful. It is

unlawful. And they need driving out. Jumjee and Wayne have found a flat

now, but it was a struggle. What got in the way was something many

thought you'd never see in London 2013 ` letting agents preventing

them seeing flats for no other reasons, they say, other than their

colour. You ask why and why is it still in the window, and they'll

make up any reason. They'll say yes, it's because someone's taken it. But

then it's advertised in the window. You are told certain things and then

you see that there's a different reaction to other customers. That's

when you realise oh, maybe there's something different going on here.

Their experience is mirrored by others. A survey by antiracism

charity the Runnymede Trust suggests more than 25% of black people they

asked feel they've been discriminated against in private

housing. But the problem with proving this discrimination is that

it can leave virtually no trace. Even if you thought it was going on,

you'd struggle to say for sure. But lawyers, landlords, letting agents

had all told us that it was happening and that in certain parts

of London, it was rife. We've got Deane and Jo on board. As far as a

landlord is concerned, the only difference between them is their

colour and ethnic background. We've discovered numerous agents who say

they're prepared to select tenants bitch race on behalf

tenants by race on behalf of landlords. This is a flat we're

going to put on the market. It's got three bedrooms, up to data plienss

`` appliances and a great London location. The only thing it needs

now is a tenant. We're under cover and have invited

agents to give us a market assessment. How much do you think I

could get? 650 a week. Not just from any agencies, but from ten who've

already told us they're prepared to discriminate for a landlord. I

wanted to know if it's possible to specify no afro Caribbean, black? We

can't do that. We can't discriminate. Obviously we've got

our ways around us. You don't have to tell us that, because we, like

yourself, 99% of my landlords don't want afro Caribbeans or any

troublesome people. Yeah, that's not a problem. There's nothing wrong

with saying that. Without openly advertising it that no afro

Caribbeans allowed, we would obviously, you know, understand that

it's not available. It's quite shocking really. I think these are

individuals, agents who knows what `` who know what they're doing, who

know what they're doing is wrong, who know that they are breaching the

law. Equally, they know how to get round it. Just listen to how they

say they'll get around it. We don't say no, there and then. We say OK,

we'll have to come back to you. Then we don't call them back. When

somebody comes in, we won't advise them of the property being

available. If they know about it, we say somebody's taken it We make an

excuse that a colleague has taken someone on a viewing, or it's under

offer. We asked the agents why they were prepared to break the law. We

got no response. In the 1940s and 50s, black people faced open

discrimination and hostility. Waves of immigrants arrived from the

Caribbean. And Britain saw some of its worst race riots in Notting

Hill. Discrimination was blatant in housing. Signs on doors stopping

black people from renting flats. The race relations act of 1968 banned

this kind of discrimination. 45 years later, we've discovered it's

still there, but under the radar. What was staggering was the sheer

number of agents who said they'd be prepared to discriminate. The

question ` would they be prepared to do it in rack it tis `` practice

We've put the flat up for rent with two agents, ?450 a week. You're

about to see what happens when Deane and Jo try to get a viewing. Jo

tries national estate agents in Willesden. I would like to arrange a

viewing for a property. Tuesday? Is that OK? Fine, yeah. Are you able to

meet us at the property? Perfect. Jo has a viewing. Now it's Deane's

turn. Remember ` same property, definitely still available. I saw an

advert for one of your properties. I'm afraid that's gone. It's gone?

Yeah. Do you know if there's going to be any viewings at all, anything

happening at all in the future? No, no, it's gone, mate. Just gone, all

right then. I thought, why should he discriminate me for not having a

place because of the colour of my skin. I left there angry. The next

agent, A to Z, Deane is first. He's promised a call on Monday. Surprise,

surprise, no call. Remember this... We don't say to them no there and

then, we say OK, we'll have to come back to you. Then we don't call them

back. Then he's fobbed off again. I haven't got confirmation. But once I

do, I've got your details. When Jo tries the next morning, it couldn't

be more different. What time do you want to do on Wednesday? What have

you got? I've got 5pm. We showed the footage to Tinchy Stryder, a BRIT

Award winning pop artist, who's worked hard to battle

discrimination. I'm still here trying to think, did I really see

that? They seem so OK about it. They don't feel that they're doing

anything wrong. That's what I'm confused about. Is that the most

shocking thing, the casual? Yeah, that's why I'm in shock. They wasn't

trying to hide it. It's like this is the way it is. I know that maybe

they want to someone like OK what's his background now. Does it all mean

the law isn't working? Don Foster was a Housing Minister until last

week. I was horrified racism, discrimination has no place in

London. We've got firm legislation against it. I think the difficulty

is in some cases there'll be a situation where somebody is refused

a viewing, as you showed, but wouldn't know themselves that they

had been the victim of a racist incident. Go back to the agents who

have marketed our property to try to get some answers. Can I just ask you

if you're aware that it's against the law it agree not to show people

a flat because they're afro Caribbean. Yes, but it's something

that you requested. You'll agroo eto do anything? I don't say I would

agree. Against the law, you are aware of that? Yeah, I understand

that. We have plenty afro Caribbean here, I can show you my files. One

refused to hope the doors when he saw us arrive.

