§ Mrs. Ann WintertonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to increase the area of farmed land subject to Countryside Stewardship schemes. [12810]
§ Mr. MorleyOur plans for a major expansion of the Countryside Stewardship budget are well known. As part of the England Rural Development Programme (ERDP), expenditure on agri-environment schemes is scheduled to increase from £119 million this year to £197 million in 2006–07. From the total ERDP budget of £1.6 billion, £500 million has been allocated to the Countryside Stewardship Scheme over the period. As a result, each year we will be accepting roughly double the number of applications compared to 1999 and we expect to add over half a million hectares of land to that already covered by the scheme (currently about a quarter of a million hectares) over the last 10 years.