[pursuant to the reply, 28 February 2007, Official Report, c. 1325W]: The figures in the Natural England column for August 2006, November 2006 and February 2007 were incorrect. The correct figures are in the table. The rest of the answer remains correct.
The first Higher Level Stewardship agreements commenced on 1 February 2006 and were administered by the Rural Development Service (RDS) rather than English Nature. The environmental land management functions of the Rural Development Service then transferred, on 1 October 2006, to form part of Natural England.
The Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) scheme accepts applications on a quarterly rather than monthly basis. The following table sets out applications received and approved by both the RDS and Natural England during the quarterly timeframes the hon. Member refers to:
Quarterly cycle date Applications received Applications approved Rural Development Service February 2006 322 287 May 2006 304 269 August 2006 387 319 Natural England November 2006 588 357 February 2007 385 114
The data contained in this table is a snap-shot. As such, it will be subject to future change as Natural England finalises HLS processing. This particularly applies to the February 2007 agreements. There are still a number of cases to be finalised between applicants and Natural England, and figures will change accordingly.
Regrettably, I have to advise that I am unable to provide a figure which shows precisely the number of applications approved in 2006 that were received prior to 1 February 2006. This is because the IT system necessary to record such data was not fully in place for the period referred to. In order to now provide this data would necessitate a large-scale manual exercise which would be of disproportionate cost.