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Rule 43 Prisoners
Mr. Cox : To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to review the ruling that allows those sent to prison for child abuse immediately to seek to go on rule 43 when in prison.
Mr. Douglas Hogg : Any prisoner may ask to be removed from association with other prisoners under rule 43. It is for the prison governor to decide, in the light of any evidence of danger to the prisoner, whether to grant such a request. We have no plans to change this procedure.
Mr. Cox : To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to receive the report on rule 43 prisoners ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Douglas Hogg : We expect the report to be available for wider consideration within the Department during February and March and to receive proposals by April 1989.
Mr. Cox : To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is taking to reduce the number of prison inmates at present in prisons in England and Wales who are on rule 43 at their own request.
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Mr. Douglas Hogg : This question is among matters being considered by the prison department working group on the management of vulnerable prisoners which is expected to report shortly.
Mr. Cox : To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the longest period of time that a prison inmate has been on rule 43 at his or her own request.
Mr. Douglas Hogg : As far as we can ascertain without disproportionate cost, the longest current period is 21 months.
Ethnic Minorities
Mr. Cox : To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the number of (a) men and (b) women of ethnic minority backgrounds who are working in (i) the prison service and (ii) the police service in England and Wales.
Mr. Douglas Hogg : For the prison service the available information is not in the form requested and derives from a survey conducted in 1986. Of some 11,500 members of the service (including staff in headquarters and regional offices) who responded to the survey, 111 stated that they were of ethnic minority origin. The results of a more recent survey of those who did not respond are currently being analysed.
On 30 September 1988 there were 942 male and 236 female police officers of ethnic minority background in police forces in England and Wales. There is no central record of the ethnic background of civilian police staff.
Broadcasting
Mr. Dykes : To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce amendments to the existing broadcast receiving legislation to enable domestic consumers to share satellite receiving single dish aerials without seeking official approval as licensable cable services.
Mr. Renton : A satellite receiving system serving two or more homes (commonly known as a SMATV system) is generally a licensable diffusion service for the purposes of the Cable and Broadcasting Act 1984 and thus requires a licence from the cable authority. A system carrying only the services of an IBA DBS contractor would not, however, require a licence. We are considering the future arrangements for such systems as part of the follow-up to our recent White Paper, "Broadcasting in the '90s : Competition, Choice and Quality".
Drink Driving
Mr. Gardiner : To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list, for each police force area in England and Wales, the number of drivers given the breath test, and the percentage where the test proved positive, in respect of (a) the 1988 Christmas period and (b) Christmas 1987.
Mr. John Patten : Information on screening breath tests required and results by police force area for 1987 was published in Home Office statistical bulletin 23/88, "Statistics of Breath Tests, England and Wales", copies of which are in the Library. The official statistics for 1988 will be published later this year.
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The Association of Chief Police Officers has, however, collected provisional figures for the number of screening breath tests required, and the number of positive results, in each police force area between 19 December 1988 and 1 January 1989. These are given in the following table :
Police Force Area |Number of Breath Tests|Per cent. positive
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avon and Somerset |499 |22.6
Bedfordshire |361 |12.5
Cambridgeshire |1,919 |2.4
Cheshire |415 |22.4
City of London |189 |7.9
Cleveland |321 |15.9
Cumbria |414 |10.9
Derbyshire |1,041 |7.5
Devon and Cornwall |1,284 |17.9
Dorset |665 |8.6
Durham |172 |41.9
Dyfed-Powys |139 |32.4
Essex |1,640 |9.1
Gloucestershire |265 |18.9
Greater Manchester |4,980 |8.5
Gwent |1,529 |3.8
Hampshire |1,026 |16.6
Hertfordshire |544 |15.4
Humberside |784 |10.3
Kent |641 |20.3
Lancashire |1,293 |10.8
Leicestershire |886 |8.9
Lincolnshire |841 |7.4
Merseyside |370 |36.5
Metropolitan |10,937 |8.9
Norfolk |2,942 |1.1
Northamptonshire |772 |5.8
Northumbria |217 |63.1
North Wales |1,540 |5.9
North Yorkshire |470 |15.1
Nottinghamshire |3,214 |3.1
South Wales |351 |30.8
South Yorkshire |1,012 |11.9
Staffordshire |812 |14.9
Suffolk |406 |10.6
Surrey |757 |10.0
Sussex |941 |8.6
Thames Valley |2,850 |7.5
Warwickshire |396 |11.6
West Mercia |616 |19.6
West Midlands |1,249 |20.7
West Yorkshire |422 |43.1
Wiltshire |548 |13.3
|------- |-------
Total |41,706 |10.26
NATIONAL FINANCE
Rating Revaluation
Mr. Alexander : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to publish the findings of the Inland Revenue survey into the likely effects of the 1990 revaluation for the introduction of the national non-domestic rate.
