§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the composition of the Comite Européen des Normes by nationality to give the names and backgrounds of the British members.
§ Mr. McLoughlinThe Comite Europeen de Normalisation—CEN—consists of the national standards organisations of the 17 countries of the European economic area and Switzerland. The United Kingdom member is the British Standards Institution—BSI—which was founded in 1901 and is an independent body incorporated under royal charter.
The United Kingdom delegation to the CEN General Assembly is led by the director and general manager of BSI Standards and normally comprises appropriate BSI staff, together with representatives of industrial and other economic interests. The BSI divisional director, Standards International represents the organisation on the CEN technical board which is responsible for overall control of the CEN technical programme. The United Kingdom delegation to each of the seven CEN sector technical boards usually comprises two representatives from the sector together with a member of the BSI staff. CEN prepares individual standards in technical committees. The United Kingdom representatives on these committees are usually experts from industry: they are appointed by the relevant BSI committees and are accompanied when appropriate by BSI staff.