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4 Jun 2007 : Column WA145

Written Answers

Monday 4 June 2007

Agriculture: Animal Diseases

The Duke of Montrose asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): Yes. We always carry out investigations into the reasons behind outbreaks of exotic notifiable disease (that is, those not endemic to the United Kingdom). Where there is evidence of non-compliance with animal health legislation, the appropriate authority will consider whether legal proceedings should be instigated and this includes the recovery of costs. Where there is a failure to act in a reasonable manner to control disease, my department will also seek to recover its disease control costs.

My department is working with the livestock industry on how the roles, responsibilities and costs of providing animal health and welfare could be balanced better. The scope of the work includes the strengthening of the available steps where there are failures in responsibility.

Albania

Lord Jones of Cheltenham asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): The UK welcomes any efforts that help the development of Albania. Leka Zogu, the son of the former King of Albania Ahmet Zogu (King Zog), had some involvement with the Legality Movement and National Movement for Development, both political parties, following his return from exile in 2002. In February 2006, he announced his withdrawal from political life.

Animal Welfare: Vets

Baroness Byford asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): Animal Health's resources and work demands are reviewed regularly and the number of directly employed vets will vary from time to time. However, it is accepted that Animal Health's in-house veterinary capability is core to its business. In the last year, Animal Health has converted some 70 temporary veterinary positions into permanent posts, to bring the current veterinary staff complement to almost 300 full-time equivalents. A set baseline number for the agency may not be helpful at this time, given that the responsibilities of the agency will continue to change.

Armed Forces: A400M

Earl Attlee asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Drayson): We continuously review our requirements for defensive aid suites (DAS), taking into account operational roles, threat assessments, the technology available and industrial capacity. This includes keeping under review the scale of DAS procurement for the A400M aircraft, all of which will be “fitted for” DAS.

Armed Forces: Internment Procedure

Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Drayson): The recently concluded court martial of Payne and others lasted for 94 days. Evidence was heard from many witnesses, a number of whom referred to conditioning for interrogation, hooding, stress positions and sleep deprivation. Some evidence was heard in camera. The use of hooding, stress positions or sleep deprivation for conditioning prior to interrogation is unlawful as contrary to the Geneva Conventions.

These were issues of fact and law that would properly fall to be argued and determined as necessary in the court martial proceedings. In his summing up to the panel in the court martial on 12 March 2007, the Judge Advocate, Mr Justice McKinnon, said: “It is not necessary to discuss the lawfulness of hooding and stress positions save to this extent: stress positions are generally accepted to be unlawful as contrary to the Geneva Conventions and the laws of armed conflict”. He continued: “It is common ground that hooding was acceptable at the material time for good security reasons but questions of its general acceptability would or might arise if it was used for long periods in the heat of Iraq or if it was used for the purposes of sensory deprivation. This case does not stand or fall on a consideration of hooding. The real issue relates to stress positions”.

Avian Flu

The Duke of Montrose asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): The Government’s policy is to promote the highest possible levels of biosecurity and vigilance to prevent the risk of disease occurring. This applies to all elements of food production.

In the event of an outbreak of avian influenza, animal disease controls are put in place to prevent the spread of the infection to birds and to prevent potentially infected poultry meat from entering the food chain. This is to avoid the risk that such meat might present an animal health risk of spreading the disease. The Food Standard Agency’s advice is that avian influenza does not pose a food safety risk to the United Kingdom consumer. Processing plants are permitted to obtain meat from areas outside animal disease control zones. Clear requirements for the handling and disposal of waste in meat processing plants are set out in existing hygiene and animal by-product legislation and are enforced by the Meat Hygiene Service and local authorities.

Chagos Islands

Lord Avebury asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will consider the 23 May judgment of the Court of Appeal carefully and has in this regard asked officials for further advice. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary reserves the right to petition the House of Lords to grant permission to appeal, as she is entitled to do within one month. The Government's policy in relation to the British Indian Ocean Territory therefore remains the subject of possible ongoing legal proceedings and it would be inappropriate to comment further.

Lord Avebury asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Triesman: My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will consider the 23 May judgment of the Court of Appeal carefully and has in this regard asked officials for further advice. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary reserves the right to petition the House of Lords to grant permission to appeal, as she is entitled to do within one month. The Government's policy in relation to the British Indian Ocean Territory therefore remains the subject of possible ongoing legal proceedings and it would be inappropriate to comment further.

Climate Change: Carbon Credits

Lord De Mauley asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): The Government support offsetting as part of a hierarchy of actions, the most important being to reduce emissions. We acknowledge that carbon offsetting is not a cure for climate change, but it can help to raise awareness and to reduce the impact of our actions.

The Government support the use of offsets generated by robust and verifiable mechanisms bound by international regulation. The Government's own offsetting schemes use the clean development mechanism (CDM), which can also be accessed by consumers through a variety of providers. We have also proposed that the CDM and other regulatory market offset mechanisms form the core of Defra's voluntary code of best practice for the provision of offsetting to UK customers.

The CDM is supervised by an executive board, established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is responsible for full oversight and the release of certified emission reductions (CERs) to projects that have met the requirements of the CDM process. That process is multi-stage, employing stringent verification procedures to ensure the real value of the emission reductions generated.

