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Regional Agencies (Eastern Region)

Andrew Selous: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the locations of the offices of regional bodies and agencies in the Eastern region for which her Department is responsible, broken down by county. [95059]

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Alun Michael: I list in the following table the regional bodies and Defra Agencies by County in the Eastern Region. Locations of NDPBs that have supra regional

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responsibilities but are located in Eastern Region have been excluded.

County	Address	Occupier
Bedford	Wrest Park, Silsoe, Beds, MK45 4HS	EMI
Cambridge	Government Buildings, Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge, Cambs, CB2 2DR	RPA, RDS, HMI, EMI, PHSI
	Chequers Court, St. Germaine Street, Huntingdon, Cambs, PE18 6LT	SVS
	Whitehouse Lane, Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, Cambs, CBS OLF	PVS
	First Floor Unit, 2 Manor Grove Business Centre, Vicarage Farm Road, Peterborough, Cambs, PE15 5UH	Legal
Essex	Fish Laboratories, Remembrance Avenue, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, CMO 8HA	CEFAS
	Beeches Road Government Buildings, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 2RU	SVS, EMI, PHSI, RPA
	Office Suite 3 St. Andrews House, Opposite 22 Berth Tilbury Freeport, Essex, RM18 7HX	HMI
	Hamilton House, Parkeston Quay Rooms G8 & G9, Ground Floor, Harwich, Essex,	Fl
	Unit 10, Springfield Nursery Industrial Estate, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, CMO 8DA	CEFAS
Hertfordshire	First Floor, Richmond House, Walkern Road, Stevenage Old Town, Herts, SG1 3QP	SVS, HMI
Norfolk	Vancouver House, County Court Road, Kings Lynn, Norfolk, PE30 5EH	PHSI, RDS, Fl, HMI
	122A Thorpe Road, Norwich, Norfolk, NR1 1RN	EMI, PHSI, RDS, SVS, RPA
Suffolk	Fish Lab Stores Units, 7–12 Pinbush Drive, South Lowestoft Industrial Estate, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR33NL	CEFAS
	Fisheries Laboratory, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR33 OHT	CEFAS
	North Quay, Lowestoft Docks, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR321BN	CEFAS
	Portakabin, Fish Quay, Battery Green Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR33 OHT	CEFAS
	100 Southgate Street Government Buildings, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 2AQ	PHSI, SVS, RDS, RPA
	Baltic Chambers, 2 Waveney Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR32 1BN	Fl
	Vic Rougham Hill, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 2RT	VLA
	St. Clare House, Princes Street, Greyriars, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP1 1LW	HMI, EMI
	Room 516 Trelawny House, The Dock, Felixtowe, Suffolk, IP1 8SB	PHSI

Notes:

EMI—Egg Marketing Inspectorate

RPA—Rural Payments Agency

RDS—Rural Development Service

HMI—Horticultural Marketing Inspectorate

PHSI—Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate

PVS—Plant Variety and Seeds Inspectorate

Legal—Defra Legal Department

SVS—State Veterinary Service

FI—Fisheries Inspectorate

VLA—Veterinary Laboratories Agency

Theft and Fraud

Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to her answer to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), 20 January 2003, Official Report, column 103W, if she will estimate the cost of theft and fraud to each of her Department's agencies for the financial year 2001–02. [95080]

Margaret Beckett: The Department's records for the financial year 2001–02 show that of its agencies the Rural Payments Agency reported theft with a cost of £226,000. The Department's other agencies each reported no cost for theft and fraud.

Timber

Ms Walley: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when all government suppliers will be issued with guidance regarding government requirements to procure timber from legal and sustainable sources. [95734]

Mr. Meacher: I wrote to Green Ministers in May 2002 enclosing a model specification clause that will help central departments draft their contracts for procuring timber and timber products. The model specification clause was also included in an Information Note that the Treasury's Office of Government Commerce issued in November to remind Departments of the Government's policy on the procurement of timber. It has provided both buyers and suppliers with some clarification of the Government's requirements for timber.

