§ Captain Kerbyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what experiments have been conducted to ascertain whether or not plants are able to synthesise fluoroacetates when foreign fluorides are added to water.
§ Mr. Scott-HopkinsI understand that Sir Rudolph Peters has undertaken some work on grasses which indicates that they do not perform this synthesis. I am not aware of any other experiments. As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) on 11th March, any plant capable of synthesising organo-fluorine compounds would already obtain fluoride from water supplies naturally containing it, from fertilisers or from the soil, and thus the existence of any such plant in this country can be expected to have become apparent long before now.