§ Mr. WallaceTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many applicants there have been for the agriculture development programme; and how many applications have been refused.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonAt 12 January 1990, 2,750 applications had been approved. About 100 applications are still under consideration and more may be submitted before the closing date for applications of 28 February 1990. One hundred and sixty-five applications have been refused or were withdrawn prior to approval. A number of the applications which were refused or withdrawn because they failed to meet ADP criteria—mainly the requirement that breeding stock numbers should not increase during the period of the plan—were revised by the applicants, resubmitted and subsequently approved.
§ Mr. WallaceTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the total budget of the agriculture development programme; and how much he envisages being taken up.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe ADP submission to the European Commission envisaged public expenditure on the programme of about £38 million. It is not possible to indicate the precise level of expenditure over the programme period to March 1993 since the programme is still open for applications and eventual grant payments do not necessarily match exactly the level of expenditure envisaged when applications are approved.
§ Mr. WallaceTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many individual schemes are now operational under the agriculture development programme; how many have subsequently had their total grant allocation cut by his Department; and if he will detail this by geographical area.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe total number of applications approved at 12 January 1990 is 2,750. This is broken down by type of measure and island group in the table: