Written question asked by Nick Gibb (Conservative) on Monday, 12 December 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 14 December 2005. It was answered by Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour) on Tuesday, 20 December 2005 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Entry Level Scheme

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the production of maps to be used for applications under the entry level scheme.

Answer: Entry level stewardship (ELS) maps are produced by the Rural Development Service when the applicant requests a pre-application pack; the maps are based upon data contained within the Rural Land Register.The information contained within the map forms a fundamental component of the legal agreement and in particular supports the on site compliance inspections that we are required to undertake.There have been some problems with incomplete registrations of land on the Rural Land Register, as a backlog of cases developed at the Rural Payments Agency. This occurred when registration requests relating to single payment scheme and environmental stewardship increased to an unprecedented level. However, earlier in the year, outstanding cases that were identified as being linked to an environmental stewardship application were prioritised. Registration for this group of applicants has now been largely completed by the Rural Payments Agency, as part of the on-going efforts to deal with the backlog generated earlier in the year.Nationally there are now more than 11,000 entry level scheme agreements in place.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 37904; 440 c2666W
Session: 2005-06
Subjects: Agriculture Environment protection Maps Subsidies Environmental stewardship scheme
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk