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25 Mar 2004 : Column 997W—continued

Fallen Stock

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures she has put in hand to ensure the biosecurity of vehicles undertaking the collection of fallen stock from different farms in one journey. [158739]

Mr. Bradshaw: The EU Animal By-Products Regulation (EC 1774/2002) already controls the collection and transportation of animal by-products, including animal carcases. It requires animal by-products to be transported in a way that ensures there is no leakage from vehicles or containers. It also requires records to be kept of any consignment of animal by-products to assist in the auditing and traceability of this material.

In addition, general guidance on on-farm biosecurity is available on the Defra website: http://www. defra.gov.uk/animalh/animindx.htm

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of whether there is sufficient incineration capacity to deal with material handled by the Fallen Stock Subscription Scheme which cannot be processed by rendering. [158742]

Mr. Bradshaw: No specific assessment of incineration capacity has been made, but the collection and disposal industry as a whole has consistently advised that collectively there is sufficient capacity to dispose of fallen stock under the Scheme.

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what issues remain to be resolved before the Fallen Stock Subscription Scheme can be introduced. [158743]

25 Mar 2004 : Column 998W

Mr. Bradshaw: The National Fallen Stock Company has had many issues to resolve since its work started in November last year. Many have been relatively straightforward but others have been more complex and the board has advised that these require more time and negotiation to get right. For example, identifying available alternatives required to cope with sheep in full fleece which cannot be rendered, setting up payment and tender arrangements for the collection and disposal industry, and devising fair subscription rates for the pig and poultry sectors. In addition to these practical problems, the company has, with Defra, been required to ensure the scheme as a whole does not contravene the state aid rules of the EU. A state aid notification has been submitted for the scheme and we expect to have further discussions with the European Commission about the scheme before it goes ahead.

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reasons on each occasion she postponed establishment of the Fallen Stock Subscription Scheme. [158744]

Mr. Bradshaw: Defra had lengthy negotiations with the farming unions and other industry bodies between April 2002 and July 2003. On 24 July 2003 it was announced that the basis for sharing the costs of the Scheme and its eventual transfer to industry had been agreed and that the Scheme would go ahead. At that time it was expected that the Scheme would begin in January 2004. That proved to be unachievable. On 24 February the Board of the National Fallen Stock Company and government jointly announced that the launch would have to be postponed. The reasons for this were set out in PQ 1897 to which I would refer my hon. Friend.

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what financial contribution her Department has made to the establishment of the Fallen Stock Subscription Scheme. [158745]

Mr. Bradshaw: Defra has committed to a contribution of £5 million in the first year, £3 million in the second year and £2 million in the third year of the Scheme after which the Scheme is expected to be self-financing. Devolved administrations have committed to paying proportionate sums. In addition Defra has agreed to pay a further £1 million towards establishing the administration of the Scheme in the first year.

Farm Incomes (Buckingham)

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on farm income levels for farmers in Buckingham in each of the last seven years. [161561]

Alun Michael: Due to the small number of farms in Buckingham, there is no robust data available on farm incomes for farmers in Buckingham over the last seven years. Net farm income for farms in the East EU "Super Region" and for England over the last seven years are show in the following table.

25 Mar 2004 : Column 999W

Net farm income

	East EUSuper Region	England
1996–97	36,636	29,833
1997–98	16,281	13,847
1998–99	5,810	10,359
1999–2000	9,604	7,981
2000–01	11,367	9,886
2001–02	11,997	13,558
2002–03	16,894	16,435

Source:

Farm Business Survey.

Net farm income is the return to the principle farmer and spouse for their manual and managerial labour and to the tenant-type capital of the business.

GM Crops

Alan Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she was informed that (a) Liberty on its own had proved ineffective as a herbicide used with GMHT fodder maize crops in the United States, and (b) that to overcome this problem Bayer has been promoting the use of Liberty/Atrazine mix since the spring of 2001. [163170]

Mr. Morley: The herbicide regime employed on the GMHT crops in the farm-scale evaluations (FSE) was established at the beginning of the trials, based on proposals by the chemical manufacturers and the terms of the experimental license granted by the Pesticide Safety Directorate. These guidelines remained in force throughout the FSE. This herbicide regime will now be specified in writing on the release consent in line with advice given by the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment on 13 January 2004 and the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, on 9 March. Accordingly, anyone intending to grow the GMHT maize will only be able to do so using that herbicide regime that was tested in the FSE.

Evidence that Liberty alone provided insufficient weed control in the USA, and that it was on occasion mixed with Atrazine emerged in June 2002 and was immediately put to the FSE scientific steering committee for advice. They considered the issue and following assurance from industry that the herbicide regime being

25 Mar 2004 : Column 1000W

used in the FSE suited agronomic conditions in the UK, the committee were content to leave protocols unchanged.

M. bovis

Mr. Paterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether M. bovis can survive in silage clamps. [158362]

Mr. Bradshaw: In a study of M. bovis survival in silage, M. bovis was recovered from laboratory-prepared silage inoculated with 3.5x10 ⁶ colony forming units of M. bovis after 24 hours. The organism was not recovered at six or 12 weeks after inoculation. This indicates that it is unlikely that M. bovis will survive the ensiling process for any length of time if silage is properly prepared.

