§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will make a statement on the accountability provisions to national Parliaments to be510W included in the Codex Alimentarius Commission to be established under the general agreement on tariffs and trade.
§ Mr. SoamesThe codex alimentarius is a set of world food standards that have been developed over the past 30 years, designed both to protect consumers and to facilitate world trade in foodstuffs. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, which is the Food and Agriculture Organisation—World Health Organisation joint food standards programme, is an intergovernmental body and thus the decisions reached by it are those reached by Governments. GATT will bring with it a subsidiary agreement—the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement—whereby the international standards agreed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in the food area will be regarded as the international norm in cases of trade disputes that come forward for adjudication under the GATT procedure.