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AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
IACS Maps
Mr. Maclean: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many officials are involved in IACS map checks; how many map checks have been carried out; and what was the financial saving as a result of the mistakes found. [73293]
Mr. Rooker:
Under the programme carried out by the Department between 1994-1998, IACS map checks were undertaken in respect of 2,174,843 field areas and numbers to establish the accuracy of the details included in Area Aid Applications and entered on the IACS database. The number of officials involved in the programme and the total value of reductions to claims were not recorded centrally and the information could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, the object of the programme was to protect Community expenditure on the schemes governed by IACS not only for the period up to 1998 but also, by verifying the information recorded on the IACS database, which is used to validate claims in subsequent years.
16 Apr 1999 : Column: 391
Mr. Jack:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish for each year between 1992 and 1999 what his Department assessed to be the world prices for the agricultural outputs, products and animals, which are the subject of its Common Agricultural Policy. [79777]
Mr. Rooker:
Agricultural commodities can have a range of traded values on world markets depending on product quality, specification and seasonality. Our Department uses a number of sources of published information in order to assess this range. Sources include publications by the OECD, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and specialist agricultural reports such as those provided by Agra Europe. World prices for agricultural outputs, products and animals for 1999 are not yet available.
Copies of the OECD and WTO reports are available in the Library of the House. The World Bank and Agra Europe reports are available direct from those organisations.
Mr. Efford:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department of the Macpherson inquiry recommendations; and if he will make a statement. [80525]
Mr. Morley:
I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 14 April 1999, Official Report, column 239-40. MAFF will be participating fully in all central initiatives to address race equality issues in the Civil Service, and will be actively addressing these issues within the Department.
Mr. Kidney:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in what ways his Department plans to provide support for farmers in managing land so as to increase biodiversity. [79905]
Mr. Morley:
The Government are fully committed to increasing biodiversity. MAFF operates a wide ranging package of voluntary environmental schemes aimed at encouraging farmers to conserve the countryside and its wildlife and thereby contribute to meeting the objectives of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Following the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review, we have announced that we aim to expand the area protected and enhanced under the major agri-environment schemes. During the next three years an additional £40 million will be available in England for additional agreements under these schemes.
MAFF also funds free initial on-farm conservation advice which is provided to farmers by ADAS and the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG).
Mr. Sayeed:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action the Government are taking to facilitate the establishment of porcine-only rendering plants. [80243]
16 Apr 1999 : Column: 392
Mr. Rooker:
Representations have been made by the pig industry and the Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC) to allow porcine MBM to be fed to poultry on the condition that processing takes place in rendering plants dedicated to pig waste. The existing ban was put in place on the recommendation of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, and the Government continue to base their handling of BSE on the advice of that Committee.
Before we would be prepared to ask SEAC to look at the use of porcine MBM for export or poultry feed purposes the industry itself will need to address the key issues of how monitoring at all stages of production and distribution would be carried out to avoid the possibility of cross-contamination.
Mr. Stinchcombe:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what quantity of United Kingdom pig, poultry and beef waste is exported from the United Kingdom for rendering in other countries. [80487]
Mr. Rooker:
In 1998 UK exports of poultry and non-bovine mammalian waste was 62,600 tonnes (provisional figure). The Overseas Trade Statistics do not further specify the derivation of this waste or the purpose for which it is exported. Since 27 March 1996 the export of products from bovine animals has been banned.
Ms Walley:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what the earliest possible date is for commercial planting in the UK of genetically modified oil seed rape. [80554]
Mr. Rooker:
There will be no commercial planting of genetically modified oilseed rape in the UK before 2000.
Mrs. Gordon:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much has been spent on the (a) preparation and (b) implementation of the Krebs report to date. [79866]
Mr. Rooker:
(a) The cost of preparing the Krebs report, including the committee expenditure and publication, amounted to approximately £370,000.
(b) The cost of implementation to date is £3.5 million. This includes the culling trial and associated activities. The cost of some recommendations, such as the open competition necessary to ensure that research should be contracted with the people who are best able to carry them out, are met from central expenditure and cannot be separately identified.
Mrs. Gordon:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the cost of fully implementing the Krebs report. [79867]
Mr. Rooker:
We have spent more than £3.5 million on implementing the Krebs report to date. It is estimated that £11.4 million will be spent on research and various projects recommended in the Krebs report in 1999/2000. I envisage that expenditure will continue at broadly this level for some years, but cannot provide a total figure, which will depend on the results and the speed at which those results are received and analysed.
16 Apr 1999 : Column: 393
Mr. Stinchcombe:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the (a) medical and (b) public health implications of feeding livestock with bonemeal from UK-produced pig and poultry. [80485]
Mr. Rooker:
Mammalian meat and bonemeal (MBM) is considered to have been the main source of infection in the BSE epidemic. Controls on the use of mammalian MBM have been progressively tightened in the light of experience and the latest available advice from the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), the Government's independent advisor on BSE issues. The controls in place are: a prohibition on all mammalian protein, including MBM, in ruminant feed; and a prohibition on the feeding of mammalian MBM to all farmed livestock to prevent cross-contamination of ruminant rations. This ban was not introduced to protect the health of pigs and poultry. The existing bans on the use of mammalian MBM in feed for farmed animals do not extend to MBM derived from poultry.
SEAC provided advice to the Government on the practice of intraspecies recycling of waste in the pig and poultry industries in December 1997. They considered that there may be a very small risk of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) arising spontaneously within a species and recommended that a strategy be developed to remove the small potential risk of TSE transmission from the recycling of pig and poultry waste as feed for the same species. The Government have accepted this advice.
Copies of all SEAC advice are placed in the Libraries of the House.
Mr. Mitchell:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list each of the new responsibilities which he will assume when the signed Treaty of Amsterdam takes effect and for each (a) the likely effect on departmental staffing, (b) the bodies or persons in the European Union principally concerned and (c) the relevant section of that treaty and the consolidated treaties of the European Union and European Community. [80420]
Mr. Rooker:
The Treaty of Amsterdam will have minimal impact on the responsibilities of the Department and its staffing. As far as EU bodies are concerned, there will be an increased role for the European Parliament, following the amendment to Article 129 of the Treaty to extend the co-decision procedure to cover measures in the veterinary and phytosanitary fields which have as their direct objective the protection of public health.
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