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Emissions Trading Scheme

Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate her Department has made of the carbon emissions reductions from the EU emissions trading scheme. [185758]

Margaret Beckett: The overall emissions reductions from the scheme will depend on the price of carbon, which in turn is dependent on the total number of allowances in the EU market. The number of allowances to be allocated by the UK in the first phase of the scheme (2005–2007) is based on the UK reducing carbon dioxide emissions below our Kyoto Protocol target and towards our domestic goal.

Energy Efficiency

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the external costs associated with energy wasted from inefficiencies, with particular reference to the environmental costs. [184581]

Mr. Morley: In January 2002, a Government Economic Service working paper "Estimating the Social Cost of Carbon Emissions" was published as a joint Defra-Treasury publication. The GES paper suggested £70 per tonne of carbon (within a range of £35 to £140/tC) as an illustrative estimate for the global damage cost of carbon emissions.

The Government's recently published Energy Efficiency Action Plan identified target annual savings of 12.1 M tonnes of carbon by 2010. The corresponding total annual value of the reduced environmental damage is therefore around £850 M/y.

Environmental Business Growth Action Programme

Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the role of the Environment Agency is in the management of the Environmental Business Growth Action Programme, with particular reference to the west Midlands. [184147]

Mr. Morley: The Environmental Business Growth Action Programme is designed to assist small and medium enterprises to take advantage of the market for environmental goods and services. The Environment Agency is the accountable body for the programme, managing funds provided by Advantage West Midlands and the Government office for the west Midlands. The programme only operates in the west Midlands.

Water Leakage

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the external costs associated with water leakages and inefficient use of water, with particular reference to the environmental costs. [184584]

Mr. Morley: Water companies produce long-term (25 year) water resource plans to balance the supply and demand for water. These plans, which are reviewed annually and revised every five years, include economic leakage appraisals that form the basis of annual leakage targets. The plans are submitted to Ofwat and the Environment Agency for scrutiny as part of the business
 
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planning process and contain companies' assessments of the relative costs and benefits of different options for balancing the supply and demand for water. The guidance for producing water resource plans requires water companies to take account of all costs and benefits, including environmental and social ones, in their assessments. The final mix of resource schemes, leakage reduction and demand management schemes chosen to balance supply and demand will be at the least cost to both customers and the environment.

Flooding

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the external costs associated with flooding, with particular reference to the environmental costs. [184585]

Mr. Morley: The Department has undertaken a number of estimates of the national costs associated with flooding. The impact of flooding will vary from case to case. However, the national level estimates have shown that in most cases flood damage estimates are dominated by damage to residential, commercial and industrial property and its associated contents. Work to evaluate other impacts includes:

recent research by the Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC) at Middlesex University which suggested that emergency response costs are probably some 11 per cent. of physical damage costs;

the FHRC also provides guidance on assessing the benefits to recreation of flood defence and coast protection works;

 
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research lead by Risk and Policy Analysts Ltd. has identified the average value of health and stress due to flooding at £200 per household per year for those in high risk areas.

There have been many studies of the value of other environmental impacts, including a current study by the University of East Anglia that will report in 2005 on the functional value of wetlands. Current Defra guidance suggests that appropriate water level management for wetlands can have a benefit of between £175 and £300 per hectare per year. In the latest national assessments these figures were used to quantify environmental benefits from increased flooding of some lower grade agricultural land.

The above are included in current Defra guidance to operating authorities for project appraisal purposes.

Farm Payments

Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many applications for each category of farm payments, and of what value, were due to have been paid by 30 June but have not yet been paid; and if she will make a statement. [184939]

Alun Michael: The only category of farm payments due to be paid by 30 June are those for the 2003 bovine schemes. The following table shows the number of applications, the number paid, the value paid, the number unpaid and the value unpaid for each category of farm payment. For completeness the same data is also shown for the other categories of 2003 farm based schemes at the regulatory closing date for payments.

Category	Number of applications	Number paid	Value paid (£)	Number unpaid	Percentage unpaid	Value unpaid (£)
Bovine schemes	256,533	251,620	365,086,982	4,913	1.92	3,082,749
Sheep Annual Premium Scheme (SAPS)-closing date 31 March 2004	26,851	26,810	113,055,712	41	0.15	175,079
Hill Farm Allowance-closing date 31 March 2004	11,052	9,646	33,987,521	201	2.04	2,258,310
Arable Area Payments (AAPS) Main claims- closing date 31 January 2004	40,535	40,048	954,411,819	405	0.9	40,535
Non-food-closing date 31 March 2004	4,427	4,346	20,417,026	81	1.82	4,427

All 2003 scheme year payment targets were met. The excellent payment performance of previous years was maintained on AAPS (main claims) and SAPS and for the first time since the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) was created, the payment target was met for AAPS non food claims and all bovine schemes.

Flood Defence Projects

Sue Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what her Department's total spending was in each of the last three years on flood defence projects. [184944]

Mr. Morley: In the years under consideration, Defra provided grant aid as a percentage of eligible costs to the flood and coastal defence operating authorities—the Environment Agency (EA), local authorities and internal drainage boards—to assist with improvement works and studies to manage flood and coastal erosion risk. Grant aid was also made to the EA to assist towards the cost of national initiatives (such as the national flood and coastal defence database, flood warning public awareness and catchment flood management plans) and in 2001–02 exceptional funding was provided to the EA following the floods of autumn 2000 for repair works and feasibility and design costs for accelerated river defences.

Grant aid (including Supplementary Credit Approval for local authorities) was £90 million in 2001–02, £120 million in 2002–03 and £127 million in 2003–04. These figures include funding for projects to protect against coastal erosion but many of these also provide significant benefits in terms of reducing risk of flooding from the sea.

Further Government support was provided by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's local government funding system. This supported, among other things, levies paid by local authorities to the EA which funded the balance of the cost of EA improvement projects after Defra grant.

Sue Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what action her Department is taking to ensure that all timber purchased for flood defences comes from legal and sustainable sources. [184945]

 
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Mr. Morley: While Defra has overall policy responsibility for flood and coastal erosion risk in England, we do not build defences, nor do we have any power to direct the operating authorities' choice of materials for their projects. However, we have provided guidance to operating authorities since the mid-1990s.

In 1994, the Chief Engineer of the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, a predecessor of this Department, wrote to maritime district councils to encourage them to consider the use of alternative materials and to procure timber from well-managed and sustainable sources.

In 2000, the then Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, announced that Government Departments and agencies, including the Environment Agency, must
 
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actively seek to procure timber and timber products from sources independently validated as legal and sustainably managed.

In 2002, Mr. Meacher wrote to all English local authorities to encourage them to adopt responsible timber procurement policies.

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