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Written Answers to Questions

Monday 26 April 2004

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

Accountancy Services

Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the (a) nature and (b) value was of all contracts, consultancies or
 
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other services placed with the accountancy firms (i) Deloitte & Touche, (ii) Ernst & Young, (iii) KPMG and (iv) PricewaterhouseCoopers since 2000–01 by the Department. [166085]

Alun Michael: The information on the nature of all contracts, consultancies or other services placed with the accountancy firms Deloitte and Touche; Ernst and Young (now part of Cap Gemini Ernst and Young); KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers cannot be provided as it is not held centrally.

The Department is in the process of compiling a central list for the future but this would take some time to complete. The expenditure for core Defra excluding its agencies and NDPBs with each of the firms since 2000–01 is as follows:
£

Supplier Name	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03	2003–04	Total
Deloitte and Touche	0.00	303,941.96	814,339.69	495,575.67	1,613,857.32
Cap Gemini UK	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Ernst and Young	0.00	0.00	0.00	47,000.00	47,000.00
KPMG	140,341.47	26,711.66	0.00	48,675.67	215,728.80
PricewaterhouseCoopers	255,907.97	308,935.56	30,207.79	55,113.63	650,164.95
Total	396,249.44	639,589.18	844,547.48	646,364.97	2,526,751.07

Central Lobby Consultants

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the work she has commissioned from Central Lobby Consultants since 1 June 2001. [163975]

Alun Michael: No work has been commissioned from the company named by or on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Common Agricultural Policy

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent discussions she has had with representatives of the fruit growing industry in respect of Common Agricultural Policy reform. [166446]

Alun Michael: Defra officials met a delegation from the National Farmers' Union on 31 March.

Over-30 Month Scheme

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on progress in bringing the Over Thirty Month Scheme to an end. [164071]

Alun Michael: The Food Standards Agency (FSA) review of the Over Thirty Month rule was completed in July 2003 and recommended that it would be acceptable on public health grounds to replace the Over Thirty Month rule with BSE testing of cattle in two stages. Cattle born after August 1996 could be allowed into the food chain, after being tested for BSE, with the possibility of complete replacement of the rule from July 2005. Health Ministers are still considering the FSA advice, but it has already been decided that, for practical reasons, cattle born before August 1996 will be permanently excluded from the food chain. We are now unlikely to see any changes to the OTMS before January 2005, due to the legislative process that must take place once a decision has been reached by Ministers.

Pesticides

Mr. Tyrie: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what peer-reviewed and published UK studies she has received that have measured actual exposures to pesticides for people living in agricultural areas, including high and lower levels of exposure over both the short and long-term, and including all oral, dermal and inhalation routes of contamination. [166695]

Alun Michael: The data that industry is obliged to   submit to support applications for approvals of pesticides are not usually published. Such studies follow internationally agreed protocols and are subject to the requirements of Good Laboratory Practice. These data are subject to scientific review by the Pesticide Safety Directorate and the independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides and/or other European Union regulatory authorities. Evaluation documents are publicly available.

Data submitted generally refer to operators, who represent the highest risk category for exposure to plant protection products. Several studies on worker exposure have been published in peer review journals.

Mr. Tyrie: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what peer-reviewed and published UK studies she has received that have provided direct measurements of pesticide levels in (a) people, (b) wild animals, (c) domestic animals and (d) livestock situated in or near sprayed fields. [166696]

Alun Michael: The data that industry is obliged to submit to support applications for approvals of pesticides are not usually published. Such studies follow internationally agreed protocols and are subject to the
 
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requirements of Good Laboratory Practice. These data are subject to scientific review by the Pesticide Safety Directorate (PSD) and the independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) and/or other European Union regulatory authorities. Evaluation documents are publicly available.

(a) Regarding measurements in people, studies have focused on spray operators and farm workers as the highest risk category.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has a large study where the exposures of operators applying chlorpyrifos to orchards was monitored. ("Technical Development Survey, Exposure to Chlopyrifos in Orchard Spraying, Health and Safety Executive, Directorate of Science and Technology, Health and Safety Laboratory, and Field Operations Division, 1998".)

The Pesticides Incidents Appraisal Panel studies, and publishes an annual report on, reported incidents and complaints, including alleged ill-health incidents, involving pesticides investigated by the HSE. The report and details of individual incidents are presented to the ACP to inform the pesticide approvals process.

The Secretary of State is aware of further work undertaken in the US, which has been published recently.

(b) Wild animals and (c) domestic animals

In the UK the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme (WHS) investigates deaths of terrestrial wildlife and domestic animals, where there is strong evidence that pesticide poisoning may be involved. Annual reports of these investigations are published by the Department and are also available on the Pesticides Safety Directorate website.

The Wildlife Conservation Research Unit of the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, has recently published a report (funded by the RSPCA) entitled "A Review of the Effects of Pesticides on Wild Terrestrial Mammals in Britain" (Harrington & MacDonald 2002, ISBN 0 9529371 8 2).

The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) operates the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme in which levels of contaminants in livers and eggs of selected species have been monitored. Further information available from the CEH website: www.ceh.ac.uk.

(d) Livestock in or near sprayed fields

Monitoring of pesticide residues in meat and meat products is carried out by the independent Pesticide Residues Committee (PRC). The results are published quarterly, via the PRC's website, at: www.prc-uk.org.

The results are also summarised in an annual report. The most recent report, for 2002, is available free of charge from PSD and is also available on the above website.

Single Farm Payment

Mr. Whittingdale: To ask the Secretary of State for   Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what
 
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assessment she has made of the impact of the introduction of the Single Farm Payment on fruit growers; and if she will make a statement; [166024]

(2) what recent assessment she has made of the impact of her proposed Single Farm Payment proposals on the future viability of orchards and fruit growers. [166448]

Alun Michael: Fruit growers were generally not eligible for the subsidies which are to be replaced by the single payment. Our proposals extend eligibility for the single payment to land which is used to grow soft fruit. Single payments cannot be made anywhere in the European Union in respect of land under permanent crops, which includes orchards.

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