Mr. Major : I expect that an announcement covering this point will be made shortly.
National Savings
Mr. Andrew Bowden : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the numbers of deposits of less than £5 made annually in national savings ordinary accounts.
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Mr. Lilley : Some 3.2 million deposits of less than £5 were made in the financal year 1987-88. These accounted for less than 1 per cent. of total deposits over that period.
Mr. Andrew Bowden : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total current number of national savings investment accounts.
Mr. Lilley : There are about 4.3 million investment accounts.
Interest Rates
Dr. Reid : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the extra borrowing costs to industry incurred by a rise of 1 per cent. in interest rates.
Mr. Major : The cost to industrial and commercial companies of a one percentage point rise in United Kingdom short-term interest rates maintained for a full year is estimated to be about £400 million. The estimate is based on their holdings of financial assets and liabilities at the end of the second quarter of 1988, the latest period for which comprehensive data are available.
Economic Model
Mr. Jack : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last reviewed the operation of the Treasury economic model.
Mr. Major : The performance of the Treasury economic model is continuously monitored and the relationships updated. It is also subject to periodic scrutiny by the Treasury academic panel.
ENVIRONMENT
Factory Building
59. Mr. Hind : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the extent of factory building in the United Kingdom in 1988.
Mr. Trippier : In the first nine months of 1988 the value of factory building in Great Britain was £1,675 million at current prices. New orders in the first 10 months of 1988 are significantly higher than the same period of 1987 which should lead to higher output.
Home Improvement Grants
Mr. Allen : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many home improvement grants were approved last year by local authorities (a) nationwide and (b) in Nottingham ; and what comparable figures he has for previous years.
Mr. Trippier : Numbers of renovation grant approvals for private owners and tenants, by local authorities in England from 1985 to June 1988 appear in table 2.16 of "Housing and Construction Statistics, Part 2", No. 34. A copy is in the Library.
The available information reported by Nottingham is :
K
Renovations: number of grant approvals
|Conversion and|Repairs |Intermediate
|improvement
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1985 |590 |568 |65
1986 |332 |442 |77
1987<1> |248 |253 |25
1988 Q1 |n/a |n/a |n/a
Q2 |n/a |n/a |n/a
<1> March and September quarters only.
Derelict Land
Mr. Heddle : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a schedule giving the address and the local authority of each of the areas of urban derelict land in Staffordshire.
Mr. Trippier : Information about the location of individual plots of land is not collected by the Department. Aggregate figures for derelict land in each district or borough in England have been provided to the Department by local authorities in the course of the 1988 survey of derelict land. The report of the survey is due to be published in the summer.
Development and Conservation
Mr. Heddle : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report a list of local authorities which have responded positively to his request to publish local plans setting out their policies and proposals for development and conservation ; and what action he proposes to take to ensure that those local authorities which have not acted in response to PPG12 do so forthwith.
Mr. Chope : I am aware that many planning authorities have responded positively to PPG12 and are starting work on preparing or updating local plans. The full impact of PPG12 will not, however, be apparent for some time, as several months are normally required for plan preparation and public participation before a plan can be formally placed on deposit.
