§ Norman BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to her answer of 20 November 2002,Official Report, columns 158–59W, if she will make a statement on the new integrated policy appraisal tools to ensure that environmental impacts are considered alongside social and economic impacts. [89249]
§ Mr. MeacherDEFRA's commitment to use integrated policy appraisal (IPA) was set out in the Department's Sustainable Development Strategy, "Foundations for our Future", published in June 2002. It is currently being piloted within DEFRA in a number of selected policy areas, and will be applied more widely in the coming year. The IPA provides a framework or template within which the economic, social and environmental impacts of policy options and their distributional effects in relation to different groups of people can be assessed. It allows decision-makers to
consider all the effects that a policy may have and identify which are potentially significant;highlight areas requiring more detailed or specialist guidance/further appraisal; andfollowing any such guidance or appraisal, assemble evidence systematically to provide a summary of the impacts of a policy and the likely scale of the impacts.It is intended to contribute to the Government's goal of better policy making and to the achievement of sustainable development. The results of the pilot 370W exercise in DEFRA, together with those being carried out in other Departments, will be shared across Government.