Can I ask you a question please? Could you talk to us, please? Are

you aware it's against the law to agrow not to show someone a flat

because they're afro Caribbean? He's not prepared to answer any

questions. The consequences for society is that this kind of

behaviour takes us back 45, 50 years. If you have every agent in an

area thinking this is normal and accepted practice, then this is

going to be `` to have a direct impact on the community. That is

fundamentally unfair. That feels like we've gone back in time. The

impunity with which agents get away with this under the radar raises

worrying questions. Just two investigations by the property

ombudsman in result of complaints in the last three years, not one

upheld. No investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights

Commission. We've shown how subtle discrimination in London's housing

market in 2013 actually is and most worrying of all, if we found this in

parts of west London, where else? Now still to come tonight: In

Britain, we're very careful to police the welfare of our hens. But

how can we know what conditions they come from when eggs are now a global

business? Earlier this year, when horsemeat

was found in products in our supermarket shelves, it made many of

us question just how confident we are that what we're eating really is

what we think it is. We sent Jay Rayner to find out who's policing

our grub and just how strong our protections against food fraud

really are. Spaghetti bolognese is one of the

nation's favourite dishes. Unsurprisingly so. What could be

better than lovely beef simmered in extra virgin olive oil served over

pasta made with free range eggs. What if the beef is a pony and if

the eggs are captured in a cage and what if the olive oil is less

innocent than it claims? All of these items and many more have been

the subject of food fraud over the past queue years `` few years. How

can we be certain there won't be another horsemeat scandal? How can

we be sure that our food does what it says on the tin? What we've seen

are failings in the system with more fraud and less testing of our food.

And a report just published by the National Audit Office has underlined

the problems. It says the Government failed to spot the possibility of

horse being passed off as beef earlier this year. There's confusion

over the role of the Food Standards Agency, which is in charge of food

regulation. And it says that detection of fraud is falling short

what have we, as consumers, should expect. It's our local Trading

Standards who are the food police on the ground doing the checks. And

drastic cuts to their budgets are putting the whole system of

detecting food fraud at risk. I'm going to take these and do some

checks on these. To understand the challenges Trading Standards face,

I'm spending the day with food enforcement officer Aisha. We're in

Suffolk. Is the packaging only four grams on these? I thought it was 12

Graemes. `` grams. The consumer needs to know what they're getting.

This is a discrepancy between weights. It says it's 200 grams and

220 grams. It looks like an oversight. Buff they have to get it

right so the consumer knows what they're getting. The team have had

two successful prosecutions recently. They found out consumers

were being ripped off by companies selling jam and sauce which didn't

contain what they claim on the label. Across England, there are now

fewer officers like them on the hunt for dodgy food. Against this,

reports of fraud are rising. The first six month of this year, 812

incidents of food fraud have been reported to the Food Standards

Agency. That's an increase of a third over this time last year.

Trading Standards are also reported an increase. Yet, their budgets

nationally are reckoned to be down a third and the number of samples

they're sending for testing are down by almost a quarter. We'll see the

picture that in some cases, throughout the UK, we'll have no

Trading Standards service in three years. Recessions make fraud more

attractive. Officers on the ground are very busy and so is the food

Standards Agency. It's in overall charge of our food safety. Their

fraud branch has never been busier. The FSA has been repeatedly

criticised as being not fit for purpose. It was accused of acting

too slowly during the horsemeat scandal. Is the current system tough

enough? Let's put these things in perspective in relation to

horsemeat. In the prior year there were over 90,000 samples collected.

There were over 20,000 authenticity tests. 8,000 of those on meat

products. There have been several areas we've been targeting for a

number of years. It wasn't necessary lip in the public conscious ``

necessarily in the public consciousness. A former head of

authenticity at the Food Standards Agency told us we are now less well

erequest independent to uncover fraud. Dr Mark Woolfe spent nine

years in charge. He believes budget cuts are undermining the system. The

FSA rely on local authorities' results. Local authorities now are

under financial pressure and therefore, the amount of sampling

that they're doing has been quite severely reduced. I think the whole

system is really quite severely weakened. It's clearly challenging

in the current environment for local authorities to do the work they need

to do. Buff the F `` but the FSA has invested considerably more in the

last year to boost resources and efforts. Its clear that the system

is detecting problems. A Food Standards Agency report lists all

the products it thinks could be or have been the subject of fraud. It's

quite a list. Honey, wine, fruit juice, spices, olive oil, but should

all testing be paid for by the public purse? What about the

supermarkets, after all, we buy most of our food from them. Tesco were

one of those found to be selling products containing horsemeat. I've

come to their lab in wham ton to find `` Wolverhampton to find out

what they're doing now. You have thousands of products in Tesco, how

do you decide what to test? We take a balanced view of where the biggest

risk might be that something could go wrong, so we could be telling

consumers that there was chicken in a product, we need to be sure it's

chicken and not Turkey. We have to be sure it's chicken. That's when we

DNA test and do those tests frequently. Since horsemeat was

found in some of the products they were selling, Tesco's say they now

carry out eight times more DN Hoover testing. `` DNA testing. Do you

think something like the horsemeat scandal could happen again? Our sole

objective in giving our customers the best confidence we can in the

products we produce is to ensure that kind of activity, if it were

there, we would catch it. Because the supply chains are shorter, we

understand them better, the testing is stronger than it ever was before,

that fraud should not happen again. While Tesco are confident they've

learned lessons, the rest of the food surveillance system is under

increasing pressure. The big question is: Can it cope? In my view

the horsemeat scandal could happen again. There's always somebody,

particularly in times of austerity, prepared to cut corners. When we're

faced with an inspectorate that is creeking and is fragmented, that's a

perfect opportunity for someone to exploit those conditions and take

money, hard`earned money from consumers' pockets. Whilst the

majority of our food is safe and what it says it is, food fraud is an

established crime. It's all about money. Where there's money to be

made, criminals will be attracted to food fraud. Food is a global ind

strip now. It's complex and hard to police. Making sure it is what it

says it is is very, very tough indeed.

If you're hungry for more discussion on food fraud and food safety, then

why not tune in to the Mark Forrest show right after tonight's

programme. BBC London 94. 9.

Following welfare concerns, battery farming, where hens lay eggs in very

tiny cages, is now a thing of the past in our country. What about food

sourced from abroad ` could we be unwittingly eating eggs from

countries where welfare standards are much lower.

Eggs are one of the staple foods of the British diet. It's estimated we

consume 182 eggs a year each. That's eggs that we fry, boil, poach and

scramble. As well as eggs that are used in everyday food, like quiche

and cakes. Do we all know where our eggs are coming from? Battery

farming was banned in the UK almost two years ago, so we should all be

able to enjoy guilt`free eggs. Battery farming was where hens were

kept in small cages, like these, with very little room to move. The

cages were banned across the European Union, because it was felt

to be cruel. But not every country complied with the rules straight

away. Italy and Greece are now being taken to court by the European

Commission for failing to comply with the battery cage ban.

Compassion in world farming says these pictures were taken in Italy

shortly before the ban came in. Is it possible that battery cage eggs

are still getting through? In Britain, we've been moving towards

more welfare friendly systems of egg production for some time. Eggs from

free`range hens like these, kept on a small farm on the South Downs, now

account for almost half the eggs we buy. A small percentage are organic

or barn eggs, the rest come from enriched cages or colonies, as

they're sometimes known. British farmers were quick to comply with

the new law. Of 120 battery cage farms in the UK, half closed down,

the rest switched production method. Technically, this is an enriched

cage... We went to see Elwyn Griffiths of Oakland farm eggs. His

family business invested money to move to enriched cages. At first

glass they may look like battery cages. Buff Elwyn explain `` but

Elwyn explains why they're different. You can hear them

scratching as they peck on the feed and exact a natural behaviour.