Though my right hon. Friend has powers of direction, I believe that the message to planning authorities should be a positive one--that it is in their own interests to ensure that local plans are prepared or brought up to date as quickly as possible.
Housing Development
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will state, for each year since 1980, the number of schemes for housing development for which he has refused planning permission on appeal and the numbers of homes involved.
Mr. Chope : The table gives the information recorded by the Department on planning appeals relating to housing development.
S.36 planning appeals-housing schemes
Scale of residential |Appeals decided |Appeals dismissed |Percentage appeals
development |dismissed
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1984
Major housing<1> |527 |358 |68
Minor housing<2> |4,813 |3,658 |76
Total |5,340 |4,016 |75
1985
Major housing<1> |685 |397 |58
Minor housing<2> |6,269 |4,516 |72
Total |6,954 |4,913 |71
1986-87
Major housing<1> |906 |532 |59
Minor housing<2> |6,852 |4,777 |70
Total |7,758 |5,309 |68
1987-88
Major housing<1> |1,105 |708 |64
Minor housing<2> |8,942 |6,290 |70
Total |10,047 |6,998 |70
<1> 10 and over.
<2> Under 10 houses.
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will state, for each year since 1980, the number of schemes for housing development for which local authorities have refused planning permission and the number of homes that would have been built if planning permission had been granted.
Mr. Chope : The table gives information about decisions on planning applications for residential development. This does not indicate the number of dwellings permitted or refused because information about this is not collected centrally.
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Thousands
Minor residential Major residential
developments(1-9 developments(10 or more
dwellings) dwellings)
|Decisions |Refusals |Per cent. refused|Decisions |Refusals |Per cent. refused
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1979-80 |73.8 |24.6 |33 |9.5 |3.2 |34
1980-81 |75.3 |25.6 |34 |9.5 |3.6 |38
1981-82 |66.7 |19.5 |29 |9.1 |3.1 |35
1982-83 |61.9 |15.7 |25 |7.4 |1.6 |22
1983-84 |69.4 |17.0 |24 |8.2 |1.8 |22
1984-85 |69.6 |18.5 |27 |8.5 |2.0 |24
1985-86 |73.9 |20.4 |28 |9.3 |2.3 |24
1986-87 |81.9 |24.3 |30 |10.3 |2.7 |26
1987-88 |92.8 |29.7 |32 |11.4 |3.2 |28
House Building
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will now state the annual number of completions, for the most recent 20 year-period for which figures are available, of (i) private sector houses and flats, (ii) council and new town houses and flats and (iii) housing association houses and flats.
Mr. Trippier : The total numbers of dwellings completed in England between 1977 and 1987 by local authorities, new towns, housing associations and the private sector are published in table 6.1(a) of "Housing and Construction Statistics : 1977-1987". Figures for 1969 to 1976 are published in table 56 of "Housing and Construction Statistics : 1969-1979". Figures for 1968 are published in "Housing and Construction Statistics No. 4".
Copies of these publications are available in the Library.
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Empty Housing
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, for the most recent 20-year period for which figures are available (i) the 20 local authorities which have had the most empty council properties at the end of each year, (ii) the corresponding figures for each authority's spending on housing in (a) cash and (b) real terms and (iii) each authority's total spending in (a) cash and (b) real terms on (a) statutory functions and (b) non-statutory functions.
Mr. Trippier : I regret that information for the last 20 years, which is not in every case available in the form requested, could be provided only at disproportionate expense. Available figures for the last two years are given in the table.
