To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what environmental appraisals of policy his Department has (a) completed, (b) started and (c) planned. [79622]

Environmental appraisals are not usually carried out in isolation from the general process of reviewing policies. The Ministry seeks to take into account all important factors, including environmental ones, in the formulation of policy and its implementation. Thus, there is a considerable input into monitoring the environmental impacts of policies, particularly where policy objectives are environmental in nature. As part of its regular policy review process, the Ministry carries out a rolling programme of economic policy evaluations. A number of these evaluations have been of agri-environment schemes or other policies with a significant environmental dimension. The evaluation programme is published on the MAFF website (http://www.maff.gov.uk/r&dieconomic.htm), with details of previous research and of policies which are due to be evaluated in the coming year. A copy has also been placed in the library of the House.