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Written Ministerial Statements
Thursday 27 February 2003
NORTHERN IRELAND
Prison Service
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Jane Kennedy): I have today laid before Parliament the report of the Prison Service Pay Review Body on the pay of governor and officer grades in the Northern Ireland Prison Service for 2003. Copies have been placed in the Library of both Houses.
Both the Secretary of State and I welcome the recognition in the report of the work of staff in the Northern Ireland Prison Service.
The Review Body has recommended a consolidated increase of 2.5 per cent. on existing rates of pay for the 12 month period commencing 1 April 2003 and an increase of 1.5 per cent. on allowances.
I have decided to accept the recommendations and implement the award in full.
TRANSPORT
Airports Consultation
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling): Last summer the Government published a set of seven consultation papers on the Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom.
On 26 November the High Court upheld a challenge against the exclusion of options for additional runways at Gatwick Airport. On 28 November I told the House, Official Report, columns 474–87, that I would not appeal against the judgment, because an appeal would result in an extensive period of uncertainty for people up and down the country. I therefore announced that I was keeping open the consultation, which had been due to end on 30 November, and that I would publish a further consultation paper including runway options at Gatwick.
I am today publishing the further consultation material. I have decided that it would be easier for consultees to publish it in the form of second editions of the full South East consultation paper, the summary South East paper and the questionnaires for both the South East and other areas of the UK. Consultees can easily see the text added as a result of including the Gatwick options.
The new documents include the original consultation material on options at Heathrow, Stansted, Luton and other South East airports, and the option for a new airport at Cliffe. In addition, in accordance with the High Court decision, the papers now include options for additional runways at Gatwick.
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As for options on the other South East airports published last July, the papers now set out for Gatwick all the options which were appraised in detail in the later stages of the South East and East of England Regional Air Services (SERAS) study. Accordingly, there are two options for a single new runway at Gatwick and one option for two new runways there. The papers also set out alternative assumptions on the timing of these Gatwick options.
The consultation, for all parts of the UK, will now close on 30 June. We will consider carefully all responses received by that date, including proposals for options other than those which have been included in the Government's consultation documents. As I told the House on 28 November, this is an opportunity for anyone to express their views on all the options in the consultation, as well as to put forward any reasonable alternatives.
Copies of all the new documents are available in the Vote Office and in the Library. My officials are writing to everyone on the original consultation list, and to all those who have responded to the consultations so far, to alert them to the new documents and to the 30 June deadline, and explaining that people who have already submitted responses can choose either to let their response stand, or to add to, or amend, or withdraw their response in the light of the new material.
Night Noise Restrictions (Heathrow, Gatwick andStansted Airports)
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr. John Spellar): We have been considering the timetable for the forthcoming consultation about night restrictions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports. The present night restrictions regime at those airports is due to end in October 2004. We have decided to consult shortly on an interim proposal to extend this regime for a further year, to October 2005. This would allow us to consider comments received in response to the question about the five yearly review cycle in the consultation paper Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom: South East (the second edition of this paper has been published today), as well as the wider policy context, before we consult on a regime to take effect from October 2005.
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Agri-environment Scheme
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Margaret Beckett): The Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food recommended that an entry-level agri-environment scheme should be made available to as many farms in England as possible. The Government accepted this recommendation and announced in the Sustainable Farming and Food Strategy in December 2002 that, subject to a successful pilot, the Entry Level Scheme would be made available to farmers across England from 2005.
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I am pleased to inform the House that the pilot for this new scheme begins today. Guidance Booklets which give full details of the scheme design, including the environmental management options that farmers will implement under the scheme, the application process and application forms are now available. Farmers in the four pilot areas will be able to apply for the new scheme from now until 30 May 2003.
All farmers with land in the four pilot areas have been invited to launch meetings in the week beginning 3 March, at which they will be able to collect copies of these booklets. Defra staff and representatives from our partner organisations will be on hand at the meetings to answer farmers' questions and provide further information. These meetings will be followed by workshops in the four pilot areas, which will provide further practical help for farmers.
The design of the pilot for the Entry Level Scheme, including the location of the four pilot areas, has been developed in close consultation with key partner organisations through regular meetings of an Entry Level Scheme Working Group.
The pilot areas were chosen carefully, according to a range of objective criteria, to be representative of a variety of English farm types and landscapes. There are approximately 200 farms in each of the pilot areas. The areas chosen to pilot the new scheme are:
| Area | Nearby towns | Pilot area broadlyRepresentative of: |
|---|---|---|
| North East | Barnard Castle (Co.Durham) | Upland farming |
| South West | Tiverton (Devon) | Grassland farming |
| South East | Mortimer (Berkshire, nr Reading) | Mixed farming |
| East Midlands | Market Deeping (Lincolnshire) | Arable farming and cropping |
Maps showing the precise boundaries of the pilot areas have been placed in the Defra library in Nobel House.
The basic features of the Entry Level Scheme Pilot will be as follows:
Farmers taking part in the Pilot Scheme will have to identify important environmental features and areas on their farm. They will also have to make a commitment to carry out simple, yet effective, environmental management activities, which they will select themselves from a wide-ranging list of options. Examples of options available include wildlife-friendly hedge management, buffer strips around key features on the farm, the maintenance of stone walls and managing low input grassland.
Each option will be worth a certain number of points, related to the cost to the farmer of implementing that option. If the farmer achieves a target number of points for their farm they will be guaranteed entry to the scheme and payment. The target number of points will be based on farm size. Farmers will have to get 30 points per hectare, except for LFA land in parcels of 15 ha or more where the threshold will be 15 points per hectare.
There will be a flat rate payment of £30 per hectare over the whole holding, paid annually. However, for LFA land in parcels of 15 ha or more, farmers will receive £15 per hectare. The lower rates reflect the fact that this land, which is normally extensively grazed, is generally managed less intensively, farmers could not be expected to implement such a wide range of measures, or at the same level of intensity, as in lowland farming situations.
The scheme will be open to all farmers who farm land within the pilot area boundaries.
Agreements will be for 5 years.
A key aim of the scheme is high take-up, as the environmental management activities available will be most effective if they are applied across a wide area. To facilitate high uptake, the scheme has been designed to be simple to administer for both the farmer and Government. We hope that farmers participating in the pilot will be able to understand and implement the entry level scheme themselves, without the need for specialist advice on a one-to-one basis.
The pilot will be closely monitored and evaluated for the next two years. The evaluation will assess the application of the environmental management measures at the farm level, including their potential to deliver the expected environmental benefits. The accessibility and popularity of the scheme, and an analysis of the factors affecting uptake, will also be considered.
The experience gained from the pilots will enable us to adapt and improve the scheme design before aiming to roll out the Entry Level Scheme across England in 2005.
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