§ Mr. DalyellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what further resources he has made available for successor agencies to the Nature Conservancy Council in addition to his estimate of the notional cost required to perform the new range of statutory duties;
(2) pursuant to his reply of 25 July, Official Report, column 453, if he will make it his policy that the final additional costs of reorganisation of the Nature Conservancy Council will be made available to Parliament before the Environmental Protection Bill concludes its parliamentary stages;
(3) what funding he proposes to enable successor agencies to the Nature Conservancy Council to carry forward new initiatives to enhance nature conservation;
(4) what is his latest estimate of the increase in staff numbers and resources as a result of the Nature Conservancy Council being split into four separate agencies;
(5) what percentage of the agreed posts in successor authorities to the Nature Conservancy Council, on current estimates, will be staffed by April 1991.
§ Mr. TrippierThe Government have made an extra £1.4 million available in the current financial year to cover initial reorganisation costs. Detailed work on the cost of reorganisation in 1991–92 has been carried out by the existing agencies and the relevant Government Departments. It is already the Government's intention to make the main results of this work available to Parliament very shortly and before the Environmental Protection Bill concludes its parliamentary stages.
The Government's statement will include details of the manpower requirements of the new agencies and the outcome of the current work being undertaken by the 622W Nature Conservancy Council and Countryside Commission to meet those requirements by assigning existing staff to the new agencies. Any vacancies which remain will be filled by trawls or recruitment and every effort will be made to complete this process before 1 April 1991.
Decisions about the total resources to be made available to the successor agencies to cover all their responsibilities in 1991–92 will be taken within the timetable and context of the annual public expenditure round.
§ Mr. DalyellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will state the number of grants given by the Nature Conservancy Council in the year ending 31 March 1990 for the management of land which is not SSSI and not related to net profits forgone, and the total cost of such grants.
§ Mr. TrippierThis information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. DalyellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment on what dates in 1988, 1989, and 1990 he met the chairman of the Nature Conservancy Council to discuss formally his proposed changes in the Nature Conservancy Council.
§ Mr. TrippierThe Secretary of State or his predecessor, as well as other Ministers, met the chairman of the Nature Conservancy Council on a number of occasions in 1989 and 1990 to discuss the Government's proposals to reorganise the Nature Conservancy Council.