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Local authority |Number of vacant local |1986-87 Total housing |Number of vacant local |1987-88 Total housing
|authority dwellings at 1|expenditure £ million |authority dwellings at 1|expenditure £ million
|April 1987 |April 1988
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Birmingham |2,718 |143 |2,339 |152
Bradford |1,490 |28 |1,262 |33
Hackney |3,113 |99 |2,692 |105
Islington |1,850 |89 |1,403 |95
Kingston upon Hull |1,389 |35 |<1>- |<1>-
Kirklees |<1>- |<1>- |1,402 |33
Lambeth |<1>- |<1>- |1,156 |115
Leeds |1,644 |64 |1,486 |67
Leicester |<1>- |<1>- |1,220 |44
Lewisham |1,331 |68 |<1>- |<1>-
Liverpool |6,955 |96 |5,416 |92
Manchester |4,847 |71 |5,166 |104
Newcastle upon Tyne |1,565 |41 |1,651 |49
Newham |2,777 |57 |1,961 |54
North Tyneside |1,537 |25 |<1>- |<1>-
Nottingham |1,625 |49 |<1>- |<1>-
Oldham |<1>- |<1>- |1,129 |29
Salford |2,221 |35 |1,993 |37
Sandwell |2,799 |42 |3,062 |49
Sheffield |3,390 |67 |2,856 |89
Southwark |1,952 |99 |1,910 |87
Sunderland |2,141 |34 |2,106 |41
Tower Hamlets |2,825 |84 |2,526 |95
Wolverhampton |1,927 |39 |1,737 |38
<1> Not among the 20 authorities with most vacants this year.
Note: It is not possible to provide a breakdwon into statutory and non-statutory expenditure.
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide an estimate of the number of council and new town properties which were empty at the end of each year for the most recent 20-year period for which figures are available.
Mr. Trippier : The available information, derived from local authorities' annual housing investment programme returns, is as follows :
Vacant council dwellings at 1
April
|thousands
------------------------------
1978 |92
1979 |100
1980 |100
1981 |97
1982 |100
1983 |114
1984 |113
1985 |117
1986 |113
1987 |112
1988 |103
Note: From 1983 the figures
include vacant dwellings
which have been closed or
acquired for demolition under
the Housing Acts and, from
1987, dwellings owned by
authorities outside their
areas (eg overspill estates).
Corresponding information for earlier years is not available and similar information about new town dwellings is not held centrally.
Accommodation Rental
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish an estimate of the number of private sector flats and houses which have been withdrawn from use as rented accommodation each year for the most recent 20-year period for which figures are available.
Mr. Trippier : This information is not available.
Habitat Loss Surveys
Mr. Home Robertson : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish any information which has been made available to his Department by the Nature Conservancy Council concerning habitat loss surveys which have been commissioned by the Nature Conservancy Council from Edinburgh university since 1970.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : A confidential study commissioned by the Nature Conservancy Council in 1980 from Edinburgh university was used to produce a methodology for the national countryside monitoring scheme. The first report in this series, "Changes in the
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Cumbrian Countryside" was published by NCC in 1987. I will arrange for copies of this report to be placed in the Library as soon as it has been reprinted.Right-to-buy Legislation
Mr. Batiste : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied with the response time of the Leeds metropolitan district council to applications by council tenants under the right-to-buy legislation ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Trippier : I have become increasingly concerned in recent months that Leeds city council, in common with many other local authorities throughout the country, have been unable to deal with the very large volume of right-to-buy applications within the statutory timescales laid down by the Housing Act 1985. Because of my concern over such delays, several measures were introduced in the Housing Act 1988 to help prospective purchasers. Future applicants may be compensated for undue delays by having their rent held by their landlord as an advance payment on the purchase price. Assistance has also been given to authorities by enabling them to use the proceeds of sales to defray their administrative costs.
I am encouraged to learn that Leeds city council has recently increased the number of staff working on right-to-buy sales and have improved the system for dealing with applications. Efforts are being made to clear the large backlog of cases. Once this has been achieved the council is confident that normal response times will be met.
Council Tenants (Torbay)
Ms. Primarolo : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has had any discussions with Torbay council about deceased persons who were council tenants and who were counted as voting in favour of the transfer of council housing.
