asked Her Majesty's Government:What, calculated to the most recent convenient date, would be the annual amount of revenue lost as the result of a provision that no part of an individual's investment income should be taxed at a rate exceeding 80 per cent.; and what proportion this figure would represent of the total yield of direct personal taxation.

An exact estimate cannot be made from the information available, but the loss would be in the range £30–80 million at 1977–78 income levels, representing between 0·2 and 0·5 per cent. of the estimated yield of income tax in the current year.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What to the latest current date is the annual yield to the Revenue of that portion of the receipts of income tax which results from the excess over 50 per cent. of rates of taxation imposed on the relevant parts of the income of individuals.

An exact estimate cannot be made from the information directly available, but the yield is in the range of £520–670 million at 1977–78 income levels. This includes any element of the investment income surcharge which at present raises the marginal rate of tax of an individual above 50 per cent.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What were the estimated number of rabbits in England and Wales in the following years in each year from 1970 to 1977 and what number of prosecutions were taken out against landowners or occupiers by the Ministry of Agriculture in those years under the Pest Act 1954 for failing to control their rabbit population.

No estimates are made of the rabbit population. However annual sample surveys, instituted in 1973, give a general indication of trends in rabbit infestation on agricultural land in England and Wales. Over the 5 years 1973–77 respectively these surveys established the presence of rabbits on 20·1 per cent., 18·6 per cent., 18·1 per cent., 21·4 per cent. and 23·3 per cent. of the land concerned. Over the period to which the noble Lord refers there have been no prosecutions against occupiers for neglecting their statutory duty to control rabbits on their land. Persuasion remains the preferred method.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether it is correct that the distribution of new taxicabs for service in London is in the hands of one firm; and if so whether they are satisfied that such a monopoly does not work to the disadvantage of the operators and of the public.

There is one main dealer in the London area appointed by the sole United Kingdom manufacturer of vehicles which meet the conditions of fitness under the regulations for taxicabs in the Metropolitan Police District. But there are now no commercial restrictions on dealers elsewhere in the United Kingdom selling taxicabs for use in London or any other part of the country; and there is nothing to prevent other manufacturers competing provided their vehicles meet the required standard. I understand that the Director General of Fair Trading, in accordance with his statutory duties, has been keeping the distribution arrangements in question under review for some time and has recently carried out a detailed investigation. He is satisfied that, on the evidence available, an investigation by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is not warranted.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they have received any evidence or representations from the National Farmers' Union regarding the export of live farm animals; and whether it will be published.

I can confirm that the National Farmers' Union has supplied evidence and made representations on the export of live food animals. I understand that the written evidence has been distributed widely and is available on request from the union's headquarters.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they propose to follow the example of Sweden and introduce legislation to ban sprays which use the freon gases (chlorofluorocarbons) as a propellant.

The Government will be co-operating with the Commission and other Member States of the European Community in a thorough review of this subject later in the year. Should it be decided that controls are necessary, powers already exist under Section 100 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 and new legislation would not therefore be required.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will make it possible for the public duties of employees for which they are allowed time off under Section 59 of the Employment Protection Act 1975 to include the duty to attend Community Health Councils; and if not, why not.

Not at present. The Government believe that it would be wise to gain more experience of the operation in practice of Section 59 of the Employment Protection Act 1975 before considering the extension of its application. Section 59 only came into operation on 6th April 1977. The Government will of course bear in mind the claim of Community Health Councils to be included within the scope of the provision.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will state in relation to the advanced gas-cooled reactor:—

The following information has been provided by the Central Electricity Generating Board in consultation with the South of Scotland Electricity Board.For the purposes of plant design and the estimation of radioactive waste arisings, the Generating Boards assume the working life of the plant to be 30 years.Gaseous, liquid and solid radioactive wastes will be produced, all but the latter being discharged safely into the environment under authorisations from the relevant Government Departments. The solid wastes are identified in the table below.The values used are approximate estimates and only Type 1 waste is accumulated on site over the life of the station. (The volume given for Type 1 waste is for the current Hinkley 'B' design, the volume for earlier AGR's would be higher by a factor of two). It is proposed to dispose of wastes Type 2, 3 and 4 during the operational life of the station, Types 2 and 3 by established shallow land burial and Type 4 by sea dumping. Waste Type 5 is incinerated and is included into Type 3 waste. When the plant is closed down it is anticipated that residual wastes of Types 2, 3 and 4 will be disposed of as

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will publish a table showing the United Kingdom's gross receipts from the Regional Development Fund of the EEC since its inception; and whether they will show what percentage of the whole, each economic planning region has received annually.

By mentioned above and only Type 1 waste will remain contained within the vaults of the reactor building. For the Hinkley Point 'B' design such waste would occupy a total volume of 600m³.It should be noted that fission products contained within the spent fuel are not included in the above assessment, as all spent fuel is transported to British Nuclear Fuels Limited at Windscale where it is planned that it should be reprocessed.December, 1977, the European Commission had committed the United Kingdom's full share of the 1975–77 European Regional Development Fund (£150·4 million) as contributions towards the cost of projects located in the Assisted Areas and in Northern Ireland. Payments against this commitment are made in step with national expenditure on the projects concerned. Gross receipts to date total £93·9 million.The annual gross receipts in respect of projects in each economic planning region are shown, as percentages of the total gross receipts, in the following table:—