§ 27. Mr. McFallTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on his responsibilities for research into food safety.
Mr. JacksonThe Department is responsible, through the science budget, for funding research by the research
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Thousands 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 Secondary school pupils over school leaving age 278 261 245 235 Full-time and sandwich students (full-equivalents) in maintained further education colleges 327 320 309 300 councils. This includes work relevant to food safety undertaken by the Agricultural and Food Research Council and the Medical Research Council.
§ 72. Sir David PriceTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has any plans to direct that the research councils increase research into the cleanliness and safety of foods for human consumption in the light of current public concern.
Mr. JacksonNo: the total resources available for science are distributed taking into account the needs of individual institutions and programmes, but that distribution is not determined by my Department. It is for councils to determine their expenditure on particular areas of research. However the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food does commission a considerable volume of research with the Agricultural and Food Research Council, a significant proportion of which is related specifically to food safety.