In the United Kingdom, in 2005 Elliot Morley, a Minister of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was asked "what research [the] Department has undertaken into the polluting effects of chemtrails for aircraft," and responded that "the Department is not researching into chemtrails from aircraft as they are not scientifically recognised phenomena," and that work was being conducted to understand "how contrails are formed and what effects they have on the atmosphere."