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Lions
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what action her Department is taking (a) to secure the future of breeding conditions for lions existing in the wild and (b) to preserve the lion from extinction. [189895]
Mr. Morley: It is the responsibility of the relevant range states to take appropriate action to secure the long-term future of the lion, as only they have the power to intervene directly in this matter.
However, we will continue to utilise our role within the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to press for collaborative action to ensure that the lion does not become endangered as a result of unsustainable trade in hunting trophies or for any other reason.
Litter
Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how her Department's litter guidance policy has affected the residents of Leyton and Wanstead. [187747]
Mr. Morley: We are constantly looking at developing policy to enable local authorities to tackle litter more effectively, not just in Leyton and Wanstead but all over the country.
Local authorities have a statutory duty, set out in part 4 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, to deal with litter in their area. We have set out the recommended cleansing times in the Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse. We are currently reviewing the Code with a view to consulting on a revised Code in the new year.
In addition the Government provide funding to EnCams to raise awareness of a number of issues that affect the quality of the local environment, including litter. EnCams, formerly known as the Tidy Britain Group are an environmental charity and have over 50 years experience of campaigning to raise awareness of litter.
We have just concluded a consultation exercise on Clean Neighbourhoods that proposed a range of measures to improve the ability of local authorities to respond to litter and other issues affecting public space. Once we have analysed the comments received we hope to bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity.
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Milk Industry
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the recent Milk Development Council report on the situation prevailing in the milk industry. [189918]
Alun Michael: We are still considering the findings of the report and hope that it will prove a useful step in helping to improve transparency in the dairy supply chain, which was a key recommendation in the recent EFRA committee report on milk pricing.
Ministerial Statements
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reason all ministerial statements made by her Department are not published on the Departmental website as a matter of course on the day of their publication. [186725]
Alun Michael: We appreciate that there is a need for considerable improvement in the Defra website. Work is in hand on this.
Statements by Defra's Ministers are published on the departmental website as soon as possible—generally on the same day or the following day. We are reviewing our procedures to minimise the number of occasions when it is not possible for statements to be published on the same day.
New Homes (Water Prices)
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the impact of the Deputy Prime Minister's plans to build new homes upon water prices. [188288]
Mr. Morley: It is for water and sewerage undertakers to plan the provision they need to make for new development. Where new development takes place, the costs of connecting water and sewerage services are largely financed by the developers and the revenue streams from newly connected customers.
Where the growth of customer demand, whether from new or existing customers, cannot be addressed from existing supplies by measures such as demand management, leakage control and water efficiency, undertakers may propose new resources or infrastructure. If the case for this is accepted by Ofwat, the costs would be taken into account when setting price limits. Ofwat published its draft determinations of price limits for the period 2005–10 in August 2004. It will make its final decisions on 2 December 2004. There are well-established arrangements for dealing with cost pressures which arise between price reviews.
New Variant CJD
Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what evidence has been found of a link between cattle born in (a) 2000, (b) 2001, (c) 2002 and (d) 2003, and new cases of nvCJD. [189625]
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Mr. Bradshaw: Evidence of a link between BSE in cattle and nvCJD (now known as vCJD) in humans is based on the close similarities in disease patterns in mice infected with BSE and vCJD.
Although BSE has been confirmed in one cow born in the UK in 2000, no cases have yet been confirmed in cattle born after this date. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about the range of duration of the incubation period for vCJD, but there is evidence that it is substantial. Therefore, there is unlikely to be a direct link between BSE in cattle born in or after 2000 and any recent cases of vCJD.
Specified risk materials such as brain and spinal cord must be removed from all cattle carcases. If cattle were to be infected with BSE, this is estimated to remove over 99 per cent. of infectivity.
Nuclear Waste
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to allow further imports of nuclear waste into the UK. [187735]
Mr. Morley: Government policy on the import of radioactive waste remains as set out in the White Paper "Review of Radioactive Waste Management Policy—Final Conclusions", Cm 2919. The general policy is that radioactive waste should not be imported to or exported from the UK except in certain specific circumstances. These include: (1) recycling to recover useful materials; (2) treatment to make subsequent storage or disposal of the waste more manageable, in cases where the processes are at a developmental stage or the quantities involved too small for the processes to be practicable in the country of origin; (3) spent sources manufactured in the UK and returned for recycling or disposal; and (4) waste from small users such as hospitals, situated in EU member states that have such small waste arisings that provision of their own facilities would be impractical, or in developing countries that could not reasonably be expected to acquire suitable disposal facilities.
All proposed imports of radioactive waste into the UK are subject to prior approval by the relevant competent authority, under the provisions of The Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste Regulations 1993.
Over-30 Month Cattle Scheme
Mr. Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much was spent compensating for cattle of (a) three, (b) four, (c) five, (d) six, (e) , seven, (f) eight, (g) nine and (i) 10 and over years in each year since 2000. [189626]
Alun Michael: The amounts spent on compensation in regard to cattle for each of the requested ages in each year since 2000 are set out in the table.
(32) To 31 August.
(33) "Teeth" has been included as prior to registration on the Cattle Tracing System becoming mandatory in 2001, whether an animal was over thirty months of age or not could only be ascertained using the established industry practice of assessing the number of teeth the animal had.
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