§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs where and when she announced that she intends to delay submission of the UK's National Allocation Plan to the European Commission; and on what grounds. [167524]
§ Mr. MorleyThe European Commission was informed of the UK's intention to delay submission of the National Allocation Plan (NAP) for the EU Emissions Trading Scheme on Friday 26 March 2004. Stakeholders were informed via email and an announcement made on the Defra website on Monday 29 March 2004; I wrote to Commissioner Wallstrom on1018W Wednesday 31 March 2004 and the Government position regarding the delay in publication was further clarified in a press release on 2 April 2004.
During the consultation on the draft NAP, a number of issues were raised which Government wanted to take into account and consider in full. Some of these issues were complex and took considerable time to work through. It was therefore agreed to delay the submission of the NAP to the Commission by a few weeks to take account of the extra work.
The UK takes all EU responsibilities and deadlines seriously and is fully supportive of the EU ETS. We also have a duty to take full account of issues raised as a result of public consultation. We intend to submit the NAP to the Commission and publish it for further consultation by the end of April.