HC Deb 15 December 1994 vol 251 cc788-9W
Mr. Tyler

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the number of meetings held, the secretarial and advisory arrangements, the budgeted and actual expenditure and the subjects of the reports and submissions produced by the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee in each of the last three years.

Mrs. Browning

The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee has held three meetings each year since 1992. The secretariat is provided by this Department and the Department of Health. The budget for the SEAC is shared between MAFF and DH but the DH provision is not separately identified within an overall committee budget. Overall expenditure by the two Departments in the past three years was:

  • 1992—£9,271
  • 1993—£6,995
  • 1994—£7,089

The committee regularly provides advice to Ministers, and where appropriate, this is put in the public domain, as in the reply given to the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) on 30 June 1994, Official Report, columns 657–58. SEAC produced an interim report in 1992 which has been placed in the House Library, on research into transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. A further report is in preparation.