§ 29. Mr. Hillasked the Minister for Trade if Her Majesty's Government will support the proposals now before the Council of Ministers of the European Communities to establish a European system for testing imports from the rest of the world to Europe to make certain that they comply with laws on safety, health and environmental and consumer protection.
§ Mr. Peter ReesThe Government support the European Community's programme of harmonisation of laws and regulations that are intended to protect health, the environment and the consumer. The programme, under article 100 of the EEC treaty, provides common testing and certification procedures with which products from within and outside the Community must comply before they can be placed on the market. The programme is about half-way complete, and the Government hopes that recent Commission ideas on the treatment of products from outside the Community will lead to agreement on how it can progress.