§ Mr. BreedTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what economic assessment she has made of her proposals regarding the establishment of nitrate vulnerable zones in England; and what estimates she has made of the cost of the implementation of an(a) 100 per cent., (b) 80 per cent. and (c) 55 per cent. nitrate vulnerable zone in England. [66351]
§ Mr. MeacherA partial regulatory impact assessment (RIA) was published in the consultation document "How should England implement the 1991 Nitrates Directive?" in December 2001. This estimated the net annual cost to the agricultural industry of applying action programme measures as £32 million for the whole country approach and £23 million for the discrete area nitrate vulnerable zone approach.
As the Secretary of State announced on 27 June, the Government have decided to pursue the discrete area nitrate vulnerable zone approach. Since the consultation we have refined the map to identify more precisely the land draining into each nitrate-polluted or eutrophic water. We also published a revised regulatory impact assessment, which reworked the implementation costs for 382W the refined NVZ area and also took into account comments made in response to the consultation. The revised estimate is £20 million per year.