Market Towns

Mr. Edward Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what budget (a) was set for 2003–04 and (b) has been allocated for 2004–05 and 2005–06 by each relevant Government Department for the Market Towns Initiative, broken down by English region. [161651]

Alun Michael: White Paper offered funding of £37 million to enable the Regional Development Agencies and the Countryside Agency to support market town regeneration in the regions over a period of three years. £32 million was allocated to the Regional Development Agencies and £5 million to the Countryside Agency. The initiative was not established as a national funding programme with an annual budget, but as a means of enabling regional partnerships to target towns in their region according to selection criteria agreed regionally.

The start of the initiative was delayed in many of the regions due to the Foot and Mouth crisis, with some regions not launching their own initiatives or incurring spend until last year. For this reason data from the Regional Development Agencies on their expenditure is unlikely to be available until the initiative is evaluated.

Information from the Countryside Agency on its spending to date, broken down by region is given in the following table. The total amount is £11.5 million which is more than double the figure promised in the original figure promised in the Rural White Paper.

Market Towns—Expenditure by region by year2000–01

	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Humber	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	0	0
Staff costs*	625,000	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	625,000
Running costs	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Transport	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	0
Market towns Initiative	154,361	24,594	96,196	32,195	12,361	28,206	29,437	44,130	5,000	426,480
Sub total	779,361	24,594	96,196	32,195	12,361	28,206	29,437	44,130	5,000	1,051,480

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2001–02

	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Number	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-11,500	—	-20,000	—	—	-25,000	—	—	—	-56,500
Staff costs*	765,000	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	765,000
Running costs	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Market towns Initiative including Transport	338,259	122,674	760,836	370,696	436,478	176,805	300,279	202,209	128,435	2,176,671
Transport	2,352	—	41,527	43,425	187,486	17,183	81,645	97,441	113,303	584,362
Market towns Initiative	335,907	122,674	119,309	267,271	248,992	159,622	218,634	104,768	15,132	1,592,309
Sub total	1,091,759	122,674	140,836	310,696	436,478	151,805	300,279	202,209	128,435	2,885,171

2002–03

	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Number	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-33,624	—	—	—	—	-76,590	—	—	—	-110,214
Staff costs	172,559	51,044	56,384	97,039	41,025	89,242	45,788	65,566	57,040	675,687
Running costs	19,063	4,212	6,091	10,275	4,624	8,763	5,044	12,792	5,448	76,312
Market towns Initiative including Transport	278,797	203,067	349,977	720,086	677,723	474,475	267,117	328,683	270,220	3,570,139
Transport	-9,187	57,149	118,253	122,150	468,408	83,883	118,411	73,443	69,846	1,102,356
Market towns Initiative	287,978	145,918	231,724	597,936	209,315	390,592	148,706	255,240	200,374	2,467,783
Sub total	436,789	258,323	412,452	827,400	723,372	495,890	317,949	407,041	332,708	4,211,924

2003–04

	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Number	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-120,403	—	—	—	-3,979	-22,000	—	—	—	-146,382
Staff costs	596,846	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	596,846
Running costs	21,000	4,200	4,400	10,100	5,600	7,000	3,200	11,500	5,000	72,000
Market towns Initiative including Transport	197,556	792,392	229,304	376,557	673,542	490,321	217,155	282,737	209,408	2,868,966
Transport	0	50,405	87,806	156,287	242,509	419,818	113,191	123,151	54,236	1,247,403
Market towns Initiative	197,556	141,987	141,498	220,270	431,033	70,503	103,964	159,580	155,172	1,621,563
Sub total	694,999	196,592	233,704	386,657	675,163	475,321	220,355	294,231	214,408	3,391,430

Total

	HQ	North East	North West	Yorkshire and the Humber	West Midlands	East Midlands	East of England	South East	South West	Total
Income	-165,527	0	-20,000	0	-3,979	-123,590	0	0	0	-313,096
Staff costs	2,159,405	51,044	56,384	97,039	41,025	89,242	45,788	65,566	57,040	2,662,533
Running costs	40,063	8,412	10,491	20,375	10,224	15,763	8,244	24,292	10,448	148,312
Market towns Initiative including Transport	814,606	518,133	740,117	1,407,339	1,787,743	1,141,601	784,551	813,623	608,063	8,615,776
Transport	-6,835	107,554	247,586	321,862	898,403	520,884	313,247	294,035	237,385	2,934,121
Market towns Initiative	975,802	435,173	588,727	1,117,672	901,701	648,923	500,741	563,718	375,678	6,108,135
Sub total	813,361	76,841	167,646	189,892	12,361	86,978	88,978	252,220	5,000	1,051,480

⁽²³⁾ The Countryside Agency accounting system has changed since the Initiative started so a breakdown of running costs and salaries is not possible.

⁽²⁴⁾ Funding for transport is included, although it should be noted that this was a separate funding stream. Also, as some schemes were designed to link towns and cannot be attributed to a single town, this information has been excluded

⁽²⁵⁾ Regions town by town expenditure may not add up to the total on the overview page. This is due to inclusion of projects which are funded to benefit all towns in a region, such as regional networks or training.

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