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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Jack: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will publish her proposed expenditure for each of the next three years under the English Rural Development Programme, broken down by scheme. [103146] Alun Michael: The proposed expenditure on schemes under the England Rural Development Programme is: £ million _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Scheme 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 Countryside Stewardship Scheme 81 96 111 Environmentally Sensitive Area 48 48 48 Scheme Organic Farming Scheme 22 23 23 Farm Woodland Premium Scheme 11 12 13 Woodland Grant Scheme 21 22 22 Hill Farming Allowance 35 27 27 Rural Enterprise Scheme 24 36 36 Processing and Marketing Grant 8 8 8 Vocational Training Scheme 4 4 4 Energy Crops Scheme 5 5 5 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. The table does not include possible new schemes that would require modification of the ERDP and are subject to Commission approval. For example, we recently launched a pilot entry level agri-environment scheme and we have said that if this pilot is successful we intend to introduce the full scheme in England in 2005. Additional funding would have to be made available in 2005-06 to operate the scheme. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Scheme Total Number of agreements Number of agreements approved Scheme budget 2000-06 (£ approved between 2000-021,2 million) Countryside Stewardship Scheme 13,858 6,290 481 Environmentally Sensitive Areas 12,300 1,677 330 Organic Farming Scheme N/a 1,085 141 Woodland Grant Scheme 32,748 7,058 139 Farm Woodland Premium Scheme/Farm 10,059 2,389 77 Woodland Scheme Energy Crops Scheme N/a 31 32 Hill Farm Allowance2 N/a 9,953 254 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Note: Figures for number of approved agreements are provisional as some agreements for 2002 remain to be processed. Agreements entered into before 2000 are excluded. For Hill Farm Allowance, figure relates to number of payments made on claims received in 2002 rather than agreements approved over the years 2000 to 2002. It is not possible to directly compare the value of approved agreements in a givenyear with the budget for that year, because (a) the majority of agreements under athe land based schemes are for commitments lasting ten years or more and with payments made annually; (b) first payments under individual agreements may not always be made in the same year as the agreement is approved; and (c) much of the current budget for land based schemes is expended on commitments entered into before the ERDP began in 2000. In financial year 2000-01, 83 per cent. of the total budget available for the ERDP land-based schemes was spent, and in financial year 2001-02, 89 per cent. of the total budget available for the ERDP land-based schemes was spent.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

103146; 401 c502W

Session

2002-03

Registered interest declared

Yes

Subjects

Agriculture Subsidies Rural development programme

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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