§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will add butterflies to the list of quality of life indicators. [165068]
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§ Mr. Bradshaw[holding answer 1 April 2004]: The UK Government in partnership with tilt Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Administration have begun developing new strategy to produce a step change in the delivery of sustainable development in the UK. The public consultation document and process for developing new strategy will be launched later this month. As part of the consultation we will consider the use and scope of indicators for monitoring our progress.
We cannot at this stage pre-empt the outcome of the consultation and the associated review of indicators to comment which indicators may or may not be included in a new set.
Annual information on butterfly populations at monitored sites is available and an indicator covering 1976 to 2002 could be compiled. However, the majority of the sites covered by the monitoring schemes are nature reserves and the index is therefore unlikely to be representative of the country as a whole. This weakness is being addressed in a research project, which the Department is currently putting out to tender.