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11 Dec 2006 : Column WA159
Written Answers
Monday 11 December 2006
Agriculture: Costs and Regulation
Baroness Byford asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ current strategy to achieve its targets of reducing farming costs by 25 per cent by 2010; and [HL482]
Whether as part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ simplification plan to reduce its administration costs an assessment will be made of whether United Kingdom farmers have been disadvantaged by over-implementation of regulations compared with other European Union member states.[HL483]
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): Defra does not have a target to reduce total costs to farmers by 25 per cent. However, we do have a commitment to reduce administrative burdens by 25 per cent by 2010.
Lord Davidson's review on the implementation of EU legislation, published on 28 November 2006, found that the unnecessary over-implementation of EU legislation may not be as widespread in the UK as is sometimes claimed. It is sometimes beneficial for the UK economy to set or maintain regulatory standards that exceed the minimum requirements of European legislation.
However, the review did conclude that there were areas in the stock of legislation where regulatory burdens can be removed. The review included three Defra case studies: on waste legislation, on fisheries legislation and on the herd register for bovine animals. It makes specific recommendations for Defra in these areas. The report also includes wider recommendations to encourage the spread of best practice across departments in the implementation of EU legislation. Some of these build on Defra's existing best practice work.
Defra’s 2006 simplification plan, Maximising Outcomes, Minimising Burdens, will be published on 11 December and will be available on the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/regulat/requlat.asp. Copies of the plan will also be placed in the House Library. The Defra simplification plan will take forward the specific simplification proposals from Lord Davidson's review. In addition, the more generic recommendations which aim to further strengthen the implementation of EU legislation in the future will, if they are not already, be incorporated into our programme of better regulation culture change.
The plan reports on the key findings from the cross-Whitehall exercise to measure the administrative burdens imposed by regulations, and how these burdens fall on different stakeholders. It also details simplification projects, many of which are already under way, which will ensure that Defra meets its commitment to reduce administrative burdens by 25 per cent by 2010. Reducing
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Defra's farm regulation and charging strategy, Partners for Success, was launched on 28 November 2005. The strategy commits the Government to improving the way in which we regulate (and enforce regulation) and to reducing bureaucracy. This will improve farmers’ capacity to help to protect the environment, animal health and welfare, food safety and worker safety. It is available on the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk/farm/policy/regulation/charge/index.htm.
Agriculture: Poultry
Baroness Byford asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in order to prevent possible commercial disadvantage, they will reduce the £3,000 registration fee payable by United Kingdom poultry producers under the integrated pollution prevention and control regulations, bearing in mind the £700 registration fee payable by Danish poultry producers; and [HL533]
Whether they will reduce the charges that United Kingdom poultry producers are required to pay on an annual basis under the integrated pollution prevention and control regulations once they are registered under the scheme.[HL534]
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): The integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC) directive applies an integrated environmental approach to the regulation of industrial activities. This means that emissions to air, water (including discharges to sewer) and land, plus a range of other environmental effects, including noise and vibration, must be considered together before a permit is granted. IPPC aims to prevent emissions and waste production and, where that is not practicable, to reduce them to acceptable levels.
The regulator must set permit conditions so as to achieve a high level of protection for the environment and human health as a whole. These conditions are based on the use of the “best available techniques”, which balances the costs to the operator against the benefits to the environment and human health.
Regulatory costs have to be met by those whose activities cause the need for them and so cannot be waived. Intensive livestock installations will be charged £3,331 for a permit application and then annual charges of £2,229 for a small installation and £2,794 for a large one. The IPPC directive applies only to poultry installations with places for more than 40,000 birds and to installations with places for more than 2,000 production pigs or 750 sows. Large units are those greater than 10 times the lower threshold—that is, those greater than 400,000 birds, 20,000 production pigs or 7,500 sows.
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On 19 May, the industry accepted an offer from the Environment Agency whereby, provided that permit applications are received evenly through the 1 November 2006 to 31 January 2007 application period, a subsistence charge of £1,471 for an existing small installation and £1,844 for an existing large one will be made to industry from August 2007 until March 2008. This represents a substantial saving to industry.
The IPPC directive is required to be implemented in its entirety in all member states by 2007. In the UK, the farming sector is among the last to be regulated by the national transposing regulations (with the exception of new installations). Most other industrial sectors have had to apply for an IPPC permit and comply with the provisions of the IPPC regime sooner than intensive livestock.
Some EU member states may not charge for IPPC permit applications, but may recover varying proportions of their costs from the regulated industry, while others bear the cost in general taxation. This is a political decision for each national Government. The differing practices that are in place make it difficult to make comparisons of the costs to producers across the EU.
I met representatives of the industry recently and assured them that I would look again at what might be able to be done to reduce the costs of these regulatory requirements.
Assisted Dying
Lord Alton of Liverpool asked Her Majesty's Government:
How they will respond to the proposal made by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists that the deliberate intervention to cause the death of a disabled infant should be made legal through the enactment of laws; and what account they are taking of the opposition of the Disability Rights Commission and disabled people's organisations such as RADAR: The Disability Rights Network. [HL289]
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): The Royal College has confirmed that it has never promoted or advocated that very premature babies should be actively euthanised and it is not calling for a change in the law to introduce euthanasia. It claims that recent media reports have misrepresented its position. We welcome this confirmation.
