Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring restaurants to provide a full list of ingredients contained in their dishes; and if he will make a statement.

The Government is committed to optimising the information that is available to consumers, and the Government Food Strategy sets out work that we will be taking forward on consumer information and transparency. In the UK we maintain high standards on the food information that is provided to consumers, but for practical reasons there are fewer mandatory labelling rules when food is sold loose, such as in a restaurant.

All food businesses are under a legal obligation to provide information on the presence of the 14 major allergens in food, including in the out of home environment, so that allergic consumers are able to make safe food choices. The FSA, who has policy responsibility for food safety, is currently considering how to improve the provision of information for people with allergies, and researching different approaches for the provision of written and oral information in the non-prepacked food sector.