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Charity Shops
Dr. Whitehead: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what guidance she has issued to local waste collection authorities concerning the charging of charity shops for the collection of unusable items donated by members of the public. [25505]
Mr. Bradshaw: Defra has issued no specific guidance to waste collection authorities about the charging of charity shops for the collection by waste collection authorities of unusable items donated by members of the public since the publication of the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992. Guidance to waste collection authorities in Schedule 2 to these regulations covers the types of household waste for which a charge for collection may be made. Where waste collection authorities do decide to charge they must only recover their costs of collection and these costs must be set at a level so that the authorities do not make a profit. There are no plans to change this guidance.
Commercial Poultry Producers Register
Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when the register of commercial poultry producers is expected to be established. [24062]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Department plans to establish the GB register by the end of December 2005.
Common Agricultural Policy
Mr. Nicholas Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will update the information released relating to individual recipients of common agricultural policy support payments to include (a) the postcode of the recipient and (b) location information at the NUTS-5 level. [23580]
Jim Knight: The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) disclosed common agricultural policy (CAP) payment information on 22 March 2005, listing the names of CAP subsidy recipients and the amount paid to them in the last two years.
The information represented an annual aggregate figure for payments to each recipient under all of the schemes paid by RPA. The full list of schemes covered by the disclosure is set out in Annex A.
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RPA published on its website in July 2005 a supplement to the CAP payments information giving details of payments by geographic location for the EAGGF (European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund) year 2003–04. The regional analysis has been produced using the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) and NUTS levels one and two were used to provide this analysis.
It was concluded that a more detailed regional breakdown to lower levels of NUTS codes 3, 4, and 5 and the release of full postal addresses would not be appropriate. The general privacy arguments were examined in detail and it was concluded that the risks around privacy intrusion outweighed the limited additional public value of the additional postal address data.
Further, the diversion of more resources from other priority work, in particular considering RPA's imperative to commencing Single Payment Scheme payments to farmers by February 2006, to produce additional geographical breakdown would be manifestly unreasonable.
The Structural Funds are a multi-funded EU programme. Defra is the managing authority, RPA is the paying authority (responsible for financial and accounting controls) and the Government Offices act as the intermediate bodies (responsible for administration and implementation).
RPA only pays under the Guidance element for schemes in Objective 1 regions and for Leader + schemes.
Mr. Nicholas Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list recipients of payment under common agricultural policy agri-environment and rural development schemes for the last two years including (a) size of payment, (b) date of payment, (c) name of scheme under which payment was made, (d) name of recipient, (e) postal address of recipient and (f) location of enterprise in respect of which the payment was made. [23581]
Jim Knight: The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) disclosed common agricultural policy (CAP) payment information on 22 March 2005, listing the names of CAP subsidy recipients and the amount paid to them in the last two years.
The information represented an annual aggregate figure for payments to each recipient under all of the schemes paid by RPA, including agri-environment and rural development schemes. The full list of schemes covered by the disclosure is set out in Annex A.
RPA investigated the practicalities of providing further breakdown by scheme, including scheme type, date of payment and name of scheme under which payment was made. It was concluded that it was unreasonable to produce this data because it is held in detailed scheme records and to reconcile the scheme statistics against the monies paid at the aggregate customer level would be extremely resource intensive.
RPA published on its website in July 2005 a supplement to the CAP payments information giving details of payments by geographic location for the EAGGF (European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund) year 2003–04. The regional analysis has been produced using the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) and NUTS levels one and two were used to provide this analysis. It was decided that a more detailed regional breakdown and the release of full postal addresses would not be appropriate. The general privacy arguments were examined in detail and it was concluded that the risks around privacy intrusion outweighed the limited additional public value of the additional postal address data.
Further, the diversion of more resources from other priority work, in particular considering RPA's imperative to commencing Single Payment Scheme payments to farmers by February 2006, to produce additional geographical or scheme breakdown would be manifestly unreasonable. However RPA continues to examine detailed requests on a case by case basis.
The Structural Funds are a multi-funded EU programme. Defra is the Managing Authority, RPA is the paying authority (responsible for financial and accounting controls) and the Government Offices act as the intermediate bodies (responsible for administration and implementation).
RPA only pays under the Guidance element for schemes in Objective 1 regions and for Leader + schemes.
Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what information she has received on progress towards implementing the mid-term review of the Common Agricultural Policy in each other EU member state. [23823]
Jim Knight: The European Commission published a summary on 8 September 2005 entitled Implementation of the CAP reform in the Member States" which outlines how each member state is implementing the 2003 reforms. Copies will be made available in the Library of the House.
Mark Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what discussions she has had with the EU Trade Commissioner on agricultural support payments; and if she will make a statement. [21267]
Jim Knight
[holding answer 26 October 2005]: My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, discusses important policy issues with all relevant EU Commissioners, including the EU Trade Commissioner. Agricultural support payments are a key element of the current Doha Development Agenda negotiations in the WTO.
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