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Written Answers to Questions
Tuesday 21 December 2004
LEADER OF THE HOUSE
Departmental Staff
Keith Vaz: To ask the Leader of the House how many of the staff employed by his Department have a declared disability. [205854]
Mr. Hain: This information is collected periodically by the Privy Council Office, which provides Human Resource services to my Office. The provision of personal information on disability is optional and would be held on individual staff files.
Owing to the nature and size of Office, providing this information could result in the identification of individuals.
Keith Vaz: To ask the Leader of the House how many women there are in senior positions among his staff. [205855]
Mr. Hain: The Privy Council Office provides administrative support to my office. I have one senior civil servant on my immediate staff, who is male.
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Abandoned Vehicles (Morecambe Bay)
Geraldine Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the Environment Agency has responsibility for the removal of abandoned vehicles on the sands of Morecambe Bay. [206046]
Mr. Morley: The Environment Agency have a number of powers to deal with pollution and waste on land and controlled waters but are not under a duty use them, or to remove abandoned cars from the Morecombe bay sands.
In this case it would be for the interested parties (local authority, Environment Agency, Maritime and Coastguard Agency etc) to come to a partnership agreement on removal and enforcement action.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Richard Younger-Ross: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the provisional estimates for UK carbon dioxide emissions for the first six months of 2004 are. [205247]
Mr. Morley:
The Government does not make provisional estimates of greenhouse gas emissions for periods of less than one year. Estimates for the whole of 2004 will be available in the March 2005 edition of "Energy Trends', which is published by the Department of Trade and Industry.
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Climate Change
Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will set out the areas of (a) scientific uncertainty associated with manmade climate change and (b) renewable and energy-efficient technologies, that she intends to present at the G8 as needing further international collective work. [204911]
Mr. Morley: In February 2005 we will host a conference to explore the consequences of different levels of climate change, from a science perspective, in terms of impacts for different sectors and regions, as well as the for the world as a whole. It will also consider technological options to meet different stabilisation levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The conference will lay the foundation of our current understanding of the science by presenting the current state of play of all scientific issues related to the stabilisation of greenhouse gases. It will provide the scientific evidence of the scale of the threat and demonstrate the urgent need to tackle climate change.
Work on renewable and energy-efficient technologies will be taken forward through a workshop hosted by the new UK Energy Research Centre. We will be inviting researchers from the G8 countries along with representatives from key developing countries with growing energy needs. The meeting will foster closer international cooperation on a number of areas including energy supply, demand management, and new and renewable energies such as biomass, hydrogen and solar PV.
Community Energy Programme
Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the Community Energy Programme will be extended beyond April 2005. [201121]
Mr. Morley: I am pleased to confirm that we have secured the future of the Community Energy programme for at least the next three years, to March 2008, with additional funding of £10 million available once the original allocation of £50 million is exhausted. This is very good news and underlines this Government's commitment to our Climate Change Programme and our target of eliminating fuel poverty by 2016.
Environment Direct
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when Environment Direct is to be launched; whether it will be inter-active; and whether it will have facilities to demonstrate the need for local environmental change. [204894]
Mr. Morley: We announced our intention to develop a new service called Environment Direct in "Delivering the Essentials of Life", Defra's five-year strategy published on 8 December 2004.
We believe that there is a need for an on-line, searchable service that will give people and communities the straight facts about the effects that different consumption choices can have. We will be consulting on
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the detail of the service, including how it will work and what information it will hold. If there is broad agreement, we hope to have Environment Direct in operation from 2006.
Farm Incomes
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when the total figure for total income from farming for the most recent year is expected; and if she will make a statement on the level of accuracy of the initial forecast figure in relation to the final agreed figure in previous years. [206011]
Alun Michael: The forecast of UK Total Income From Farming in 2004 was published on 30 November 2004. The provisional estimate will be published on 27 January 2005.
The following table provides details of the level of revision between the initial forecast figure and subsequent provisional estimate for the last five years.
(1) Provisional estimates can be further revised in subsequent years as additional data becomes available and as a consequence of any methodological improvements.
Farm Waste
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will break down by cost area the estimated cost of future disposal of on-farm waste. [205496]
Mr. Morley: On 9 December 2004, Official Report, column 106WS, I announced that the Government had published for consultation the draft Waste Management (England and Wales) Regulations 2005. One of the main purposes of the draft Regulations is to repeal the current exclusion in section 75(7)(c) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and to apply to agricultural waste the national controls that are already in place to comply with the waste framework directive and the landfill directive. The consultation paper is available in the Library of the House and on my Department's website at http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/agwaste-regs/index.htm. A Regulatory Impact Assessment, estimating the cost of applying the directives' controls to agricultural waste, is provided in paragraph 3.31 of and Annex I to the consultation paper.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to introduce further controls on open burning of farm waste. [205497]
Mr. Morley:
On 9 December 2004, Official Report, column 106WS, I announced that the Government had published for consultation the draft Waste Management (England and Wales) Regulations 2005. One of the main
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purposes of the draft Regulations is to repeal the current exclusion in section 75(7)(c) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and to apply to agricultural waste the national controls that are already in place to comply with the waste framework directive and the landfill directive. The consultation paper is available in the Library of the House and on my Department's website at http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/agwaste-regs/index.htm. The effect of the draft Regulations will be to preclude the open burning of agricultural waste other than small quantities of "plant tissue" under the terms of a licensing exemption registered with the Environment Agency.
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