§ Mr. MartlewTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on animal health and welfare expenditure trends shown in the Departmental report for 2002. [72082]
§ Mr. MorleyTables 5.1 to 5.5 in the Departmental Report for 2002 contain a number of errors. These arose from differences in the way information is loaded on
620Wcentral data bases, complications with compiling historical information following the recent Machinery of Government changes, and the re-structuring of DEFRA with the revised objectives that followed. Unfortunately, the tight timetable for producing these tables interfered with the quality assurance procedures that would normally have applied.
The Department's quality assurance procedures are being revised to prevent similar errors in future. Meanwhile, work is in hand to re-issue corrected tables. This is a significant task involving the re-loading of central data bases which are subject to a number of timetable constraints. The intention is to provide revised figures by the Autumn.
Meanwhile, it is possible to clarify that underlying provision for resources available to control animal disease have risen in real terms over the period as follows:
£ million 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 Cash Outturn Cash Outturn Provisional Resource Outturn Resource Budget 152 183 159 206 These figures exclude expenditure incurred on foot and mouth disease, given this was funded centrally out of the Reserve. The drop seen in 2001–02 can be explained by the diversion of state veterinary staff to tackling foot and mouth disease.