§ Mr. BarkerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether multiple pesticide residues on food produced with agro-chemicals are covered by testing procedures; and what steps the Government are taking to ensure that foods possibly containing such multiple residues are safe for consumers. [46624]
§ Mr. MorleyThe Government's annual programme of residues testing in food generates results for about 90,000 pesticide/commodity food combinations. This includes an assessment of the number of multi-residues that may be present.
The potential health implications of multi-residues in food has been examined by The Advisory Committee on Pesticides in the past. The Committee concluded (on the basis of the evidence available at the time) that at the very low levels at which they occur, pesticide residues were unlikely to act synergistically. However, the issue remains under review and the Food Standards Agency has asked the Committee on Toxicity of chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) to look again at this issue sometimes known as the 'cocktail effect'. A working group of the COT (known as the Working Group on Risk Assessment of Mixtures of Pesticides (WIGRAMP) is working on this and has recently published its draft findings.
285WWe will be working closely with the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the Independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) and the Veterinary Products Committee (VPC) to take forward the COT's recommendations as soon as they are finalised.