§ Mr. Oatento ask the Secretary of State for Environment. Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of contingency arrangements to deal with future incidents of(a) flooding, (b) epidemics in farm animals, (c) contamination of food for human or animal (d) interruptions of water supplies and (e) other emergencies; and if she will place copies of the relevant contingency plans in the Library. [4372]
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§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 16 July 2001]The Department has contingency arrangements for response to emergencies affecting its policy responsibilities. These are subject to annual review and report to Ministers. After an emergency or exercise, a lessons learned review is carried out and revisions implemented to arrangements where required. It has not been the practice to make individual plans public because of the inclusion of personal telephone numbers. However we have an overarching plan which sets out the principal requirements for departmental emergency response plans. This is currently being expanded to incorporate the responsibilities of the new Department and the lessons learned from recent emergencies. Once completed I will place a copy in the Library.
DEFRA no longer has responsibility for incidents concerning the contamination of food for human consumption; this is the remit of the Food Standards Agency.