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Refrigerators

Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assistance her Department is planning to give to local councils towards the cost of disposing of refrigerators in this financial year. [64531]

Paddy Tipping: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what financial aid has been made available to each local authority to help with the storage and disposal of refrigerators in (a) 2001–02 and (b) 2002–03. [64247]

Mr. Meacher: In December 2001, we announced a payment of £6 million to go to local authorities to cover their costs up until March 2002 for the storage and

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disposal of refrigerators. We realise local authorities are in need of further funding and intend to make an announcement as soon as possible.

Mr. Wilshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many fridges are awaiting disposal in each (a) waste collection authority and (b) waste disposal authority. [66509]

Mr. Meacher: The exact numbers of fridges being stored pending treatment in either waste collection authority or waste disposal authority at any one point in time are not held centrally. However, current estimates suggest there are around 900,000 units awaiting treatment.

Illegal Meat Products

Mr. Collins: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what outbreaks of disease in animals in Cumbria have been linked to the imports of illegal meat products in the past five years. [64877]

Mr. Morley [holding answer 27 June 2002]: The Cumbria Foot and Mouth Disease Inquiry concluded that there is a strong likelihood that the foot and mouth virus that affected the UK during 2001 may have entered the country in an imported animal product—probably illegally imported meat. Prior to 2001, we are not aware of other disease outbreaks in Cumbria that have been linked to illegal meat imports.

The Government published an action plan on 28 March 2002 to reduce the risk of animal and plant disease entering the country and then threatening our public health, and livestock, agriculture and horticulture industries. The action plan includes undertaking a full risk assessment of the probability of illegal animal products reaching susceptible animals and causing disease, the final report of which will be delivered in the Autumn.

Wild Animals

Mr. Letwin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on her policy relating to the enforcement of statutory constraints on the sale of wild animals. [64376]

Mr. Meacher [holding answer 27 June 2002]: We promote the enforcement of wildlife legislation through our joint chairmanship of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime. The Partnership is a multi-agency body comprising all the main Government and voluntary bodies committed to reducing wildlife crime. One of its main objectives is to support the networks of Police Wildlife Liaison Officers and HM Customs and Excise Wildlife and Endangered Species Officers, who have statutory responsibility for enforcing the controls.

Secondments

Mr. Breed: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many secondments and exchanges of staff there have been between central and regional Government offices and organisations with a rural remit since November 2000. [65393]

Mr. Morley [holding answer 1 July 2002]: There have been nine exchanges of staff between central and regional Government and 39 exchanges with organisations with a rural remit.

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23 staff have been seconded to the European Commission and eight staff to other organisations abroad and those organisations may touch on rural issues.

Air Quality

Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which of the

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pollutants covered by the National Air Quality Strategy are monitored by each of the main London air quality monitoring sites. [65092]

Mr. Meacher [holding answer 1 July 2002]: There are 24 air quality monitoring sites in London reported in the National Air Quality Archive (http://www.airquality.co.uk). The pollutants measured at these sites, site type and their start dates are given in the table.

Site name	Site type(4)	Species measured(5)	Start date
London A3 Roadside	Roadside	NOx, CO, PM 1 0	20 March 1997
London Bexley	Suburban	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0	1 May 1994
London Bloomsbury	Urban Centre	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0 , benzene	23 January 1992
London Brent	Urban Background	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0	26 January 1996
London Bromley	Roadside	NOx, CO	11 August 1998
Camden Roadside	Kerbside	NOx, PM 1 0	16 May 1996
London Cromwell Road	Roadside	NOx, CO, SO 2	20 May 1998
London Eltham	Suburban	O 3 , NOx, SO 2 , PM 1 0	1 April 1996
London Hackney	Urban Centre	O 3 , NOx, CO	6 January 1997
Haringey Roadside	Roadside	NOx, PM 1 0 , benzene	16 May 1996
London Haringey	Urban Centre	O 3	16 May 1996
London Hillingdon	Suburban	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0	3 July 1996
Hounslow Roadside	Roadside	O 3 , NOx, CO	16 September 1997
London N. Kensington	Urban Background	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0 (T+G)	1 April 1996
London Lewisham	Urban Centre	O 3 , NOx, SO 2	16 April 1997
London Marylebone Road(6)	Roadside	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0 (T+G), benzene, 1,3-butadiene	17 July 1997
London Southwark	Urban Centre	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2	14 February 1997
Southwark Roadside	Roadside	NOx, CO, SO 2	1 April 1997
London Teddington	Urban Background	NOx, SO 2 , O 3	8 August 1996
Tower Hamlets Roadside	Roadside	NOx, CO	1 April 1996
Thurrock	Urban Background	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0	15 September 1996
London Wandsworth	Urban Centre	O 3 , NOx, SO 2 , CO	1 April 1996
West London	Urban Background	NOx, CO	1 January 1987
London Westminster	Urban Background	O 3 , NOx, CO, SO 2 , PM 1 0 (G only)	17 July 2001

⁽⁴⁾ Site types are described as follows:

Kerbside: A site sampling within 1 metre of the edge of a busy road.

Roadside: A site sampling between 1 metre of the edge of a busy road and the back of the pavement. Typically this will be within 5 metres of the road, with a sampling height of 2–3 metres.

Urban Centre: A non-kerbside site, located in an area representative of typical population exposure in town or city centres (e.g. pedestrian precincts and shopping areas). This is likely to be strongly influenced by vehicle emissions, as well as other general urban sources of pollution. Sampling at or near breathing-zone heights (1.4–4 metres) will be applicable.

Urban Background: An urban location distanced from sources and therefore broadly representative of city-wide background conditions e.g. elevated locations, parks and urban residential areas.

Suburban: A location type situated in a residential area on the outskirts of a town or city. Will be influenced by several sources of pollution including traffic, commercial, space heating, regional transport, urban plume downwind of a city.

⁽⁵⁾ Pollutant species: O ₃ —ozone; NOx—oxides of nitrogen (include nitrogen dioxide); CO—carbon monoxide; SO ₂ —sulphur dioxide; PM _{1 0} —particulate matter of aerodynamic diameter less than 10 micrometres. PM _{1 0} monitoring is carried out using either the TEOM (Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance; T in table above) or Gravimetric sampling (G in table above). Monitoring is by TEOM alone unless otherwise stated.

⁽⁶⁾ London Marylebone Road is a research site and is used for a variety of monitoring projects mostly involving measurement of airborne particulate matter.

Food Imports

Mr. Gale: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will bring forward proposals to ban the import of food products produced (a) under conditions and (b) using chemicals that would not be permitted in the United Kingdom. [65150]

Mr. Morley [holding answer 1 July 2002]: European Community rules require all products of animal origin imported from third countries to be produced to standards at least equivalent to those applied to Community production, and to conform to rules limiting or banning the use of certain chemicals. All consignments imported are subject to veterinary checks at an authorised border inspection post to ensure that import requirements have been complied with. Consignments that do not comply are rejected and will be re-exported or destroyed.

Food which is not of animal origin, such as fruit and vegetables, entering the UK from third countries must meet the same food safety standards as apply to food produced in the UK. Under UK national regulations such imports are subject to checks on the basis of risk assessment by local food authorities at the point of entry to the UK and they can refuse entry or arrange destruction of foods that do not meet the UK's requirements.

Food coming to the UK from other EU member states is in free circulation within the EU and is not subject to

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routine checks at UK ports. Such food can be subject to random, non-discriminatory import checks where there is information to support such action.

From time to time the EU may make Decisions to be acted on by all member states, which require additional inspection or testing of specified foodstuffs.

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