Mr. Trippier : We received one letter from a tenant and Torbay borough council, about a deceased person receiving a ballot form. When the council was asked about this it reported that a joint tenant of a house had died without the surviving joint tenant notifying the council of the death. When the occurrence was brought to its attention the council duly amended the list of tenants and reduced by one the number of tenants entitled to be consulted.
Rent Arrears (Brent)
Mr. Nicholas Bennett : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest figure for rent arrears
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in the London borough of Brent ; and what is the percentage of total rents payable that this figure represents.Mr. Trippier : I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) on 10 November 1988, indicating for Brent as at 31 March 1988 combined arrears of rent, rates, water rates and heating service charges of approximately £16.7 million. The council has not given a separate figure for rent only, but my estimate is £8.1 million representing about 47 per cent. of the 1987- 88 rent roll.
Planning Applications
Mr. Gill : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consideration he has given to compelling planning authorities to advise parish councils and adjacent owners of planning applications in their area.
Mr. Chope : Parish councils have a statutory right to be consulted on planning applications if they so wish. Local planning authorities are not required to notify the owners of adjacent property about planning applications, because those authorities are best placed to decide on appropriate publicity for particular development proposals.
Toxic Wastes
Mr. Butler : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on the current levels of imports of toxic wastes.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : It is estimated that in 1987-88 a total of 83,000 tonnes of special waste was imported into the United Kingdom. This is estimated to represent 5 per cent. of the special waste produced in the United Kingdom.
Council House Sales
Mr. Thurnham : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many council house sales were completed in the Bolton local authority area during 1988 and each of the previous years ; what revenue this accrued for the local authority ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Trippier : The latest table showing sales for each local authority for each year from April 1979 to June 1988 was placed in the Library in November 1988 ; since then we have received Bolton's September return which shows sales of 165 dwellings in the first six months of 1988- 89. The following information is available for the capital value of dwellings sold in each year in Bolton.
|£ thousands
------------------------------------
1979-80 |1,733
1980-81 |4,131
1981-82 |2,728
<1>1982-83 |1,724
1983-84 |1,961
1984-85 |2,374
<1>1985-86 |2,177
1986-87 |2,244
1987-88 |2,596
<2>1988-89 |1,328
<1> First three quarters only.
<2> First half only.
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Rent Arrears
Mr. Simon Hughes : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a table showing the levels of rent arrears for each month in 1987 and 1988.
Mr. Trippier : English local authorities report cumulative rent arrears annually ; monthly figures are not available. Estimated total arrears were £226 million at 1 April 1988, compared with £195 million a year earlier, an increase of 16 per cent. Two thirds of this increase is accounted for by the 10 authorities--all Labour controlled-- with the highest cumulative rent arrears as a percentage of rent roll.
Irish Sea (Discharges)
Mrs. Clwyd : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the name and location of the sites discharging (i) cadmium, (ii) mercury and (iii) halogenated hydrocarbons into the Irish sea and the volume of those discharges in each year from 1978 to the present.
Mr. Moynihan : Further to my answer of 10 January, the provisions of the European Community's framework directive on the discharge of dangerous substances to the aquatic environment (76/464/EEC) prohibit the disclosure of information relating to particular undertakings acquired by my Department specifically for the purposes of transmission to the European Commission under that directive. However, much of the information requested is likely to be available on the public register maintained by the North West water authority, in whose area all of the discharges referred to occur.
Planning Law
Mr. Stern : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he now expects to publish proposals for the revision of planning law.
Mr. Chope : My right hon. Friend hopes to publish a White Paper shortly containing proposals for the future of the development plan system.
Animal Welfare
Mr. Ron Davies : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Caerphilly of 12 January, Official Report, column 745, under what circumstances the welfare of animals is a material consideration for planning decisions under article 18 of the Town and Country Planning General Development Order 1988.