Care Services: Fresh Drinking Water
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether care standards require that fresh drinking water is available to care residents throughout the day and that it is offered to them regularly; and [HL215]
Whether they will take further steps to ensure that fresh water is a required element of the nutritional standards for older people in care. [HL216]
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The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): Regulation 16 of the Care Homes Regulations requires care homes to,
- “provide, in adequate quantities, suitable, wholesome and nutritious food which is varied and properly prepared and available at such time as may reasonably be required by service users”.
Food, in the regulations, includes drink.
Standard 15 of the national minimum standards (NMS) for care homes for older people includes the requirements that:
service users receive a varied, appealing, wholesome and nutritious diet, which is suited to individual assessed and recorded requirements, and that meals are taken in a congenial setting and at flexible times; andhot and cold drinks and snacks are available at all times and offered regularly.The review of the NMS, which the Commission for Social Care Inspection must take into account when inspecting care homes, is ongoing and will be subject to public consultation in due course. The issue of availability of drinking water to residents is being considered as part of the review.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) published nutrient and food-based advice for those providing food in care homes on 19 October 2006. This advice includes example menus, which include making water available at all eating occasions. Government advice is that we need to drink six to eight glasses of fluid every day. It is therefore implicit that care homes should be making water freely available throughout the day.
The nutrient and food-based guidance for those providing residential care for older people is the first part in a series of guidance documents for United Kingdom institutions. The FSA expects to produce guidance for other institutions, including the National Health Service and prisons, in early 2007.
Child Protection: Bichard Inquiry
Baroness Harris of Richmond asked Her Majesty's Government:
What progress has been made in ensuring the delivery of the Bichard inquiry recommendations before 2010. [HL260]
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): Over two-thirds of the 31 recommendations from the Bichard inquiry have already been substantially delivered. Comprehensive programme management arrangements are in place to ensure delivery of the remainder through to 2010. Some of the most significant aspects of the programme, such as IMPACT, will generate improvements and benefits incrementally during this period.
Crime: Rape
Lord Campbell-Savours asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the conditions and circumstances in which DNA would be taken from an accuser of rape from the time of the original reporting of the rape to the period following the verdict of a jury in a rape trial.[HL525]
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): Victims of crime may be asked to consent to provide the police with a DNA sample for elimination purposes as part of the investigation into that crime. The victim's DNA sample is not retained after the conclusion of the case and the DNA profile is not added to the National DNA Database unless the victim has given their written consent for this.
Democratic Republic of Congo: Poaching
Lord Jones of Cheltenham asked Her Majesty's Government:
What assistance they have offered to the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to assist wildlife wardens to prevent poaching of wildlife.[HL506]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): Wildlife wardens in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) work in difficult and dangerous conditions to combat poaching. My honourable friend the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Jim Knight, discussed these challenges when he met wardens in Virunga and Kahuzi-Biega parks during his 2005 visit to the DRC.
The biggest threat to wardens, and the wildlife that they are working to protect, comes from armed poachers and from the various foreign and Congolese militia groups operating in remote parts of the DRC. The UK continues to support the UN peacekeeping force, which is working with the new Congolese army to tackle the foreign armed groups. We are also supporting the reform and training of the new Congolese army by providing £3 million for basic life needs support, such as tents and water. This will help to stop Congolese soldiers and militias preying on civilians, wardens and wildlife.
EU: Turkey
Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): We believe that the accession of Turkey is of immense strategic importance to the EU. Turkey is a growing, dynamic economy, it has an educated workforce and it
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Guantanamo Bay
Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they will not make an exception to the general policy of not assisting non-British nationals in the case of the former British residents held for a long time without charge or trial at Guantanamo Bay; and whether they have made an assessment of the effect that offering to accept the return of some or all of these detainees might have on the early closure of the detention centre. [HL370]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): It is the long-standing policy of the British Government not to offer consular assistance to non-British nationals, except in cases where a specific agreement to do so exists with another state. A recent Court of Appeal judgment in a judicial review application brought by some of the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility who were formally resident in the UK confirmed that there is no duty on my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, in domestic or international law, to make the formal request for release and return from Guantanamo Bay sought by those detainees. In these proceedings, the Government’s assessment was that the US Government would be very likely to resist any request for the release of the claimants, and that lobbying would make it more difficult for the UK to engage with the US on wider issues of detainee policy, including our wish to see the Guantanamo Bay detention facility closed.
Health: Audiology
Lord Turnberg asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the most recently available waiting times for National Health Service audiology services by English regions. [HL166]
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): Waiting times for pure tone audiometry by strategic health authority are set out in the following table:
Lord Turnberg asked Her Majesty's Government:
What advice the Department of Health has sought from the professional bodies representing United Kingdom audiologists in formulating their national audiology plan. [HL169]
Lord Warner: Our intention is to publish the action plan early in 2007. It is clearly essential that it should be informed by the views of the broad range of stakeholders, including the professional bodies, and that it should command broad support wherever possible. A working group has been established to develop proposals, but for reasons of size has not been designed to be representative of the various groups. A forum will be held before publication to ensure that stakeholder groups and others have a formal opportunity to consider possible proposals and contribute their views. The department has already had submissions from a number of professional organisations, and others are of course welcome to write with theirs. Whether or not there is formal consultation on the action plan or elements of it will depend on the nature of the measures.
Lord Turnberg asked Her Majesty's Government:
What consideration has been given to the maintenance of specialist audiology services within the National Health Service in plans to contract out audiology services to private providers; and [HL168]
What estimates have been made of the proportion of deaf people able to benefit from a hearing aid who have received such an aid.[HL170]
Lord Warner: Information on the number of deaf people able to benefit from a hearing aid who have received such an aid is not held centrally.
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