§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to whom her Department distributes expenditure on research and development; how many staff are employed as a result; and how many research establishments of(a) her Department and (b) its agencies there are in each region of England. [154359]
§ Alun MichaelThe Defra spend on research and development is some £150 million annually. We fund about 250 contractors including our laboratory agencies, the institutes of the Research Councils, a range of universities, and private sector providers of research such as ADAS. There are approximately 1,500 research projects in our portfolio and details of these can be found at www.defra.gov.uk/science. It is not possible to provide details of precise staff numbers employed on Defra R and D contracts. These will vary over the lifetime of projects, and will often involve less than full-time inputs from a number of researchers or in some cases sub-contractors. The main laboratory agencies of the Defra are
the Central Science Laboratory—Yorkthe Veterinary Laboratories Agency—Weybridgethe Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science—Lowestoft, Burnham on Crouch and Weymouth