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Written Answers to Questions
Thursday 14 July 2005
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Bovine TB
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the level of illegal culling of badgers by farmers as a method of controlling the spread of bovine TB; and if she will make a statement. [11579]
Mr. Bradshaw: Information about the level of illegal culling of badgers by farmers is not generally available. However, the Independent Scientific Group on cattle TB is monitoring suspected unlawful activities within the survey areas of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Within those areas, seven suspected incidents of illegal badger culling have been identified since February 2002 and reported to the police authorities.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the recent meeting between the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare and the South West National Farmers Union on bovine tuberculosis. [7274]
Mr. Bradshaw: I met representatives of the South West National Farmers Union on 16 June to discuss the problem of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. This was a positive and constructive discussion. The NFU outlined a number of ideas, subsequently published in a national NFU document on 4 July 2005. The NFU document will be considered as the Government develops its TB strategy as will cost benefit analysis work based on the Irish badger culling trials and other data.
Climate Change
Colin Challen:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the statement by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe on
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29 June 2005, Official Report, column 1376, what assessment her Department has made of the Pew Centre report on climate change. [11624]
Mr. Morley: The report I referred to is International Climate Efforts Beyond 2012: A Survey of Approaches" by the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change which was published in December 2004. The report offers a broad survey of alternative approaches for international climate change efforts beyond 2012 and is therefore a useful background document.
The report describes more than 40 proposals for a future climate change regime either published or publicly presented in recent years. Some of these proposals are comprehensive in nature, setting forth a complete approach for a future regime. Others address a particular issue in the negotiations.
The report starts with a very useful overview of core issues in designing and negotiating future international climate efforts. The second section suggests criteria that could be used in assessing alternative approaches. The third section describes how the different proposals seek to address the core issues identified earlier. The fourth section then summarises each proposal. The report does not make judgments about individual proposals.
Cormorants
Ms Angela C. Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she expects to publish the Central Science Laboratory's cormorant population model; and whether the model will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. [12124]
Jim Knight: The cormorant model produced by the Central Science Laboratory is already available on the Defra website http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/vertebrates/piscivorous.htm#cormorants together with comments from independent peer reviewers. The model is currently being updated in the light of more recent information on the trend in cormorant numbers following a short contract to The British Trust for Ornithology. A paper describing the model and its application will be submitted to a peer reviewed scientific journal this autumn.
Fishing Licences
Mr. Michael Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the value of rod licence sales has been in each region in England and Wales since 2000. [8979]
Mr. Bradshaw: The information requested is as follows:
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Source:
Environment Agency
Livestock Industry
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the future of the livestock industry, with specific reference to the cattle disease compensation tables. [10792]
Mr. Bradshaw: At present, the amount of compensation paid for cattle slaughtered as a consequence of a disease outbreak varies according to the disease involved. The Government intend to introduce a consistent approach to determining compensation payments across four cattle diseases (bovine TB, brucellosis, BSE and Enzootic Bovine Leukosis) during 2005. Information is being collected on real market prices in order to allow the payment of compensation on the basis of table valuations.
Payments that reflect actual market prices being achieved for healthy animals of the same category will be fair to both the farmer and the taxpayer, as the proposed new arrangements will address the overvaluation of cattle slaughtered because of bovine TB, the evidence for which is extensive.
Nappies
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what proportion disposable nappies represented of total municipal solid waste in the last year for which figures are available; and what estimate she has made of the contribution the landfilling of disposable nappies made to the production of greenhouse gases by the UK in that year. [11681]
Mr. Bradshaw: We do not collect information on the amount of disposable nappies used nor of the disposal route.
The Strategy Unit report Waste Not Want Not" estimated that in 2000–01 nappies comprised around 2 per cent. of household waste, equivalent to 350,000
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tonnes. In 2003–04 72 per cent. of our household waste was sent to landfill and just under 9 per cent. went to incineration.
The Environment Agency have estimated that disposable nappies contribute 0.02 per cent. to the production of greenhouse gases by the UK.
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much public money has been spent on reusable nappy schemes in the last five years, broken down by (a) scheme and (b) amount. [11686]
Mr. Bradshaw: Information on local authority reusable nappy schemes is not held centrally.
The cost of the reusable nappy programme managed by the Waste and Resources Action Programme is £2.8 million for the three years from 2003–06.
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) for how long she expects funding to continue for reusable nappies as part of the WRAP Real Nappy Programme; [11718]
(2) how much funding has been made available for the WRAP Real Nappy Programme to date; and whether the Government plans to continue funding this programme after April 2006. [11719]
Mr. Bradshaw: The current funding with WRAP finishes the end of March 2006. We are currently in discussion with WRAP about their programmes, including the Real Nappy Work after this date.
The cost of the re-usable nappy programme managed by WRAP is £2.8 million for the three years 2003–06.
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many tonnes of disposable nappy waste have been diverted by WRAP's Real Nappy Programme to date; how this figure was calculated; what percentage of new re-usable users under the programme continued to use re-usables; and what methodology was used to count them. [11720]
Mr. Bradshaw: The aim of the WRAP programme is to convert 155,000 households to re-usable nappies by April 2006, thereby diverting 35,000 tonnes per annum of disposable nappy waste from landfill.
The main features of the programme are pump priming grant aid for small and medium enterprises and new entrants to the nappy laundering business, combined with promotional initiatives targeted at new parents. It is too soon to evaluate the effectiveness of each activity, but funded schemes are reporting progress quarterly, and the benefits of national awareness-raising and advertising will be captured in opinion research to be conducted at the end of the year.
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