§ Mr. BerryTo ask the Minister of Agriculture Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the applicability of the views attributed to his Department on pages 42 and 43 of "Renewing of Local Government in the English shires" to the future of the trading standards service after the proposed division of Berkshire into six unitary authorities. [24548]
Mrs. BrowingI hold to our views expressed in the Local Government Commission report, but I accept that the issues of enforcement of food law by trading standards officers were not the only issues that the commission had to consider in making its recommendations on local government re-organisation in Berkshire. Now that it has been agreed what form the reorganisation will take, I am considering what advice on this topic it may be necessary for us to give to the successor authorities.