asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether it is the Government's policy to seek to obtain from the EEC permanent exemption for Great Britain from the poultry evisceration requirements of the EEC; and whether he expects to obtain such permanent exemption.

The policy throughout has been to defer the application of these requirements rather than to seek a permanent exemption. In the negotiations that were concluded last July we secured accommodations for the trade in un-eviscerated poultry covering the period to August 1981. I have no proposal to go further than this.