§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) how his Department plans to make mobile bakeries available to local authorities after nuclear attack;
(2) what is the current annual cost of storage and maintenance for the stock of mobile bakeries held by his Department; and what are the expected changes to these costs following the current refurbishment programme;
(3) what is the estimated cost of replacing the mobile bakery units held by his Department;
(4) what the estimated total cost will be for refurbishing the mobile bakery units held by his Department for use in a time of crisis;
(5) when the refurbishment of the stock of mobile bakeries held by his Department will be complete;
(6) where the mobile bakeries held by his Department for use in time of crisis are stored.
§ Mr. MacleanThe refurbishment of mobile bakery units to ensure that they fully meet modern health and safety operational requirements is due to be completed early in 1990 at a total cost of £ 1,170,092. The current cost of replacing this equipment would be approximately £2.5 million.
The mobile bakeries are a part of the stockpile of food and emergency feeding equipment. Expenditure on these activities is set out in class IV vote 4 of the 1989–90 Supply Estimates. It is not possible to identify separately the costs specifically relating to the storage and maintenance in store of the bakery equipment but they are not expected to change significantly as a result of the refurbishment programme.
544WBakery equipment is held in each home defence region and would be deployed to augment local emergency baking facilities as instructed by the regional government food and agriculture officer.