The current guidance does need improving. The Government intends tightening up the definition of acceptable standards for legal timber and forest management and will do more to determine how suppliers' claims for compliance can be assessed efficiently and effectively. The Government is in the process of tendering to set up a central point of expertise on timber to address these issues and other related matters. I cannot be precise about when the centre of expertise will be ready to issue improved guidance but as an indication I would expect it to be later this year.

Village Halls

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many village halls there are (a) in the UK, (b) in the north-west of

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England and (c) Lancashire; and how many village halls were operating in (i) 1997, (ii) 1998, (iii) 1999, (iv) 2000, (v) 2001 and (vi) 2002. [96727]

Alun Michael: In 1998 Action with Communities in Rural England calculated that there were around 8,900 village halls and similar community buildings in rural England; no analysis of the actual number of village halls at regional or county level, and of the change from year to year, is available centrally.

The Countryside Agency's report "Rural Services in 2000" reveals that in 2000 84.3 per cent. of those parishes in the north-west who responded to their survey had either a village hall or other community meeting place compared with 85 per cent. for England.

Further detailed information about the north-west is available at: http://www.countryside.gov.uk/regional/pdfs/NWRSS.pdf.

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many village halls have been in operation every year since 1997 in (a) the East of England, (b) Suffolk and (c) the constituency of Bury St Edmunds. [97388]

Alun Michael: In 1998 Action with Communities in Rural England calculated that there were around 8,900 village halls and similar community buildings in rural England; No analysis of the actual number of village halls at regional or county level, and of the change from year to year, is available centrally.

The Countryside Agency's report "Rural Services in 2000" reveals that in 2000 88.1 per cent. of those parishes in the East of England who responded to their survey had either a village hall or other community meeting place compared with 85 per cent. for England as a whole. The same survey revealed that 68.8 per cent. of settlements had a village or community hall compared with 52 per cent. for England.

Further detailed information about the East of England is available at: http://www.countryside.gov.uk/regional/pdfs/EofERSS.pdf

Waste Incinerator Directive

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many waste incinerators in the UK emit levels of dioxins and other pollutants above those permitted by the EU Waste Incinerator Directive; and if she will make a statement. [96411]

Mr. Meacher: Directive 2000/76/EC on the incineration of waste will apply from 28 December 2005 to incinerators existing before 28 December 2002. The directive's limits for pollutants cover emissions both to air and to water and will be relatively complex in their application, depending in part on the nature of the incinerator. A UK assessment carried out during the negotiation of the directive indicated that there was already a high level of compliance with the limits. In particular, the 11 municipal waste incinerators in England all now already comply with the directive's limit of 0.1 ng/m ³ for dioxins emissions.

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DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Local Government Funding

Mr. Maude: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what proportion of total public spending consisted of spending by local authorities in each of the past five years. [96527]

Mr. Boateng: I have been asked to reply.

Figures for local authority own spending and total managed expenditure for the past five years are available on the public spending pages on the Treasury public website, and are updated every time the Office for National Statistics revises these data. The website address is: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Documents/Public Spending and Services/pss index.cfm

Unfair Terms Regulations

Ms Bridget Prentice: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many (a) local authority and (b) housing association tenancy agreements have been received by the OFT for investigation under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts regulations. [96565]

Miss Melanie Johnson: I have been asked to reply.

This historic information is not available as records are not kept by OFT at this level of detail. But OFT believe the numbers involved to be small. OFT are currently considering three complaints about local authority tenancy agreements and another six complaints about housing association tenancy agreements.

Ms Bridget Prentice: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (a) how many terms and (b) what type of terms were revised in the Blyth Valley Borough Council tenancy agreement, as reported in the Office of Fair Trading's Unfair Contract Terms bulletin number 18. [96569]

Miss Melanie Johnson: I have been asked to reply.

The published Bulletin shows that 10 terms were revised following action by the Director General of Fair Trading. The terms revised were those considered to have some potential for unfairness. They included clauses binding tenants to other hidden terms, a potential financial penalty, exclusions or limitations on the legal rights of the tenant, an unrestricted right to increase the rent, a term allowing the Council excessive discretion to decide whether the tenant was in breach of the agreement, a term unfairly transferring risk to the tenant and a term which did not meet the requirement that terms be written in plain language.

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