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Food Assurance Schemes

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps her Department is taking to promote food assurance schemes in the UK. [128048]

Mr. Bradshaw: The Department has made clear its support for assurance schemes as part of the Government's Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food.

Assurance schemes are a priority for grant aid under the new Agriculture Development Scheme, launched last year to take forward important elements of the strategy. Assured Food Standards has received grant aid under the scheme for projects to create an independent, authoritative body for food assurance; review assurance standards and their delivery; and develop a marketing and communications strategy.

Some assurance schemes may also be eligible for help under the Rural Enterprise Scheme, which forms part of the England Rural Development Programme. We have, for instance, helped LEAF (Linking the Environment and Farming) develop their premium assurance scheme for horticultural produce.

Ultimately, promotion of the individual schemes is a matter for the private sector bodies that own and administer them.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment her Department has made of the comprehensibility of existing food assurance schemes for consumers in the UK. [128049]

Mr. Bradshaw: The Department has not itself undertaken any work to assess the comprehensibility of existing food assurance schemes for consumers in UK. However, various other organisations have considered consumers' understanding of assurance schemes. These include an independent review of assurance schemes (June 2002) carried out for the Food Standards Agency and the National Consumer Council's report on consumers' views on labelling (Bamboozled, baffled and bombarded, February 2003), commissioned by the Food Standards Agency.

Food Security

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what steps her Department is taking to assess the role of British

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agriculture in providing national food security; and if she will adopt the concept as a central principle of her Department's work; [128050]

(2) what steps her Department is taking to examine the risks inherent in a reduction in British agriculture's capacity to produce food and non-food products. [128051]

Mr. Bradshaw: Defra has a role to play with others in providing all citizens with access to healthy food and in ensuring the continuity of essential supplies of food. The Government believes that national and international food security is best facilitated through improved trading relationships based on more open international markets and reductions in trade distorting subsidies. Our domestic agriculture industry has an important contribution to make by improving its ability to produce efficiently and sustainably what the market requires. The Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food sets out how Government and industry is working in partnership to deliver this objective.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what (a) policy and (b) financial assessment she has made of food security in the UK; and if she will make a statement. [128046]

Mr. Bradshaw: Food security in the UK, including the threat to the food chain, is monitored very closely by the Government and we and the industry remain vigilant. Advice on any terrorist threat to the UK is the responsibility of the Security Service. The Director General of the Security Service is responsible to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for this advice, which is provided on a continual basis. Strategic assessments about terrorist threats to the UK are provided to the Government by the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Freedom of Information act

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the electronic document and electronic record management systems which have been procured by the public authorities listed in Parts I to V of Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for which she is responsible. [116389]

Alun Michael: Defra is currently in the process of procuring and implementing a corporate electronic document and record management system. A number of electronic document management systems have been procured for use on a smaller scale in specific areas of Defra; these are listed as follows:

Product	Supplier
Docs Open	Hummingbird
Filenet	Panagon
Keyfile	Sydoc (UK) Ltd.
Wisdom	Diagonal Solutions

Genomics Research

Linda Perham: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the potential of genomics research for conventional plant breeding. [127836]

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Mr. Bradshaw: Genomics is a set of technologies central to the public sector investment underpinning crop breeding. The Government fund genomics research through a range of research programmes in Defra, Research Councils, and other Departments. As a technology, the potential of genomics is addressed in relevant strategic plans. In addition, research funders have their own mechanisms to assess the potential of their research both at programme and project level.

Defra's current research underpinning crop breeding is informed by a specially commissioned research project that provided an assessment of the potential of publicly-funded genomics research. The project entitled 'The Role of Future Public Research Investment in the Genetic Improvement of UK Grown Crops' was completed in September 2002. The assessment provides a strong rationale for public investment and has informed the Defra Science and Innovation Strategy. It has been widely distributed within the research and crop breeding community, and is available on the Defra website.

Genetically Modified Organisms

Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the products undergoing genetically modified organism field testing in the United Kingdom. [128165]

Mr. Morley: Listed are the genetically modified organisms which are undergoing trials in the UK this year under consents issued in accordance with Part B of European Directive 2001/18/EC. All these trials are for research and development purposes, and none of the GM organisms in question have consents for placing on the market as commercial GM products.

GMO	Purpose of modification
Potato	Altered carbohydrate metabolism
Wheat	Altered bread-making quality
Sugar beet	Herbicide tolerance
Barley	Altered malting and nutritional quality
Pea	Reporter gene linked to a drought responsive promoter
Oilseed rape	Herbicide tolerance
Bacterium	Development of vaccine for use against typhoid
Bacterium	Development of vaccine for use against traveller's diarrhoea
Bacterium	Development of vaccine for use against hepatitis

Import Standards

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures are in place to prevent the importation of agricultural products produced to unacceptable standards in (a) animal welfare and (b) environmental care, from (i) the EU and (ii) elsewhere. [128053]

Mr. Bradshaw: Comprehensive legislation exists to protect both the environment and the welfare of farmed animals within the EU. On a wider front, the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement allows for prohibition of imports only in the case of a threat to human, animal or plant health in the importing country. Products may also be banned in accordance with the terms of Multilateral Environmental Agreements to which the UK is a party. More generally, we seek to engage in

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multilateral dialogue on how environmental standards can be raised in line with our overall aims to promote global sustainable development and eradicate poverty in developing countries. In addition, the EU has made firm proposals on animal welfare in the context of the current WTO agricultural trade negotiations.

Animal Welfare

Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on Government policy on animal welfare in the Intergovernmental Conference. [128182]

Mr. Bradshaw: At the Intergovernmental Conference, which starts in October, the Government will remain committed to maintaining a policy towards the EU that focuses on a Union that is more transparent, accountable and effective, and better able to deliver on issues which matter to its citizens. The aim of the IGC is to agree the European Convention's draft Constitutional Treaty before the June 2004 elections for the European Parliament.

With respect to animal welfare, we are pleased that the Protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam has been retained in the new draft Treaty and will remain legally binding. The draft Treaty continues to recognise animals as sentient beings and requires full regard to be paid to their welfare when formulating and implementing policies.

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