To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what the United Kingdom Government's position will be at the meeting of the Council of Ministers when they discuss the labelling of chocolate with regard to (a) vegetable fat and (b) milk content; and if he will make a statement [17747]

In the Council of Ministers, the Government will press for a new chocolate Directive which allows the full range of different European chocolate-making traditions to co-exist within a single, harmonised market and which increases consumer choice throughout the EU. It will oppose any measures which would discriminate against UK products or change the names under which those products have been sold for many years and which are familiar to UK consumers.