Environment Protection: Finance

Mr. Drew
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the estimated administrative cost is of (a) the Rural Development Plan for England, (b) the entry level scheme, (c) the higher level scheme and (d) the England Woodland Grant Scheme (i) for 2006-07 and (ii) for each successive year of the plan period.

Barry Gardiner
Separating out the administrative costs for the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) and its constituent schemes would incur disproportionate cost. They are included within the wider running cost budgets for DEFRA, Natural England, the Forestry Commission, the eight Regional Development Agencies and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). In some cases, people, systems and resources used for administering the 2007-13 RDPE are also engaged in other areas of work. For example, on other Common Agricultural Policy schemes in the case of RPA.