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Farm Payments

Mr. Wills: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she plans to publish proposals for the public disclosure of Common Agricultural Policy payments at a farm level; and if she will make a statement. [208024]

Alun Michael: Requests for information about subsidy payments made to farmers in the past will be considered by the Rural Payments Agency. In reaching a decision account will have to be taken of the resource implications of gathering the information and of assessing the balance between the public interest and the commercial or privacy implications for the subject. We are still considering these implications in light of requests received and hope to be able to make the position clear in the near future.

For the new single payment we are minded to publish information as a matter of course, when it becomes available, but we are still considering the options for doing so.
 
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Farm Plastics Recycling Schemes

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many farm plastics recycling schemes are in place. [211079]

Mr. Morley: Currently, there is one recycling scheme for farm plastics in place to my knowledge. However, Chapter 8 of the consultation paper on the draft Waste Management (England and Wales) Regulations 2005 discusses the introduction of a voluntary or statutory producer responsibility scheme for the collection and recovery of non-packaging plastic waste from farms. The consultation paper was published on 9 December 2004 and 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. Views are invited by 18 March 2005. Plastic packaging waste from farms and elsewhere is already the subject of the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 (as amended).

Freedom of Information

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what procedures she has put in place to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to disclose the level of EU and domestic support made available to individual agricultural producers and landowners. [208265]

Alun Michael: Requests for information about subsidy payments made to farmers in the past will be considered by the Rural Payments Agency. In reaching a decision account will have to be taken of the resource implications of gathering the information and of assessing the balance between the public interest and the commercial or privacy implications for the subject.

For the new single payment, being introduced this year, we are minded to publish information as a matter of course but we are still considering the options for doing so.

Global Dimming

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the dampening effects of global dimming on mean temperatures (a) in the UK and (b) worldwide. [210973]

Mr. Morley: Aerosol pollution cools the climate and partially offsets some of the warming due to greenhouse gases but we don't know with certainty by how much. Defra's Climate Prediction Programme at the Hadley Centre has been investigating the impacts of aerosol on climate change and the risks of acceleration of climate change for some time. Good climate models already include the effects of aerosol and look at how climate change could be affected if the whole range of uncertainty in aerosol is included in model calculations. The result is an increase to the uncertainty range of climate sensitivity both globally and in the UK.

The climate change could therefore be greater than previously thought, with changes in global temperature of up to10°C by 2100, compared to 6°C as represented by the IPCC. However, this is based on the highest
 
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emissions scenario, so should be seen as being at the extreme end of the projected range of future climate change.

Growth Antibiotics

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the consumption of antibiotics used to promote farm animal growth was in England in the most recent year for which figures are available. [210845]

Mr. Bradshaw: The VMD collects and publishes figures annually on the UK sales of veterinary antimicrobials, including those sold for use as growth promoters. It is reasonable to assume that there is a close correlation between these figures and the quantities used in the UK. The figures are supplied by the manufacturers on a voluntary basis. The reports are available on the VMD website at www.vmd.gov.uk under the publications and general tabs or from Dr. Kay Goodyear (telephone [phone]).

The most recent figure for sales of antimicrobial growth promoters in the UK is 36 tonnes of active ingredient in 2003.

Lead Pipes

Mr. Bill O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) how many lead water supply mains and pipes have been replaced since 2000; [208879]

(2) how many kilometres of water distribution mains have been renovated since 2000 to reduce problems associated with discolouration of water. [208883]

Mr. Morley: To deal with water quality problems, including discolouration, water companies renovated 15,460 kilometres of water distribution mains between 2000 and the end of 2003.

Water companies no longer have lead water supply mains. They replaced some 314,000 lead communication pipes between 2000 and the end of March 2004. The communication pipe is the water company owned section of pipe which conveys water from the supply main to the curtilage of a consumer's premises where it connects to the consumer's supply pipe.

Metered Water

Tom Cox: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many households within the Greater London area use metered water. [211048]

Mr. Morley: Figures on water customers are collected by water company supply area, not by administrative area. The Office of Water Services (Ofwat) forecast is that 656,500 households who are customers of Thames Water will have a metered water supply in 2004–05.

Mobile Phone Masts

Ms Atherton: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will discuss with mobile telephone operators the potential for using
 
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mobile phone masts to disseminate warnings of severe weather or other disasters that require localised warning messages. [209140]

Mr. Morley: The Environment Agency is responsible for developing and operating the service to warn of possible flooding from watercourses and the sea in England.

It is technically feasible to use mobile phone network providers to disseminate localised warning messages, but certain agreements and procedures would be required. I understand the agency is discussing this possibility with mobile phone network providers.

Additionally, the agency will introduce Floodline Warnings Direct later this year. The £9.4 million warning system will enable the agency to use a range of new channels and technologies to simultaneously warn more homeowners, businesses, emergency services and local authorities of the threat of flooding.

It will be the country's first multi-channel warning system and will exploit current and emerging technologies to deliver warning messages simultaneously via telephone, mobile phone, pager, e-mail and fax and, in due course, SMS text messaging, digital TV and radio.

Members of the public who choose to receive the new service will be able to elect to receive warning messages via their mobile phones (voice and/or text) if they provide the agency with their contact numbers.

Nuclear Waste

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what volume of (a) low level, (b) intermediate level and (c) high level nuclear waste has gone missing in each of the last five years; and what percentage has been recovered. [210270]

Mr. Morley: None.

An inventory of UK radioactive waste stocks is produced periodically by my Department. The latest edition was published in 2002 providing information on sources, quantities and properties of waste stocks as of 1 April 2001. Work on a 2004 inventory is currently under way.

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