FSA News Item, 22 July 2002
The FSA have decided, as a result of issues raised during the consultation exercise on proposed new Regulation, to consider significant revisions to the Regulations, which require further consultation to resolve. They will therefore be consulting later in the year on a revised draft of the Regulations. Similar action will be taken in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
There is, however, still a need to proceed with implementation of the new European definition of meat in England, which is due to come into force on 1st January 2003. The FSA will therefore be preparing separate legislation to amend the existing Food Labelling Regulations 1996 to do this.
The FSA will not be circulating this in draft for further public consultation, as the new provisions were included in the draft Food Labelling (England) Regulations 2002, on which we have already consulted. They will, however, publish a copy of the final draft of the Regulations as soon as this is ready. Similar action will be taken in Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland will shortly be launching specific consultation exercises on draft legislation implementing the new European definition of meat, as this had not previously been consulted on as part of the consolidated Regulations due to different timescales across the UK.