26th January 2011, 06:19 PM
chrysalis Wrote:If someone in government is genuinely using this reason as an excuse for removal of archaeology from the list of projects eligable for ALSF funding then they don't have a clue how agri-environment schemes work! And if they've committed this argument to paper or to a speech in the commons then it is easily blown out of the water...
It is not that they are stopping archaeological projects from being eligible for ALSF, they are cutting ALSF in it's entirety in England. This will turn the Levy itself from being a revenue neutral tax into one that makes ?10 million a year for the treasury. Wonder how the aggregate companies themselves feel about that?
There was no speech or statement in the House of Commons. The only information was a short statement published quietly on the old Defra website in December. I only became aware of it recently, and when I contacted my local (Labour) MP about the cut he too had heard nothing about it.
As to committing arguments to paper - I've just put in an FoI request with Defra. I'll let you know if the documents reveal anything interesting!