Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a grant to encourage farmers with slurry tanks to erect more effective safety railings around those tanks.

The Government does not currently provide funding for safety rails around slurry tanks in England. However, we keep the focus of our Rural Development Programme schemes under review. If we were to introduce a scheme for slurry management under the programme in future we would consider what it should fund.

All UK administrations have their own EU funded Rural Development Programmes. Any funding for slurry tank safety rails in Northern Ireland through this means would be a matter for the Northern Ireland programme.