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11 Mar 2003 : Column 133W—continued

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

Departmental Administrative Errors

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the fine imposed by the European Commission on her Department for administrative errors. [100961]

Mr. Morley: By decision 2003/102/EC of 14 February 2003 the European Commission excluded 14.84m of UK expenditure from reimbursement by the European Community, on the grounds that it was not effected in accordance with Community rules. Of this, 14m was due to shortcomings in the operation of the beef subsidy schemes, 492,000 to shortcomings in checks on carcases accepted into public storage and 55,000 to failures to comply with payment deadlines. These sums relate mainly, but not entirely, to CAP schemes administered by the Rural Payments Agency, which is an executive agency of Defra.

The livestock penalties largely relate to a lack of cross checks between bovine subsidy claims and the computerised cattle registration database in the marketing year 2000–01, coupled with an incomplete programme of on-farm inspections. The FMD outbreak was a factor in both cases. Automatic cross checks between the computerised cattle database and bovine subsidy claims have now been established.

The shortcomings in public storage relate to the acceptance for intervention storage of certain incorrectly classified carcases by Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) inspectors in Northern Ireland in 1998. It has since been arranged that LMC inspectors liaise more closely with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Northern Ireland (DARDNI) inspectors. Unannounced on-the-spot controls by RPA technical inspectors have also been introduced, in agreement with DARDNI.

The remaining penalties relate to the failure to make within the regulatory deadlines some payments for maize during the marketing year 2000–01 and some payments for set-aside during the marketing year

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1999–00. In England, instructions to staff have been reviewed and reinforced to stress the payment deadlines and the need for timely processing. In the current EAGGF year almost 99 per cent. of main AAPS payments were made to producers in England by the payment deadline date of 31 January 2003.

The UK Government regrets that any of its expenditure should be subject to disallowance. However, in the most recent report of the European Court of Auditors, relating to the calendar year 2001, the UK was the only member state to receive a net credit from disallowance decisions. Furthermore, this decision represents only about half of one percent of agricultural expenditure in the UK funded by the Community each year.

Animal By-products

Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what additional resources have been available to local authorities to enable them to police the disposal of animal by-products material in each of the last five years. [100814]

Mr. Morley [holding answer 4 March 2003]: No additional resources have been made available to local authorities to enable them to police the disposal of animal by-products.

However, we are continuing to fund additional work undertaken by local authorities as a result of the foot and mouth disease outbreak. This may, by implication, include enforcement work regarding the disposal of animal by-products e.g. disposal of carcases.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if she will make a statement on the animal carcase (a) rendering and (b) incineration industries and the market share of companies involved within them; [101262]

Mr. Morley: The Department regulates outlets that deal with animal by-products, such as rendering and incineration plants. Officials are, therefore, involved in regular discussions with those industries and other interested parties, both informally and on a more formal, consultative basis.

The Department does not hold information regarding the market share of the companies involved in the animal by-product industry.

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list those companies with which her Department and its agencies have signed contracts to incinerate animal carcases under the over 30 months scheme in each year since 1996. [191266]

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Alun Michael: The following lists give details of the companies contracted by the Rural Payments Agency to incinerate over thirty month scheme animal carcases for each year 1996 to date.





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Animal Welfare Bill

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will include the use of snares in the proposed Animal Welfare Bill. [102481]

Mr. Morley: Snares will not be dealt with under the Animal Welfare Bill. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 already regulates snares.

Water Supplies (Ashford)

Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the additional water supplies needed for the planned expansion of Ashford; and if she will make a statement. [102288]

Mr. Morley: Ashford is served by Mid Kent Water. Along with the other water supply companies, Mid Kent Water produces a water resources plan, which looks forward 25 years. The plan is updated annually by the Company, and is reviewed by the Environment Agency for consistency with the national and regional water resources strategies. The planned expansion of Ashford will be factored into this process.

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