| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
2 Jun 2008 : Column 762W—continued
Fisheries: Finance
Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate he has made of the amount of revenue likely to be generated each year from fishing licences issued under the draft Marine Bill. [207237]
Jonathan Shaw: The Environment Agency’s income generated through fishing licences (for salmon, trout, eels and freshwater fish) was £21.7 million in 2007-08; we do not expect this to be significantly affected by amendments made through the draft Marine Bill.
Flood Control: Standards
Mr. Peter Ainsworth:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many
flood defence structures in England and Wales were in (a) very good, (b) good, (c) fair, (d) poor and (e) very poor condition under Environment Agency asset condition classifications in each of the last five years. [207911]
Mr. Woolas: The following table provides information on all Flood Defence structures connected with Main Rivers and the Sea maintained by the Environment Agency or third parties.
| Percentage | |||||
| Condition grade | |||||
| Very good | G ood | Fair | Poor | Very poor | |
| (1) April 2004 figures are for England only. | |||||
Flood Control: Urban Areas
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps are being taken to allocate responsibility for the ownership and long-term maintenance and renewal of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems infrastructure; and if he will make a statement. [207603]
Mr. Woolas: DEFRA recently consulted on options for the allocation of responsibility for the ownership and long-term maintenance of sustainable drainage systems, as part of the consultation on “Improving Surface Water Drainage”. This consultation was launched alongside the Government’s Water Strategy, “Future Water” and closed on 30 April 2008. We will publish a summary of the responses in late July, followed by a Government response to the consultation and proposed course of action, later in the year.
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the recommendation of the National Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) working group regarding allocation of responsibility was for the ownership and long-term maintenance and renewal of SUDS infrastructure. [207604]
Mr. Woolas: DEFRA consulted on options for the allocation of the responsibility for ownership and adoption of sustainable drainage systems as part of the “Improving Surface Water Drainage” consultation. This consultation was launched alongside the Government’s Water Strategy, “Future Water” and closed on 30 April 2008. DEFRA received in excess of 100 responses and is in the process of considering and summarising these. The summary will be published at the end of June and copies of individual responses will be made available.
Flood Protection: Finance
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much was spent on flood protection measures in (a) rural areas and (b) urban areas in each year between 2001 and 2008 (i) in cash terms and (ii) as a percentage of total flood protection expenditure in each of those years. [207364]
Mr. Woolas: The Environment Agency directs flood risk expenditure into areas which are most at risk of flooding, it does not make a distinction between urban and rural when defining flood risk.
Floods: Felixstowe
Mr. Gummer: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if he will make an estimate of the difference between the costs involved in undertaking emergency works on Felixstowe's flood defences as requested by the district council two years ago and the cost of the work now necessary; [207764]
(2) what costs have been incurred for emergency work on Felixstowe flood defences since 1997; [207776]
(3) what the cost of rebuilding Felixstowe's flood defence works would be; [207777]
(4) on what dates the Environment Agency confirmed to Suffolk coastal district council that funds for emergency works on Felixstowe's flood defences would be provided. [207778]
Mr. Woolas: The Environment Agency estimates that £1.5 million has been spent on emergency works on the Felixstowe coastal frontage since 1997. The vast majority of this expenditure has been incurred within the last three years and predominately on the southern Felixstowe frontage.
At today's prices it is estimated that the capital reconstruction of Felixstowe's defences would cost in the order of £17 million. This includes around £10 million for work that is currently underway on Felixstowe's south beach.
The coastal strategy for Felixstowe needed to be in place before any works were undertaken. This was to ensure that the works on the frontage at Felixstowe did not have any subsequent effects on neighbouring coastal processes or strategies.
I can confirm that the Environment Agency wrote to the Director of Finance at Suffolk coastal district council on 3 April 2008. This letter confirmed that emergency funds were approved to the value of £229,000 for works to the Central Felixstowe frontage.
Floods: Research
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the cost of the flood impact study by Cranfield University is; and what proportion of the cost will be met by (a) the Environment Agency and (b) the Commission for Rural Communities. [204206]
Mr. Woolas: The joint Environment Agency and DEFRA Flood and Coastal Erosion Management (FCERM) Science programme commissioned Cranfield, Sheffield and Middlesex universities to carry out a study for “Preliminary Data Collection and Estimating the Cost of Summer Flooding on Farmland and in Urban Areas”. The combined cost for this project was £48,500 which included data collection, verification and analysis and professor and research assistant fees. The results will be used to test the accuracy of the Environment Agency's existing tools for estimating the impact of a flood. The Commission for Rural Communities funded a parallel project on rural areas costing £15,000.
Genetically Modified Organisms: Research
Mr. Meacher: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what guidance is given to members of his Department’s scientific advisory committees on taking into account all studies and data submitted in support of applications for approval of genetically-modified organisms and pesticides before providing advice to Ministers. [206909]
Mr. Woolas [holding answer 22 May 2008]: The Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) provides advice on matters relating to the control of pests in furthering the general purposes of part III of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) advises Ministers on proposed releases of genetically modified organisms. In common with other committees, both the ACP and ACRE follow the code of practice for scientific advisory committees, recently reviewed and updated in December 2007. This can be viewed on the website of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. The code refers to the importance of decisions being based on all the available evidence, and notes that the secretariat should ensure that all relevant scientific information is made available to its committee. All members of the ACP and ACRE have received a copy of the revised code of practice.
