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EMPLOYMENT
Training
Ms. Primarolo : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give the numbers of people on employment training in Chatham and Sunderland at 30 March, and in Avon, Chatham and Sunderland at 30 September 1989 and the numbers that have not had a place on a training scheme or found employment on leaving employment training in the areas and at the dates stated above.
Mr. Jackson : The information requested for Avon and Sunderland is given in the table. Information for Chatham is not available.
Employment Training
|Avon |Sunderland
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In training at 30 March 1990 |- |3,400
Leavers July 1989-March 1990 not in
work or on a course or further
education after 3 months |49 |66
In training at 30 September 1989 |2,700 |3,400
Leavers July 1989-September 1989
not in work or on a course or
further education after 3 months |49 |64
Trade Unions
Mr. Janman : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what reasons have been given for failure to submit AR21 returns to the trade union certification officer, by those trade unions which have so failed to submit them ; and if he will make a statement ; (2) how many trade unions have failed to submit their AR21s by 1 June 1990 to the certification officer for trade unions and employer associations as required by the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 ; and if he will list them.
Mr. Forth : Monitoring trade unions' compliance with the provisions of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 as regards the submission of annual returns is a matter for the certification officer, an independent statutory authority. I have referred the questions to the certification officer who will be replying shortly.
Privatisations
Mr. Grocott : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the privatisations with which his Department has been involved since 1979, indicating in each case the date of the sale, the proceeds of the sale and the estimated current value of the company.
Mr. Jackson : Professional and Executive Recruitment (PER) was privatised in September 1988. The net proceeds of the sale were £5.1 million. It is now a privately owned company and it is not possible, nor appropriate, for my Department to estimate the current value of the company.
The other privatisation in which my Department has been involved is that of the Skills Training Agency (STA). Some of STA's property interests are still on the market so it is not yet possible to state the final proceeds of the sale.
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Science Parks
Mr. Sheerman : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how much of the available EEC money for science park development has been taken up by universities and polytechnics in this country and other agencies.
Mr. Jackson : The Department of Employment is responsible for the European social fund, which provides money to support the running costs of vocational training schemes and employment measures. Information about ESF projects in science parks is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Hotels
Mr. Win Griffiths : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he has any proposals to extend the provisions of the Hotel Proprietors Act 1956 relating to loss of or damage to a guest's property to all places which offer accommodation to paying guests.
Mr. Forth : There are no such plans.
ENERGY
Privatisations
Mr. Grocott : To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list the privatisations with which his Department has been involved since 1979, indicating in each case the date of the sale, the proceeds of the sale and the estimated current value of the company.
Mr. Wakeham : The privatisations with which my Department has been involved since 1979 are as follows :
|Date of |Net Equity
|Sale |Proceeds to |Market
|Government |Value<1>
|(£ million) |(£ million)
Britoil<2> |1982 |536
(Secondary sale)<2> |1985 |426
Enterprise Oil |1984 |382 |2,786
Wytch Farm<3> |1984 |149
British Gas |1986 |5,143 |10,120
Regional Electricity Companies |1990 |<4>5,182 |<5>6,221
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
Newspapers (Registration)
Mr. Sims : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what advantages accrue to a publication which is registered at the Post Office as a newspaper ; who controls registration ; and what criteria have to be fulfilled to achieve registration.
Mr. Leigh : Operational matters of this kind fall within the responsibility of the Post Office. However, I
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understand that publishers of any publication registered at the Post Office as a newspaper may send newspapers by first-class mail at the second-class postage rate. Registration, which costs £6 per annum, is carried out by the Royal Mail's district offices. The principal criteria for registration are that not less than one third of the publication consists of news or current topics or articles relating thereto ; the publication is published at intervals of not more than seven days and is printed and published in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, the Commonwealth, or the EC ; and that it has the full title and date printed prominently on the first page.Postal Services
Mr. Allen : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what consideration of the draft proposals from the European Commission on postal services has taken place (a) by United Kingdom Ministers, and (b) in the United Kingdom Parliament.
Mr. Leigh : The European Commission has not yet published its draft proposals on postal services, and does not expect to do so until next year. United Kingdom Ministers and officials have, however, played, and will continue to play, an active part in the appropriate EC fora in the development of proposals for the Commission's Green Paper.
Mr. Allen : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what future discussions will take place on proposals from the European Community on postal services.
Mr. Leigh : The European Commission expects to publish its Green Paper on postal services in the new year. This will be followed by a period for consultation during which all interested parties will be encouraged to express their views.
Environment Conferences
Mr. Flynn : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if his Department has received an invitation to participate in the conference on environmental agenda for management development to be held at Brunel university on 10 December.
Mr. Leigh [holding answer 10 December 1990] : Yes. The conference organisers contacted my Department, and I am glad to say that we were represented at it.
NATIONAL FINANCE
Civil Service Pensions Scheme
Mr. Andrew Bowden : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent representations he has received advocating the extension of payment of civil service widows' pensions to the widows of post-retirement marriages with civil servants who retired before April 1978.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard : Since my hon. Friend, the former Paymaster General, replied to a similar question from my hon. Friend on 15 October this year, at column 716, the civil service unions have submitted a claim for improvements in the provision made by the civil service pension scheme for the widows of post-retirement marriages.
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Mr. Andrew Bowden : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will reconsider his decision not to amend the civil service pension scheme to provide for the payment of pensions to the widows of post-retirement marriages whose husbands retired before 6 April 1978.Mrs. Gillian Shephard : The Government have no plans to extend the present arrangements so that account is taken of pensionable service before 6 April 1978.
North Sea Oil Revenue
Mr. Grocott : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total income to the Exchequer from North Sea oil revenue (a) between 1974 and 1979 and (b) since 1979.