Mr. Chope : The welfare of animals is material to planning decisions to the extent that it is a land-use planning consideration. Article 18 of the General Development Order does not seem relevant : it lists types of planning application on which local planning authorities must consult certain bodies before granting planning permission.
Lowermoor Water Treatment Works
Dr. Cunningham : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action has been taken by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution with regard to the poisoning of fish subsequent to the incident at Lowermoor water treatment works on 6 July 1988.
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Mr. Ridley : I have received reports from the South West water authority on the pollution of the rivers Camel and Allen. These have been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service and action now lies with them.
Estate Action Schemes
Mr. O'Brien : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much each local authority was allowed to borrow to carry out improvements under the estate action schemes ; and what percentage of that money was allowed for providing additional heating facilities in their houses ; for each of the last three years.
Mr. Trippier [holding answer 13 January 1989] : The estate action provision since 1986-87 has been :
|£ million
------------------------------
1986-87 |45
1987-88 |75
1988-89 |140
Figures for individual local authorities on the proportion of the allocations spent on heating facilities are not readily available. The proportion of the total Estate Action allocations devoted to heating and insulation improvements and associated works is estimated at 25 per cent. in 1986-87 and 24 per cent. in 1987-88. We expect a similar proportion in the current year.
Trent Valley Garden Centre (Planning Application)
Dr. Hampson : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is now in a position to decide whether or not he will call in for determination by himself a planning application in the name of Stephen Smith of Trent Valley garden centre, Doncaster road, Gunness, Scunthorpe.
Mr. Chope [holding answer 22 December 1988] : I have now directed that this application be referred to me for decision. Arangements are now being made to hold a local inquiry as soon as possible. I shall write to my hon. Friend as soon as the date of the local inquiry has been fixed.
ENERGY
Offshore Construction Industry
63. Mr. McAllion : To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what assessment he has made of the ability of the United Kingdom offshore construction industry to compete with rival industries in south east Asia.
Mr. Parkinson : United Kingdom companies are constantly demonstrating their ability to compete effectively both at home and in export markets.
Electricity
Mr. Carrington : To ask the Secretary of State for Energy how many units of electricity per person per annum are consumed in the United Kingdom, and in other northern European industrialised nations.
Mr. Michael Spicer : The average consumption of domestic electricity per person per annum in a range of northern European countries in 1986 was as follows :
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|Domestic consumption|Population |Average consumption
|(GWh) |(millions) |(KWh)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Denmark |8,739 |5 |1,748
France |89,814 |55 |1,633
West Germany |97,570 |61 |1,600
England and Wales |79,154 |50 |1,583
Belgium |13,835 |10 |1,384
Holland |16,200 |15 |1,080
(Source of figures for domestic consumption: Handbook of Electricity Supply Statistics, Electricity
Council).
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
Subsidies
Mr. Allen : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has investigated the possibility of fraudulent claims for European Economic Community subsidies in connection with the recent consignment of rotten meat imported from Ireland.
Mr. Donald Thompson : This is a matter for the Irish authorities and we have encouraged them to investigate this.
Butter
Sir Richard Body : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the impact on United Kingdom consumers of further European Economic Community restrictions on New Zealand butter imports.
Mr. Donald Thompson : The European Commission has made proposals on the future of imports of New Zealand butter, which were debated on 30 November. The Government believe that these proposals represent a reasonable balance between the interests involved, including those of consumers.
Mr. Andrew Smith : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 10 January, Official Report, column 520, what information is available on the distribution of European Economic Community butter under European Community Regulation 2191/81 ; which body is responsible for administering the distribution ; how institutions apply to receive it ; and what records are kept of these applications.
Mr. Donald Thompson : The scheme is administered in the United Kingdom by the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce. The board maintains registration details of 4,000 eligible institutions, of which 2,400 are currently active. Records are kept of total sales of butter under the scheme. Once registered, organisations apply to the board for monthly certificates which permit the purchase of authorised quantities of butter from suppliers. In 1988 about 20,000 certificates were issued, details of which are held by the board.
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