Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:56 pm on 20 October 2003.
Lord Whitty
Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) (Food, Farming and Sustainable Energy)
2:56,
20 October 2003
My Lords, without necessarily accepting the distances to which the noble Baroness refers, it is of course important that neighbouring farmers know what is being grown close to them, whatever the size of the trials. That is one reason why the committee and the Secretary of State felt that we needed to divulge that information.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
