---

Food Defences

Answer

The costs of cleaning up are borne in the main by local authorities and individual property owners and their insurers. No estimates of the total costs incurred by all parties involved are available.However, under the Bellwin schemes arrangements, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister makes financial assistance available to local authorities if there has been an emergency or disaster involving destruction of or danger to life or property on a scale which is clearly exceptional in relation to normal experience in the locality. The purpose of a Bellwin scheme is to provide emergency relief, not to put right all the ill effects of an incident. Before qualifying for grant a LA must have spent 0.2 per cent. of its budget on eligible expenditure. Above that threshold grant is normally paid at 85 per cent.Records of expenditure on Bellwin Schemes do not differentiate as to the cause of the emergency. The following statistics of expenditure since 1997–98 therefore include payments relating to all emergencies. However, the majority of the expenditure related to flooding emergencies:

	£ million
1997–98	0.3
1998–99	0.44
1999–2000	0.35
2000–01	4.1
2001–02	25
2002–03	0.35
2003–04	0.1
2004–05	2.3
Notes: Up until 2000–01 and again in 2002–03 only a small number of authorities received grant in any one year. In 2000–01, 17 authorities received grant, 16 of which were in connection with the autumn 2000 floods. In 2001–02 nearly 75 authorities received payments which were also in connection with the autumn 2000 floods, and nearly 50 in connection with foot and mouth disease. In 2001–02, around £6 million of the total expenditure was in relation to foot and mouth disease.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

25460; 439 c674-5W;439 c674-5W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Costs Flood control Government assistance Floods

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk