§ 6. Mr. C. Johnsonasked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science whether he will take steps to establish an institute of human nutrition in this country.
§ Mr. Denzil FreethNo, Sir. The Medical Research Council already has five establishments engaged almost entirely on nutritional research, and other researches with a bearing on nutrition are pursued elsewhere by the Council, at institutes of the Agricultural Research Council, and by the other organisations including industrial research associations supported by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
§ Mr. JohnsonIs the Parliamentary Secretary aware that at the International Congress on Food, Science and Technology held recently in London it was stressed that an institute for human nutrition was long overdue in Britain and in those circumstances will he reconsider his reply?
§ Mr. FreethAt present my noble Friend's scientific advisers believe that better results will he obtained under our present system than by having a single centralised institute. Of course, this is always under review, as are similar matters.
§ Sir J. MaitlandDid my hon. Friend include Rothamsted in the list of institutes to which he referred? Is he aware that most valuable work has been carried out there in research into the production of proteins from vegetables and that one of the chief causes of undernourishment in the world is lack of protein?
§ Mr. FreethI am aware of that. I did mention the institutes of the Agricultural Research Council, and the excellent work on producing protein from vegetable matter at the Institute to which my hon. Friend referred was in my mind.