Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I shall reflect on the point that my hon. Friend has made. On DEFRA's budget and expenditure on what the hon. Member for East Surrey referred to as consultancy, may I, for the better information of the House, tell him a little about what the money is spent on? It is spent on buying services and employing outside experts, for example, the ““Act on CO2”” campaign—the hon. Gentleman may have seen the adverts— and the development of the carbon calculator, which has been used by 600,000 people. Those things are not quite what people would expect to be described by the word ““consultancy””. In this regard, I should also mention work on developing carbon markets and the EU emissions trading scheme; and research looking into the causes and consequences of climate change, including funding the world-renowned Hadley Centre—does he object to the funding of the Hadley Centre out of DEFRA's budget? The money is also spent on research into animal health, including work on bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot and mouth, bluetongue and avian flu. Does he object to the expenditure of money on such things. The money is also spent on the running of the Department's IT system, in partnership with IBM. Those are perfectly proper and legitimate expenditures of money to ensure that DEFRA is able to do its job. As the House will be aware, DEFRA's budget will rise from £3.5 billion to just under £4 billion by the end of the spending review period, and I shall say a little about how that will be spent.