§ Mr. DalyellTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the implications for(a) agricultural research and (b) fisheries related research of reductions in the Heteroptera section of the natural history museum.
§ Mr. MacleanThe Departments' central science laboratory has expertise in entomology and is involved in the identification of storage pests, plant pests and beneficial insects. For this purpose, reference collections of insects are essential and those at the natural history museum are used periodically by visiting MAFF staff. We do not expect the planned changes at the natural history museum to affect our use of these collections. The Heteroptera section of the museum has no practical relevance to the fisheries interests of the Department.