The carbon market is an essential part of the package to tackle climate change globally and is a crucial mechanism to help to drive the investment needed to reduce emissions cost-effectively. The market is growing rapidly and faces development issues, as any emerging market does. For example, there is a need for more investment, via the carbon market, in Africa. At the second meeting of parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP2) in Nairobi, there was a particular focus on enabling wider uptake of CDM projects—a “Nairobi framework” was agreed to facilitate investment in Africa. The UK, as the major focus of the carbon market, wants to work to connect market experts here with project developers in Africa as a contribution to this work.

COP/MOP2 also encouraged further initiatives to help to build capacity to carry out projects and agreed measures aimed, for instance, at aiding easier development of small-scale CDM projects. We are also co-operating with colleagues in other countries to consider how we might link the EU-ETS, which is currently at the heart of the carbon market, to other emerging schemes and so work towards a truly global market for carbon.

There is currently no regulation of businesses that sell carbon offsetting mechanisms. However, on 18 January, Defra launched a consultation on a voluntary code of best practice for the provision of carbon offsetting to customers. The consultation closed on 13 April 2007 and the code of best practice is expected to be operational by the end of the year.

The purpose of establishing a code is to ensure consumer confidence in an emerging market and continued growth of that market through that confidence. The code will be voluntary and offset providers can choose whether to seek accreditation for all, or some, of their offsetting products.

The code proposes that offset providers supply consumers with clear information and transparent prices. It is not for the Government to dictate prices for CO2 offsets, but there is a market price for carbon, established by the EU-ETS, which is available to the public as a point of reference.

Defra plans to support the standard by providing guidance to consumers on offsetting, which will also help consumers to make informed decisions about their actions.

Climate Change: Models

Lord Dykes asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Drayson): The UKCIP02 national climate scenarios, published in 2002, were based on projections of future climate change using the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model. There are no plans to re-examine the range of climate models used by the Met Office for assessing UKCIP02. However, the next set of scenarios, UKCIP08, due to be published in 2008, will be based on projections from the Met Office model, augmented by results from other models around the world, including Europe.

Other models that will be used are:

FranceISPL model at Institut Pierre Simon LaplaceRussiaINM-CM3.0 model at Institute for Numerical MathematicsUSAUIUC model at University of IllinoisCCSM3.0 model at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)JapanMIROC-medres medium-resolution model at Center for Climate System Research (University of Tokyo), National Institute for Environmental Studies, and Frontier Research Center for Global Change (JAMSTEC) MRI-CGCM2.3.2 model at Meteorological Research UnitCanadaCGCM3.1 T63 model at Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and AnalysisAustraliaCSIRO-MK3.0 model at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).There is potential also to include:GermanyMPI ECHAM5—Max Planck InstituteUSAGFDL AM-2 model at Geophysical Fluid Dynamics LaboratoryNCAR PCM—National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) parallel climate modelNASA GISS—Goddard Institute for Space StudiesJapanMIROC-hires high-resolution model at Center for Climate System Research (University of Tokyo), National Institute for Environmental Studies, and Frontier Research Center for Global Change (JAMSTEC).

Common Agricultural Policy

Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): The United Kingdom makes its contributions to the EC budget as a whole and not to individual spending programmes within it. There is not therefore a specific United Kingdom contribution to common agricultural policy spending. However, as has been done in the past, we can provide notional estimates.

We can estimate the UK consumer cost of the CAP by comparing the difference between UK and world prices for agricultural products and applying that difference to the volume of UK consumption. Our latest provisional estimate for 2005 is a consumer cost of approximately £3.5 billion. Based on information contained in EC amending budget No. 6/2006, the notional United Kingdom taxpayer contribution to common agricultural spending in 2006 is £4.2 billion.

Total expenditure on United Kingdom agriculture in 2006-07 from the EC budget was £2.9 billion, and can be divided into the following categories:

Market support—£366 millionDirect aids—£2.4 billion Rural development—£163 million.

On top of that, approximately £763 million was spent on English agriculture by the Government.

Responsibility for domestic agricultural spending is a devolved matter and advice on such expenditure needs to be sought from each of the devolved Administrations.

Crime: Business

Lord Harris of Haringey asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): There are no plans to set a national definition of business crime.

Crimes against business are already recorded in crime statistics but are often grouped together with other, unrelated crimes. The aim is to measure these with consistency and accuracy. Crimes such as robbery of business property, theft from a shop, theft by an employee and different types of fraud are already counted separately in recorded crime statistics and work will continue to expand the range of these. Once a definition of commercial burglary has been agreed during 2007-08, this can be adopted by all police forces in their crime recording systems and in returns to the Home Office. The new commercial burglary definition will then be piloted in 2008-09 as part of the Home Office annual data requirement.

Lord Harris of Haringey asked Her Majesty's Government:

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: A key aspect of regional business crime and fraud forums is that they are locally driven by those in the business community who wish to have them and are willing to support them. Government support is given through advice and information from the Home Office and through government regional offices.

Central Home Office funding for regional work on tackling crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour is now channelled through the Safer and Stronger Communities Fund (SSCF), a joint fund with Communities and Local Government (CLG). Decisions about how this funding is spent are therefore devolved to the local area through the local area agreement process.


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