§ 5. Mr. Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)How many people are employed by (a) her Department, (b) its agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies for which her Department is responsible. [152867]
§ The Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality (Alun Michael)DEFRA employs around 7,000 people and a further 6,430 are employed in its agencies. 14,450 people are employed by DEFRA's 19 executive non-departmental public bodies and 2,100 people are employed by our two public corporations.
§ Mr. BaconDEFRA has 12 in-house delivery agents, 15 inspectorates, six executive agencies, 19 executive non-departmental public bodies, 29 non-executive non-departmental bodies, two public corporations and representatives in eight of the nine Government offices for the regions. One of those representatives recently told farmers in my constituency that her role was not to deliver programmes but
to provide strategic input into a multiplicity of strategies"—whatever that may mean.Does the Minister agree with Lord Haskins, who told the Government last October that there is room for streamlining in the Department? If he agrees with Lord Haskins, when will it happen?
§ Alun MichaelThe hon. Gentleman should know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State indicated her acceptance of the thrust of Lord Haskins's report immediately after its publication and said that we would work very hard on its implementation, which we are doing. The list that he has just reeled off indicates DEFRA's wide range of responsibilities across the environment, farming, food and general rural affairs. We first had representatives in the Government offices for the regions when DEFRA was set up, and the delivery of specific programmes lies with specific organisations such as the Rural Payments Agency and the Rural Development Service.
§ Andrew Bennett (Denton and Reddish)(Lab)Will my right hon. Friend consider reducing the number of people employed in the Countryside Agency, or encouraging the agency to do so and use of some of the 889 money saved to make grants available so that we can make the legislation on access to the countryside a practicality in the summer? If those grants were available to provide stiles and other access to land, it would make a great difference.
§ Alun MichaelMy hon. Friend points to an element that was considered carefully by Lord Haskins and on which we are working. He will be aware that the proposals involved the creation of a single integrated agency for issues such as land management, biodiversity and so on. That would have an impact on the Countryside Agency, and we also intend to move towards greater regional and local delivery of services. The points that he makes are valid and we will consider them as we work through the programme of reform to which the Haskins report has given rise.
§ Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)One of the most important agencies of DEFRA is the state veterinary service, which is the greatly overstretched front line for biosecurity in this country. Will the Minister consider the staffing levels of the service and see what can be done to arrest the decline that occurred year on year under the previous Government? I should remind the House that my wife is a practising veterinary surgeon, although in private practice.
§ Alun MichaelWe keep the numbers in the state veterinary service under review. The figure at the moment is 1,399, which is considerably lower than the numbers at the time of foot and mouth disease, when staffing levels were greatly expanded. As the hon. Gentleman reminds us, there was a reduction under the previous Government. We certainly keep the numbers under review.
§ Paddy Tipping (Sherwood)(Lab)Does my right hon. Friend accept that staff in the Department and its agencies will be affected in one way or another by Lord Haskins's review? As my right hon. Friend said, an initial announcement has been made, but is there not a danger from a lack of strategic planning—a sort of planning blight—unless final decisions are made fairly quickly? Will he confirm that the full implementation of the Haskins recommendations would require primary legislation, of which there is little early chance?
§ Alun MichaelWhen my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State initially responded to the Haskins report, she rightly said that primary legislation would be required to change the legal status of agencies or to create a new agency with independent status, but much can be done through co-ordination and co-working. I can tell my hon. Friend that we are working with leading people in the Countryside Agency, English Nature and other affected organizations—including the Rural Development Service, which is part of DEFRA at the moment. Lord Haskins recommended that the RDS, as a delivery arm, should be linked to English Nature and the new integrated agency. The Organisations are working well together and I am impressed by the high quality and motivation of staff in DEFRA and its agencies, and by the way in which they seek to improve the quality of the service that they give to their 890 customers and the public. After all, that is what we were trying to achieve through the review by Lord Haskins, which should be set in a renewal of rural strategy, to which my right hon. Friend has said she will return in the course of this year.
§ Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)It is now nearly three months since Lord Haskins published his report reviewing the work of all the agencies included in the structure of DEFRA. Within a day of it being published, Lord Haskins summarised the findings of his 172-page report in six simple words, when he described DEFRA as a
dog's dinner of the highest order".When the Minister last answered a written question on headcount, he said that information on staffing numbers at the Environment Agency and the Countryside Agency were not available, and that the information on non-departmental public bodies was not held centrally. Does not the lack of clarity in the staffing numbers at DEFRA show that it is a dog's dinner, the content of which is a mystery?
§ Alun MichaelThat is a real dog's dinner of a question. The hon. Lady might well have said that it is only three months since Lord Haskins reported and considered the complexity of issues involved in dealing properly with staff and maintaining services to customers and the public. The Countryside Agency employs about 665 people, some of whom will be working in areas that Lord Haskins recommended should go into the integrated agency. The Environment Agency employs more than 10,000 staff, dealing with a wide range of issues—environmental protection, fisheries, navigation and so on. The hon. Lady should consider some of the complexities that we, as a Department, have to address.