Animal Health and Welfare Expenditure (Hansard, 23 July 2002)

§ Lord Whitty

Tables 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 central databases, complications with compiling historical information following the recent machinery of government changes and the restructuring 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 databases 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 has risen in real terms over the period as follows:

1999–2000 Cash outturn	2000–01 Cash outturn	2001–02 Provisional resource outturn	2002–03 Resource budget
£152m	£183m	£159m	£206m

These figures exclude expenditure incurred on foot and mouth disease, given that 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.