§ Mr. Ron DaviesTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he proposes to implement the European directive on nutrition labelling; and what new nutritional information will be available to British consumers.
§ Mr. MacleanThe provisions of the directive are broadly similar to the United Kingdom nutritional labelling guidelines issued in 1987 and the directive's main impact will, therefore, be to give further impetus to the provision of nutrition information on food labels which will be of great benefit to consumers.
I am encouraging manufacturers and retailers to adopt the main provisions of the new directive at once and in particular to give full nutritional information, at least energy, protein, carbohydrate, sugars, fat, saturates, fibre and sodium. Some changes to the Food Labeling Regulations will be needed to achieve full implementation and draft amending regulations will be published for comment as soon as possible.