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Regulatory Guidance Note 6

Sue Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate the Environment Agency has made of the financial cost of implementing Regulatory Guidance Note 6; and who will bear which costs. [165269]

Mr. Morley: No cost estimate relating to Regulatory Guidance Note 6, covering the engineering requirements of Schedule 2 of the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002, has been carried out by the Environment Agency or by my Department. This is an internal guidance note to assist environment agency staff to interpret and enforce the Regulations, but is published in the interests of transparency. It is subject to change as situations develop.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) of the Landfill Directive in England and Wales was published with the Second Consultation Paper on Implementation of Council Directive (1999/31/EC) on the Landfill of Waste. This is available on the Defra website (www.defra.gov.uk). The RIA indicates that at the extreme, waste producers will face an additional cost in the range of £97 million to £696 million as a result of implementing the Directive.

The RIA also points out that increasing disposal costs will provide greater impetus to minimise, recycle and re-use waste and hence move the management of waste up the waste hierarchy. This outcome is a major objective of the Government's environmental policy and is supported by business, non-Government organisations and Select Committees of this House.

River Invertebrates

Sue Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to increase invertebrate monitoring in rivers during summer months to identify serious insecticide pollution. [163079]

Mr. Morley [holding answer 24 March 2004]: The Environment Agency currently monitors 6,000 sites for invertebrates, covering a network of just under 40,000 km of river. Sites are sampled on a three-year rolling programme such that each year two samples are taken from a third of the sites. These samples are timed to give a good picture of the invertebrate population.
 
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The Environment Agency and the Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) have recently commenced a research project to establish whether the actual use of agricultural pesticides, including insecticides, is causing unacceptable adverse effects on aquatic invertebrates and plants. The project will include intensive chemical and biological sampling of identified higher risk rivers and streams. This will provide field-based evidence on whether the way that plant protection products are currently approved and used is sufficiently protective of the aquatic environment.

Sea Birds

Mr. Randall: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she expects the ratification of the agreement on the conservation of albatrosses and petrels to be extended to include Tristan da Cunha. [168002]

Mr. Morley: The Government ratified the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels on 2 April for the UK and three Overseas Territories. We are working hard to extend the ratification to Tristan da Cunha and will do so as soon as possible.

IACS Forms

Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will extend the deadline of 17 May for completion by farmers of integrated administration and control system forms. [167608]

Alun Michael: A deadline of 15 May for the submission of the Integrated Administration and Control System forms is set out in Article 8(2) of Council Regulation 1251/1999.

Where a submission deadline falls on a public holiday or a weekend there is provision within Article 6(2) of Council Regulation 3508/1992 as amended by 1593/2000 for the deadline to be amended to fall on the first working day following. Therefore, as 15 May 2004 falls on a Saturday the deadline for submission has been set as 17 May.

There is no further scope within the regulations to extend the deadline beyond 17 May.

Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reason this year's integrated administration and control system forms have had to be reprinted; and when they will be posted to farmers. [167609]

Alun Michael: This year's Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) forms have not had to be reprinted.

All IACS forms were dispatched in early April and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) believes that they should all by now have been delivered to producers. However, the RPA has advised via an advertisement placed in the farming press and on its website that where forms have not been received producers should contact their RPA processing site.

Rats (Sewers)

Paddy Tipping: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what discussion
 
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she has had with local authorities on the (a) working and (b) effectiveness of the Water UK protocol on sewer baiting for rats; and if she will make a statement. [162399]

Mr. Morley: We recently sought the views of all Chief Executives of local authorities in England and Wales on how well the liaison arrangements between water companies and local authorities are working in relation to sewer baiting for rats. We asked them to identify which parts of the Water UK protocol were working well and those aspects where improvements might be made. The results of that review will be considered by the Rats in Sewers Working Group.

Thames Barrier

Richard Ottaway: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what circumstances have led to an increase in use of the Thames Barrier; and whether this has been due to long-term changes in national phenomena. [166014]

Mr. Morley: The Thames Barrier is closed to protect London from extreme high tidal waters generated by 'storm surge' in the North Sea and to provide storage for extreme freshwater flows, which would threaten West London, and combinations of these phenomena.

The Thames Barrier has been closed on 67 occasions in the last 10 years during the winter flood seasons.

Mean sea level and extreme tidal waters are expected to increase as the south east of England continues to fall relative to sea level. This was factored into the design of the barrier and closures for extreme high tides are within those expected when the barrier began operation. Closures due to extreme freshwater flows are harder to predict, but the winters of 2000–01 and 2002–03 were two of the wettest on record.

It is too early to say whether these trends are anthropogenically driven or part of the natural variance. It is also possible that extreme freshwater flows have been affected by changes in the land use of the Thames catchment.

Sea level rise, tidal surge extremes, tidal propagation, wave driven storminess, freshwater flows and combinations of these phenomena are all expected to be affected by climate change. The uncertainty for the future flood regime is high and creates a challenge for the long term financial and environmental planning in the Thames Estuary.

The Environment Agency are aware of these challenges and are already two years into TE2100, a project that will deliver by 2008–09 a flood risk management plan for the next 100 years. As well as the continued use of the Barrier, a number of flood risk management measures are also being considered.

Tobacco

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what area of land is used to grow tobacco in each EU (a) member state and (b) accession country; how much subsidy was given for tobacco growing in each EU member state in 2003–04; and how much will be given to each EU member state in 2004–05. [167068]

 
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Alun Michael: The area of land used to grow tobacco in the producer member states and in new member states is:
2002 (1,000ha)

Member states	Area of land
EU15:
Belgium	0.381
Germany	4.789
Greece	(11)54.77
Spain	11.5
France	8.901
Italy	37.676
Austria	0.116
Portugal	1.901
EU25:
Cyprus	(11)0.077
Hungary	5.477
Poland	10.296
Slovak Republic	1.1
Total	136.984

⁽¹¹⁾ 2001 figures.
Source:
Eurostat CRONOS

The tobacco premia paid in 2002 (the latest year for which figures are available) is:
Million euro

Member states	Amount
Belgium	3.9
Germany	35.1
Greece	369.0
Spain	115.4
France	80.4
Italy	330.8
Austria	0.9
Portugal	16.3
Total	951.8

Source:
Official Journal of the European Union 23/2/04.

Payments in 2004–05 will be based on claims for tobacco that has not yet, or only just, been planted. The information requested is therefore not available. However, the EU budget provision for expenditure on tobacco premia in 2004 is 929 million euro.

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