§ Mr. David NicholsonTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what investigation his Department is making of Dutch, Danish and German research programmes into testing for food safety to ensure that the United Kingdom based food processing and production industry does not suffer adversely from foreign competition following the closure of the Bristol laboratory of the Institute of Food Research.
§ Mr. MacleanThe United Kingdom has initiated a major European concerted activity relating to food safety, on, "Predictive Growth and Survival of Micro-organisms in Foods", which is to be supported under the European Commission's FLAIR programme and will be operational in 1990. This activity will provide an opportunity to draw90W on all relevant European data of benefit to the United Kingdom food processing and production industry and thus protect its competitive position.