§ Mr. StunellTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what measures she is taking to enhance the effectiveness of the Are You Doing Your Bit? campaign; and if she will make a statement. [72743]
§ Mr. MeacherExpenditure on the "Are you doing your bit?" campaign, covering both environmental and transport topics, was £3.4 million in 1998–99, £7.0 million in 1999— 295W 2000 and £9.3 million in 2000–01. In 2001–02 most of the campaign's resources were reallocated to rural support, during the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and expenditure was £0.6 million. The Department is currently reviewing the effectiveness of public awareness activities in this area and in the meantime, in the current financial year, is making only minimal financial commitments on the "Are You Doing You Bit?" campaign. The distribution of budgets for public awareness activities for the following three financial years has yet to be decided, in the light of the overall figures for the Department settled in this year's Spending Review.
1999–2000 (£milliond)* 2000–01 (£milliond)* 2001–02 (£milliond) 2002–03 (£milliond)*** GM and Non-GM biotechnology 23.4 27 27.3 24 Research to underpin safety assessment of GMOs in the environment 1.9 2.4** 2.4** 2.9** Total spend on Biotechnology 25.3 29.4 29.7 26.9 *Figures include relevant DETR and MAFF programmes. ** Figures exclude food-related risk assessment projects, which were transferred to the Food Standards Agency. ***All figures are provisional. (b) Biomedics— This Department does not support research in this area.
Biotechnology is defined as the application of biological organisms, systems and processes to manufacturing and service industries. This definition covers genetic modification (GM) research but goes much wider to include, among other techniques, fused cell techniques, protein engineering, fermentation and cell culture techniques, the production of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies.