Food: Testing

(asked on 12th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of reinstating support to local authorities for food sampling.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 25th March 2020

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is the central competent authority for food safety and has a statutory function to protect health and consumers interests for food and drink. Local authorities are responsible for the day to day delivery of controls and to carry out appropriate enforcement activity. Food sampling is just one of a wide range of different approaches that local authorities use to ensure compliance. It is the local authorities responsibility to ensure that appropriate resources are allocated to deliver these controls.

The FSA recognises the essential role of sampling in maintaining food standards and providing confidence in the food we eat. As part of this, the FSA is developing a sampling strategy, creating an intelligence led approach to delivering sampling to ensure it is effectively targeted to safeguard public health.

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