§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many non-departmental public bodies for which her Department is responsible have been(a) established and (b) abolished since 1997. [182950]
§ Alun MichaelThe Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was established in June 2001, at which time Defra was responsible for 57 NDPBs1 Since then the number of NDPBs established and abolished are as follows:
NDPBs established NDPBs abolished June 2001—March 20022 1 3 Apirl 2002—March 2003 2 2 Apirl 2003—March 2004 3 3 1Number includes 2 public corporations 2 These figures are sourced from "Public Bodies". In "Public Bodies 2001" a DTI sponsored NDPB was included in Defra's return and our two public corporations were listed as an Executive NDPB and a Nationalised Industry. These were printer's errors and the figures above are correct even though they do not directly correlate with "Public Bodies".