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14 Jan 2010 : Column 1075W—continued
Source:
Natural England targets can be found in Natural England corporate plan (2009-12)-70 per cent. target under 3.2.2 and the 4,100 hectares target (1.2.1)
Campaign for Farmed Environment targets can be found in the campaign's Memorandum of Understanding (copies laid in House Libraries).
Bovine Tuberculosis: Disease Control
Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many cattle were slaughtered as a consequence of bovine tuberculosis precautions in (a) Cumbria and (b) England in each of the last 24 months. [310649]
Jim Fitzpatrick: As data from Vetnet (the Animal Health Database) are produced three months in arrears, figures cannot be provided for the last three months. The following table shows the total of animals slaughtered(1) due to a TB incident in (a) Cumbria and (b) England in the last 24 months for which figures are available(2) (up to September 2009):
(1 )Animals slaughtered include monthly numbers of cattle removed for TB control reasons (i.e. test reactors and direct contacts) from herds affected by a TB incident in each jurisdiction.
(2 )Data from Vetnet are provisional and subject to change as more data become available.
| England | Cumbria | |
| Note: To protect the anonymity of individual farmers, months with a slaughter count of less than 5 animals are given <5. Source: Vetnet-Animal Health Database. | ||
Christmas
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much (a) his Department and (b) its agencies have spent on Christmas (i) cards, (ii) parties and (iii) decorations in the last 12 months. [303845]
Dan Norris: The core Department has produced four e-greetings cards which are environmentally friendly and cheaper than traditional paper cards. Production costs of the e-cards totalled some £156.
DEFRA's policy is that official funds should not be used for departmental Christmas parties and decorations.
All public expenditure has to be incurred in accordance with the principles of Managing Public Money and the Treasury hand book on Regularity and Propriety.
Climate Change: International Co-operation
Sammy Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many (a) Ministers and (b) officials of his Department attended the Copenhagen climate change conference; and at what cost to the public purse. [309180]
Dan Norris: The Secretary of State and three officials attended the Forest Day event in Copenhagen on 13 December, and the Secretary of State and one official remained in Copenhagen to attend the Oceans Day event on 14 December.
One official attended on 11 December to present the Convention on Biological Diversity's ad hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change report. He chaired the event and was nominated for and supported in this role by DEFRA.
A total of £3,839.34 was spent on attendance. The breakdown of flights, accommodation, subsistence and transport costs is presented as follows. Accommodation covers hotel costs for four people for one night each.
| £ | |
Departmental Buildings
Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the (a) area and (b) estimated value is of (i) vacant and (ii) occupied office space (A) owned and (B) rented by his Department. [310529]
Dan Norris: The Department's freehold vacant office estate amounts to an area of 1,014 sq m, with an estimated rental value of £53,000 pa. The freehold occupied office estate amounts to an area of 45,044 sq m, with an estimated rental value of £2,770,000 pa.
The Department's leasehold vacant office estate amounts to an area of 22,433 sq m, with an estimated rental value of £4,717,000 pa. The leasehold occupied office estate amounts to an area of 166,831 sq m, with an estimate rental value of £31,454,000 pa.
Departmental Pay
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much funding his Department has allocated for (a) year-end and (b) in-year bonuses in 2009-10. [301299]
Dan Norris: An element of DEFRA's overall pay award is allocated to non-consolidated variable pay related to performance. These payments are used to drive high performance and form part of the pay award for members of staff who demonstrate exceptional performance, for example by exceeding targets set or meeting challenging objectives.
Non-consolidated variable pay awards are funded from within existing pay bill controls, and have to be re-earned each year against pre-determined targets and, as such, do not add to future pay bill costs. The percentage of the pay bill set aside for performance-related awards for the SCS is based on recommendations from the independent senior salaries review body.
The following sections set out the estimated spend on non-consolidated performance payments for the 2009-10 financial year.
CORE-DEFRA - Including staff in Animal Health, Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the Marine and Fisheries Agency
The wages/salary budget for 2009-10 is £200.25 million, of which non-consolidated performance payments represents an estimated 1.5 per cent.
The wages/salary budget for 2009-10 is £99.3 million, of which non-consolidated performance payments represents an estimated 0.5 per cent.
Centre for the Environment and Aquaculture Science
The wages/salary budget for 2009-10 is £20.46 million of which non-consolidated performance payments represent an estimated 3.9 per cent.
Food and Environment Research Agency
The wages/salary budget for 2009-10 is £31.42 million, of which non-consolidated performance payments represent an estimated 1.25 per cent.
Veterinary Laboratories Agency
The wages/salary budget for 2009-10 is £41,143,891.11, of which non-consolidated performance payments represents an estimated 0.472 per cent.
CEFAS has relatively higher non-consolidated pay when compared as a percentage against the DEFRA Network, because they have specifically worked to structure a total rewards package with a greater non-consolidated pay element that is directly performance based and must be re-earned each year. This places a greater link between performance and reward and while their percentage of non consolidated pay is larger than others this is more than offset by their consolidated pay (i.e. salaries) which is low relative to the DEFRA Network and Whitehall.
Poultry: Animal Welfare
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether it remains his policy to introduce a ban on beak trimming of laying hens in 2011. [311179]
Jim Fitzpatrick:
The Government have accepted further advice from The Farm Animal Welfare Council, an independent advisory body, that a complete ban on beak trimming of laying hens should not be introduced from 1 January 2011 (as is currently in legislation), but should be deferred until it can be demonstrated reliably
under commercial conditions that laying hens can be managed without beak trimming, without a greater risk to their welfare than that caused by beak trimming itself. The Government want to reduce the number of procedures that are defined in legislation as 'mutilations' and protect the welfare of laying hens, but a balance has to be struck between reducing the number of procedures carried out and ensuring that the birds do not suffer worse welfare insults, such as feather pecking and cannibalism.
The Government will shortly issue a consultation on proposed amendments to the Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) Regulations 2007 (as amended) to remove the total ban on beak trimming, to allow for routine beak trimming of day-old chicks intended for laying to be done using the infra-red technique only.
Recycling: Calderdale
Mrs. Riordan: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much household waste Calderdale Council has recycled in the last five years; and whether the amount recycled in each of those years met his Department's targets. [310458]
Dan Norris: The following table shows tonnages and percentages of household waste sent for recycling, composting and reuse by Calderdale council for the financial years of 2004-05 to 2008-09.
Data for years 2004-05 to 2007-08 are Best Value Performance Indicators 82a (dry recycling) and 82b (composting), while data for 2008-09 are in National Indicator 192, which includes dry recycling, composting and reuse.
Tonnage for 2004-05 could not be provided. WasteDataFlow was introduced that year and data provided by local authorities were unreliable and were not published. The recycling rate for that year is taken from the Audit Commission's website.
| Recycling/composting/reuse (tonnes) | Recycling rate (percentage) | Target (percentage) | |
| (1 )No target set Source: WasteDataFlow and the Audit Commission | |||
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