Politics: Chocolate wins peer approval

DEFIANT peers have insisted that British milk chocolate should be called just that and not branded according to new European Union rules.

Defending the nation's chocolate, which often contains less cocoa than Continental products, and more milk, a House of Lords committee rejected the argument that British milk chocolate is inferior.

And, though a compromised EU chocolate directive put forward by the European Commission was welcomed, the peers said it did not go far enough.

The committee's report concludes that "milk chocolate must be called just that and not branded 'milk chocolate with a high milk content'."

It calls for further reform to end remaining discrimination against British and Irish chocolate - made with more milk and less cocoa than the continental version. Under the commission's proposals, British and Irish chocolate will be allowed to be sold as "milk chocolate" in the UK. But the peers called for an end to the directive's "misleading translations" for chocolate sold abroad, such as "household milk chocolate" which, they claim, "discriminates against UK products".