§ Mr. Breedto ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to her Answers on 29 October (76252, 76253 and 76254), if she will place the correspondence to and from her Department and the United States Department of Agriculture and organic certifiers relating to UK organic standards and the US National Organic Plan in the Library. [79116]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 5 November 2002]: I have today placed in the Library the following correspondence between the Department and the US Department of Agriculture—
A letter dated 4 December 2001 from James Hughes, First Secretary (Agriculture and Trade Policy) at the British Embassy in Washington, to Mr. A J Yates acting Administrator of the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service formally applying for recognition of the UK's approved certifiers of organic food. (The documents enclosed with this letter can be found on the Departments website at http://defraweb/farm/organic/default.htm)A letter dated 8 January 2002 from the Richard H Mathews, Programme Manager for the National Organic Programme, acknowledging Mr. Hughes' letter,A letter dated 21 October 2002 from Mr. Yates to Alex Dasi-Sutton acting Secretary of UKROFS confirming that the USDA has determined the UKROFS' procedures for approving organic inspection bodies to be sufficient to secure conformity with the NOP.We are discussing with the UK organic inspection bodies how best to deal with the conditions set out in Mr. Yates letter of 21 October and will be sending a substantive reply to this letter shortly.
I have also placed in the Library letters dated 5 September and 25 September 2002 to UK importers of organic produce and UK inspection bodies confirming that sufficient assurances had been received from the principal inspection bodies in the US to enable authorisation to import produce certified by those bodies to remain in place.