asked the Secretary of State for the Environment, over the past two years, how many sites for which sites of special scientific interest designation was applied for were destroyed before statutory protection was in force.

I am advised by the Nature Conservancy Council that since 1 April 1983 some 27 proposed sites of special scientific interest have been damaged following the issue of the NCC's notice of intention to notify the site. In only two of these cases does the NCC consider that the scientific interest of the whole of the site has been completely destroyed.