§ Lord Beaumont of Whitleyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Lord Donoughue on 30 March (WA 31–32) concerning statutory certification for oil and fibre plant seeds, whether they will specify which particular piece of information would prove disproportionately costly to answer and why. [HL1914]
§ The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Donoughue)The question concerned eight separate pieces of historical information for 10 separate items. The information is not of a nature that is usually consulted retrospectively during the course of seed certification and thus it would be necessary for the Government's technical contractor, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, to perform the following tasks.
It would be necessary to write ad hoc computer programmes to identify the last 10 fodder and oil seeds to have received statutory certification, to establish the date each seed was entered into the non-statutory provisional seed certification scheme, to identify the nature and date of each seed's first non-statutory provisional certification and to identify the nature and date of each seed's first statutory certification.
It would be necessary also to research the certification database to identify the nature and date of each seed's second non-statutory provisional certification, to identify the nature and date of any subsequent non-statutory provisional certification (if any) in respect of the seed, to establish the date that the variety in respect of each seed was entered on the national list or common catalogue, to identify the nature and date of each seed's second statutory certification and to identify the nature and date of any subsequent certification in respect of the seed.
It would be necessary also to locate and retrieve original records in order to establish the date each seed was entered into the non-statutory provisional seed certification scheme, to identify the nature and date of each seed's first non-statutory provisional certification, to identify the nature and date of each seed's second non-statutory provisional certification, to identify the nature and date of any subsequent non-statutory provisional certification (if any) in respect of the seed, to identify the nature and date of each seed's second statutory certification and to identify the nature and date of any subsequent certification in respect of the seed.
In addition to the costs of the technical contractor in undertaking these tasks, which would be passed on to MAFF through contract payments, further time would need to be spent by officials, in consultation in part with the technical contractor, in interpreting the question and preparation of the draft reply.