Insulation: EC Law
David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials from his Department have had with representatives of the plastic foam insulation industry on the implementation of EC Regulation 2037/2000 in each of the last five years. [207887]
Mr. Woolas: Ministers have not met representatives of the plastic foam insulation industry on the specific question of implementation of EC Regulation 2037/2000 during the last five years. Officials met various industry representatives in January and April 2008 to discuss the recovery of ozone-depleting substances from building foams and will be hosting further meetings in the near future.
Recovery of ozone-depleting substances from foams is an important issue which has recently been identified by consultants hired by the European Commission to help with the ongoing review of EU legislation on ozone-depleting substances. The consultants have reported that, as yet, there has been no concerted effort to recover ozone-depleting substances in building foams either in Europe or elsewhere.
Landfill: Newcastle upon Tyne
Jim Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reasons the figures for waste to landfill expressed in kilograms per person are not available for Newcastle upon Tyne; and if he will ask Newcastle city council why such figures are not available. [206689]
Joan Ruddock: All local authorities provide quarterly returns on their municipal waste to WasteDataFlow. The only years for which no figures are available for Newcastle-upon-Tyne are 2000-01 and 2004-05, presumably due to the authority not having completed the DEFRA survey at the time.
Waste authorities with a disposal role must now complete WasteDataFlow returns to provide their data for the landfill allowances trading scheme (LATS). Waste collection authorities submit returns on a voluntary basis. However, the statutory requirement associated with LATS only started from 2005-06. Prior to this, all returns were voluntary.
London Airports
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many times his Department hired VIP facilities at (a) Heathrow, (b) Gatwick, (c) Luton and (d) Stansted airports in each month since May 2006; and what the expenditure on VIP facilities at each was in each of those months. [205142]
Jonathan Shaw: No VIP facilities have been used by DEFRA staff at any airport since May 2006, hence there has been no expenditure.
Poultry: Registration
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the cost was of setting up the national poultry register; and how many poultry keepers are registered on it. [206325]
Jonathan Shaw: The cost of developing and implementing the Great Britain Poultry Register IT system was £8.4 million.
As of 15 May 2008, the Great Britain Poultry Register holds details of 24,286 premises. A total of 253,717,034 birds have been registered.
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the cost of running the national poultry register was in each year since its introduction. [206330]
Jonathan Shaw: The cost of running the Great Britain Poultry register for each year was:
| £ million | |||
| Description | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 |
Rights of Way: Vehicles
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the Government's policy on byways open to all traffic; and what steps his Department plans to take in light of the Court of Appeal judgment in the case of R on the Application of the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College and Humphrey Feeds Ltd v. Hampshire county council and the Secretary of State. [206579]
Jonathan Shaw: The Government's policy on byways open to all traffic (BOATs) is set out in a document entitled ‘Use of mechanically propelled vehicles on rights of way—the Government's framework for action’, which was published in January 2005. In this document we made clear our intention to legislate to curtail claims for vehicular rights of way, where those claims derive from historic use and dedication for use by non-mechanically propelled vehicles. These proposals now form the basis of Part 6 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.
The case of ‘R on the Application of the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College and Humphrey Feeds Ltd v. Hampshire county council and the Secretary of State’ was essentially about what is meant by an: “application made in accordance with paragraph 1 of Schedule 14 to Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981”, within the meaning of section 67(6) of the 2006 Act and whether such an application, made for a byway open to all traffic, would have engaged the exceptions in section 67(3) of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 and thereby have preserved public rights of way for mechanically propelled vehicles that were the subject of such an application.
The Court of Appeal ruled that, for the purposes of section 67(6) of the 2006 Act, an application must be accompanied by copies of all the documentary evidence that the applicant wished to adduce or rely upon and a copy of a map drawn to the prescribed scale.
It seems likely that there are many cases pending where, in light of this judgment, the conclusion will be that, even where there was an application for a BOAT made before the relevant date (as set out in section 67(4) of the 2006 Act), the requirements of paragraph 1 of schedule 14 will have not been complied with, within the strict terms emphasised by the judgment, and therefore the public rights of way for mechanically propelled vehicles will have been extinguished.
Version 5 of DEFRA's online guidance on Part 6 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, which will be published shortly, will include revised guidance on this aspect of the legislation. We have also issued revised guidance to rights of way inspectors to enable them to deal accordingly with any cases before them.
Sheep: Electronic Tagging
Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what derogations the Government have sought from European regulations on the electronic tagging of sheep. [206048]
Jonathan Shaw [holding answer 16 May 2008]: The EU regulation provides for a derogation from electronic identification in respect of sheep and goats intended for slaughter within 12 months of age. We are currently discussing with industry how this derogation might be applied.
The regulation also provides for a derogation from the need to electronically identify animals in member states where the combined sheep and goat population is less than 600,000 or where the goat population is less than 160,000. We will be applying this derogation to goats as the total UK population is less than the EU threshold.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |