A. GENERAL POLICY QUESTIONS
11. COMMISSION COMMUNICATION ON CONSUMER HEALTH AND FOOD
SAFETY (8386/97 COM(97)183)
Letter from Lord Tordoff, Chairman of the Committee,
to Jeff Rooker MP, Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture,
Fisheries and Food
Sub-Committee C has read this Communication and your accompanying
Explanatory Memorandum with considerable interest. We are clearing
the document, but would like to make some comments and to request
that you keep us informed.
We very much welcome the Commission's new approach, as exemplified
in the Communication, to the way in which it obtains and uses
scientific advice. The principles of excellence, independence
and transparency" are ones which this Committee has frequently
advocated, particularly in the environmental field: to this day
Sub-Committee C remains dissatisfied with the opaqueness of much
of the scientific advice which lies behind proposals emanating
from DG XI. It is unfortunate that it has taken the BSE crisis
to bring home to the Commission the crucial connection between
transparency and public confidence. In this respect policies on
consumer health have much in common with those on both environmental
protection and agriculture. In evidence to Sub-Committee D last
week, Lord Donoughue made plain that increasing the transparency
of policy-making was a priority of the Government. It may well
be that both DG VI and DG XI will have something to learn from
DG XXIV.
We shall be concerned to monitor the horizontal" effect
of the new policy across the Commission's services in general
and in DG VI and DG XI in particular. We would therefore like
you to keep us informed of any significant developments in the
application of the policy by DG XXIV and to alert us immediately
if there should be any sign of the Commission not living up to
its intentions.
21 July 1997
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