The Council will report jointly to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It will advise on food safety and related matters and co-ordinate the business of the existing network of independent expert advisory committees. Its membership will be drawn from a wide range of fields with an interest in the safety of the food supply, including scientific experts and lay members.
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Douglas Hogg, also announced that the Government was formally appointing the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Kenneth Calman, to advise the Ministry on public health matters. This formalises the arrangements which in practice have applied for many years.
"These new arrangements help to confirm the importance of public health advice in the area of food policy," Mr Hogg said.
Responding to a Parliamentary Question from Dame Peggy Fenner MP, he
said:
"The Secretary of State for Health and I are today announcing together with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the Government's intention to appoint an independent, eminent Chairman of a newly created Food Safety Council who will also be an adviser on food safety. They will advise Ministers on food safety and related matters, take a strategic view of the longer term agenda and identify issues cutting across the work of the existing network of independent expert advisory committees. .Its membership will be drawn from a wide range of fields with an interest in the safety of the food supply, including both scientific experts and lay members.
"The Council and Food Safety Adviser will report jointly to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The proposed terms of reference for the Adviser and the Council are set out below.
"Our intention is that the Council and the Adviser should be free to advise on any matters related to the safety, quality, labelling and authenticity of food and also that they should be available as an authoritative source of advice to the general public. These arrangements will strengthen the existing network of advisory committees but will not detract from the role of the individual expert committees".
Arrangements to appoint the Chairman of the Food Safety Council will begin as soon as possible.
The Terms of reference for the Chairman of the Food Safety Council and Food Safety Adviser are:
The Terms of reference for the Food Safety Council are:
The independent advisory committees referred to above are those MAFF, DH and joint Advisory Committees which handle food safety and related issues.