Food Law Deregulation (Hansard, 23 June 1994)

§ 2. Mr. Brandreth
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations she has received concerning the food law deregulation plan; and if she will make a statement.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nicholas Soames)
Officials in my Department have received a wide range of representations from industry, consumer and enforcement interests regarding the food law deregulation plan.

§ Mr. Brandreth
Will my hon. Friend confirm that the central purpose of the plan is to protect and inform the British consumer and, at the same time, to ensure that British producers and manufacturers are not disadvantaged by unfair practices?

§ Mr. Soames
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who gives the exact extent and nature of the plan, which is to ensure that regulation and enforcement are sensible and pragmatic, and in direct proportion to the risks involved without compromising essential public health standards. My hon. Friend is also right to mention the great importance of not allowing business to be swamped with entirely unnecessary, overweening and over-arching bureaucracy.

§ Mr. Flynn
Is the Minister aware that, as part of the relaxation of regulations, a genetically engineered virus which is contaminated with scorpion venom is to be released in a wood in Oxford to improve the growth of cabbages by attacking moths that feed on them? That experiment has greatly upset the Butterfly Conservation Society, which believes that the virus will spread to butterflies. Would not it be safer and more sensible for an experiment to be carried out in which the scorpion venom was fed to members of the Cabinet? Even if that experiment failed, the country might benefit greatly.

§ Mr. Soames
I have always considered the hon. Gentleman the first genetically modified organism I ever saw. We would never want to do anything to harm butterflies, let alone their societies.
On a more serious note, the hon. Gentleman should be aware that our rules governing experiments to do with genetic engineering of any sort are probably the strictest in the world. The public can have supreme confidence not only in our regulations but in the fact that they are extremely vigorously enforced.