To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the average time taken to process an abstraction licence application for hydropower schemes was in each of the last four years. (277436)

The Environment Agency has collected information on the time taken to determine hydropower permit applications since November 2008. The time taken to determine applications between receipt of the formal application to issuing a permit is as follows:

2008: Average time 133 days

2009: Average time 119 days

The Environment Agency did not record data centrally on the time taken to determine hydropower permits before November 2008.