Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 20 of his Department's food strategy white paper, published on June 2022, what his planned timetable is for when the Food Standards Agency will review the novel foods regulatory framework.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is committed to maintaining the United Kingdom’s high standards of food and feed safety whilst also working hard to support innovation across the food system. The FSA has a programme of continuous improvement and reform that has been in place since the launch of the Regulated Products Service in January 2021.

In June, the FSA published a summary of the findings of the review of the Novel Foods Regulatory Framework. Following this review, the FSA has focused resource to look at potential future options for more fundamental reform of the food and feed regulatory system. This has included surveying stakeholders across all regulated product regimes to gain their views on potential reforms.

The FSA is in the process of analysing this information to develop reform plans and will provide further detail on these, including timetables, at the public FSA Board meetings in the future.