SZ/ZP - Zuckerman Project (EEC-UK Initiative in the Socio-Medical Field)

SZ/ZP

Series

Zuckerman Project (EEC-UK Initiative in the Socio-Medical Field)

1969-1976

1 box

Provisional arrangement of files; more material may come to light.

This series is indicative of the way in which SZ continued to act as a government adviser after his official retirement.

On 14.8.72 the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, minuted SZ with a request to prepare a paper for discussion with the Departments of Health and Social Security, and Education and Science with a view to the UK tabling a "health initiative" at a forthcoming EEC summit meeting. In the event insufficient progress was made for a formal proposal to be submitted, and instead it was decided that the Prime Minister would simply make reference to the matter in his speech.

The objective of the proposed inititiative was "towards widening the Community from an economic one, and hence should be in the social or socio-medical field, and concerned with improving the lot of ordinary people" [minutes of a meeting chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, 5.10.72]. SZ's paper highlighted one particular issue: health and nutrition, where "The present piecemeal approach was inefficient and frequently ineffective" [op. cit.]. Subsequent enquiries and consultations narrowed the focus to the safety of food additives, pesticides and pharmaceuticals.

In January 1973 the Prime Minister charged the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Jellicoe, who chaired the Ministerial Committee on Science and Technology, with the task of setting up a working party to take forward what had become known as the Zuckerman Project. The Working Party was chaired by SZ, and its terms of reference were "To consider the arrangements for food and drug safety and similar matters within the countries of the EEC; how the process of their harmonisation might be speeded up, and to make proposals." It met for the first time on 8.3.93.

In July 1973 SZ reported to the Prime Minister on its "first fruits", with which he was " not all that happy" but "in view of the lack of enthusiasm in some official quarters" thought them "the best that could have been achieved at a first bite" [SZ to Prime Minister, 25.7.73]. These first fruits comprised the establishment of an EEC Toxicology Committee "designed to engender a concerted Community view on matters where professional expert opinion is involved" [op. cit.]. SZ envisaged that this would lead, in due course, to the creation of an EEC Toxicology Centre. The Working Party's proposal was taken forward to the EEC Council of Ministers, where it was approved.

This series is to some extent complementary to series SZ/WHO and SZ/CS. An MS list of the contents is available for consultation in the Archives Department.