§ Mr. Shersbyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish in the Official Report, in tabular form, details of all food research projects currently being sponsored by his Department giving details of the amount being spent on each project, the location at which the work is being undertaken and the name of the principal researchers involved.
§ Mr. JoplingThe number of food research projects commissioned by my Ministry is of the order of several hundreds. Compilation of the comprehensive details requested requires the expenditure of considerable resources. Furthermore, many of the projects for the current financial year have not yet been finalised so that for these projects, all of the required information is not yet available.
In the meantime, I have arranged for the Commission review report on food safety, containing (in appendix 2) the national programme of food research and development, published in 1985, to be placed in the Library of the House. This contains much of the information requested for the years 1984–85. We expect to publish the revised programme updated for the year 1986–87 later this year.