Ananova:

Tony Blair is calling for a "sensible and reasonable" debate on the balance to be struck between risk and public protection measures in the wake of the BSE outbreak.

He told the Commons at Question Time that having to strike that balance was going to be a "growing problem" across a range of subjects faced by government in the coming years.

He added the Food Standards Agency has been set up to increase the transparency of information provided to ministers.

But although the final decisions on action still rested with the Government, those decisions would be better made in the light of an "informed public debate" on the balance between risk and public protection.

The Prime Minister was responding to a question from Tony Baldry (Banbury) about who had responsibility in government for determining risk and hazard in food and health, and for informing the public since the introduction of the FSA.

Mr Blair told MPs: "The Government has overall control of policy. The purpose of establishing the Food Standards Agency was to try to improve the transparency of the advice we get.

"We've also tried to do that with the Scientific Advisory Committee, including appointing consumer representatives. I think the agency will give us a better objective basis on which we can make these assessments. I think it is an increasing problem that we will find in Government, the balance between risk and the public policy measures taken to limit that risk.

"We find that across a whole range of issues at the moment. A sensible and reasonable debate about that is a necessary aspect of getting this policy right. BSE is obviously one of the most dramatic cases of this but there are other examples where there is a difficult balance to be struck and where, whatever the transparency of the information we give people, there are still very difficult policy decisions to be made by government.

"I think they are more easily made by government if they are informed by a proper public debate about the balance between risk and policy."