They're on the perches. They can preen. They can do normal

activities. They can interact and move out of the way of one another

and they lay their eggs in the nest box to show a natural function. How

frustrating is it for you, as a farmer, to find that other EU

nations, Italy and Greece, are still not complying with this law? It's

incredibly frustrating. We've made all the investment and we're finding

it's not a level playing field. We can't compete on something that is

actually cheaper to product. Our birds lay a lot of eggs. They eat as

little feed as possible. We market them as efficiently as possible. So

how can someone transport eggs miles across Europe to arrive in the

market here cheaper than our British eggs can get there? Elwyn strong lip

suspects he's being undercut by cheap, illegal imports. Government

inspect ors from the animal health and veterinary laboratories told

Inside Out that they found no evidence of illegally produced eggs

in the UK, despite carrying out thousands of checks. The egg

inspectors examine whole eggs, but it's ease why I to tell where an egg

is still in its shell comes from. It's labelled with the country of

origin and the production method. As soon as you break the egg, it loses

its identity. And many in the egg industry believe

this may be a way that eggs from battery cages could get into UK

foods. You or I when we go into a shop, we can look what type of egg

we want and make our decision. However, when an egg is taken out of

its shell, our concern is that it loses its provenance. You haven't

got the shell, that number on it. Then, of course, that product could

potentially travel into different countries. How can the consumer

avoid eating an egg that might be coming from a battery cage? It's

more difficult when it's one step removed. In other words, when it's

made into a cake or ice`cream or whatever. Then you don't see it. But

then the own us `` onus falls on the food manufacturer to make sure that

the food supply chain is right. Terry Jones is the communications

director for the Food and Drink Federation, which represents a large

section of manufacturers. He says the commission should have done more

to sort out noncompliance in Europe. Manufacturers have done all this

work around specification and traceability, while at the same

time, trying to keep the lights on and trying to keep much loved

British brands on the shelf, but the ultimate responsibility for this has

to rely on the commission. They should have driven the egg producers

much harder in some of these countries. While there are still

some concerns about battery farmed egged from inside the European

Union, what about the rest of the world? Countries like America, for

example, have virtually all of their egg`laying hens in barren battery

cages, in the types of system that we have banned, quite rightly, in

Britain and Europe. Cruel was and is the battery system? The battery cage

system is perhaps the worst of the factory farmed sips Thames. It keep

`` systems. It keeps hens in tiny cages where they can't stretch their

wings even tluchout their lives. It's a barren system and their bones

become so Brittle they can simply snap from under them. Legally, an

egg from outside the European Union doesn't have to comply with EU

welfare legislation at all. Last year, there was an egg shortage in

the UK when the battery cage ban came in. Prices rose sharply, so

what did manufacturers do then? In certain cases, the functional

aspects of egg could be replaced by the product, for instance, in

glazing of products, but it is true to say that manufacturers also

worked with DEFRA to identify and ensure that we could keep the lights

on in factories and in some cases, that meant we needed to go beyond

the EU to find suppliers of egg. Some British manufacturers coped

with the egg shortage by paying higher prices. Others used imports

from outside the European Union. America, Argentina and the Ukraine.

This is a major concern to us here in the United Kingdom, as well as,

my colleagues in other European countries as well. Whilst we have

the highest animal welfare standards in the world, in the UK, and across

Europe, we are not allowed to prevent eggs or egg products coming

into the European Union from countries which still use the

conventional battery cage system. You have to remember, this system

was considered cruel, hence why it was banned at the beginning of last

year. We contacted the major supermarkets and asked them what

they're doing to make sure their food doesn't contain battery caged

eggs? They were all confident that their own brands were compliant and

told us they expected their British manufacturers to comply. When it

came to global brands, we either didn't get an answer or were told

that the manufacturer met legal requirements in their own country.

Every hen in the European Union should be looked after at least as

well as these. Elwyn is confident his birds are content. The hen is

warm. It is dry. It is not got to actually worry about predators. We

protect them. We keep them indoors and the environment is controlled.

They are happy. In Britain, we're very careful to police the welfare

of our hens, but how can we know what conditions they come from when

eggs are now a global business? Well, that's nearly all for this

week. Before we go, let's look at what's coming up on next week's

programme: We investigate why violet crimes against sex workers are going

unpunished. The police aren't focussing on the criminals, who are

raping, killing women. What they're doing is arresting women for being

in prostitution. What they should do is protect those women. We reveal

the secret origins of the humble tin can. The next time you reach into

your cupboard and pull one out, remember, it changed the world. It's

all down to what happened in this corner of south`east London and due

to one very canny engineer. And find out how residents are

inning beforing a touch of Country Life to the heart of Tottenham. We

are getting people to train them into growing their own food and

getting them into gardening, getting them outdoors, getting them fit and

getting this emto eat it as well. That's all from this week's Inside

Out London. If you've missed any of tonight's show, catch up on the

iPlayer. Head to the website: Bbc.co.uk/Inside Out and then just

click on London. Thanks very much for watching. I'll see you next

week. This is your 92nd update.

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