What is the Food Standards Act 1999?

The Act was introduced in the House of Commons on 10 June 1999 and received Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. The main purpose of the Act is to establish ‘The Food Standards Agency’, provide it with functions and powers, and to transfer to it certain functions in relation to food safety and standards under other Acts. The Act gives effect to the proposals of the White Paper, ‘The Food Standards Agency: A Force for Change’ (Cm 3830).

It sets out the Agency’s main objective of protecting public health in relation to food and the functions that it will assume in pursuit of that aim, and gives the Agency the powers necessary to enable it to act in the consumer’s interest at any stage in the food production and supply chain. The Act provides for the Agency’s main organisational and accountability arrangements. In addition, it provides powers to establish a scheme for the notification of the results of tests for food-borne diseases.

The full text and explanatory notes on the Act are available at www.legislation.gov.uk.

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