Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the written statement of 4 September 2014, on the Elliott Review, how many staff at each grade will be (a) recruited and (b) seconded to the Food Crime Unit.

The Food Standards Agency advises that it has already reorganised existing teams that deal with food incidents, fraud and intelligence to form the core of the new unit and is recruiting a small number of additional permanent and seconded staff to support this. This is likely to include seconded police officers and other experts, as appropriate. The exact mix of background and skills has not been finalised.