Mr. Maples : Total tax revenues from North sea oil production in the financial years from 1973-74 to 1978-79 amounted to £944 million and from 1979-80 to 1990-91 are forecast at £70,200 million.
Balance of Payments
Mr. Grocott : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the latest balance of payments figures (a) including and (b) excluding trade in oil.
Mr. Mellor : The information is available in table A1 of the monthly review of external trade statistics, available in the Library of the House, or on the Central Statistical Office database, which may also be accessed through the Library.
Economic and Finance Council
Mr. Hind : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the outcome of the latest meeting of the European Community's Economic and Finance Council.
Mr. Norman Lamont : The ECOFIN Council met in Brussels on 10 December. I represented the United Kingdom.
Discussion focused on the economic situation in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and the response that the Community might make towards assisting their progress towards developing market economies and appropriate adjustment programmes. There was discussion of the possible methods of providing such assistance to the Soviet Union, in particular technical assistance, and the most appropriate Community response to the problems of food distribution, as preparation for the European Council.
The Council also discussed the question of G24 financial assistance for the countries of eastern Europe. It agreed that it was important that any such assistance should be in support of IMF programmes with appropriate conditionality and that contributions should be obtained from countries outside the EC.
It was agreed that a proposal to disburse the second tranche of the $1 billion medium-term loan to Hungary, agreed earlier this year, should be referred to the17 December ECOFIN Council for decision.
Employee Share Ownership
Mr. Dunn : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Inland Revenue will comment on draft employee share ownership trust deeds submitted to it.
Column 538
Mr. Maude : My predecessor announced in May the introduction of an arrangement under which the Inland Revenue is willing to examine executed employee share ownership trust deeds and to inform the trustees whether in its view the trust meets the qualifying conditions of schedule 5 to the Finance Act 1989. I have now authorised the Inland Revenue also, in the context of its responsibilities for administration of the law relating to employee share ownership schemes, to examine and comment on draft trust deeds submitted to it, so as to assist those seeking to establish qualifying ESOP trusts.
Income Tax
Sir Ian Gilmour : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer by how much the rates of personal income tax would need to be increased if (a) education, (b) education, fire and police and (c) the whole of the community charge, less expenditure on social services and housing, were transferred to income tax ; and if he will also show the estimated savings on community charge benefit in each case.
Mr. Norman Lamont [holding answer 10 December 1990] : The implications for personal income tax and for community charge benefit costs of transferring local authority functions to central Government would depend entirely on the extent to which there was a reduction in the grant paid to local authorities.
Debt Relief
Mr. Corbyn : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the likely debt relief gained by the least-developed countries eligible for assistance under the Chancellor's Trinidad terms.
Mr. Maples [holding answer 12 December 1990] : If all bilateral official creditors were to cancel two thirds of the stock of debt owed by the 19 countries that have previously benefited from Toronto terms this would reduce the total stock of debt owed by these countries by about $18 billion.
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
Mr. Ron Davies : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has about the incidence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the Republic of Ireland ; and what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of monitoring and control procedures of Irish beef imports into the United Kingdom.
Mr. Maclean : There have been 26 confirmed cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the Republic of Ireland out of a total cattle population of over 7 million. The scientific veterinary committee of the European Community considered the question of trade from countries that have a low incidence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and concluded that no further measures are necessary in addition to the current animal and public health rules.
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Organic Farming
Mr. Bellingham : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what level of support his Department currently offers for organic farming ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Curry : Farmers engaged in organic farming qualify for the support given to all farmers under the set-aside and pilot extensification schemes, the farm and conservation grant scheme and the nitrate sensitive areas schemes. Support under these arrangements can be used to assist farmers in converting to organic agriculture. Further support is available in the form of advice from the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service. This Department also provides grant aid amounting to £60,000 per annum to the United Kingdom register of organic food standards that is establishing standards and will be responsible for their enforcement in the United Kingdom.
The Department also supports research directly related to organic farming and we intend in 1991 to increase our funding for such research to about £500,000 per annum. In addition, other research into aspects of conventional farming relevant to organic production amounted to £892,000 last year. We have commissioned a study of the economics of the production and marketing of organically grown farm produce in Great Britain and a full report is expected to be published in spring 1991.
Lastly, my right hon. Friend the Minister announced earlier this year that he intended to issue a consultation document outlining a five-year scheme giving aid to those wishing to convert from conventional or organic production within the framework of the EC extensification rules. The Commission subsequently indicated that the proposed scheme was not consistent with the existing EC rules, but its recent proposals on agriculture and the environment may provide the means by which a scheme could be introduced.
This is a considerable package of support for organic agriculture and I hope that it can help British farmers to play a more prominent part in the small but growing market for organic produce.
Price Stabilisers
Mr. Barry Field : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects a decision on whether stabilisers will be triggered following the 1990 harvest.
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Mr. Curry : Stabilisers have triggered price cuts for rapeseed (minus 15.5 per cent.), sunflower seed (minus 21 per cent.), soya (minus 30 per cent.), and peas and beans (minus 20.02 per cent.) following the 1990 harvest. A decision on the cereals stabiliser is due to be reached in February.
Set-aside Land
Mr. Ralph Howell : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 5 December, Official Report, column 141, what is the acreage of land set aside in the United Kingdom in each year since the set-aside programme started ; and what is his estimate of the reduction of cereals and meat in tonnage and value in real and in 1990 prices.
Mr. Curry : In 1988 and 1989 respectively, approximately 52,000 and 49,000 hectares of land were entered into set-aside in the United Kingdom. A total of 1,990 entrants have applied to enter approximately 31,000 hectares into the scheme. I will be in a position to assess the effects on production when I have the results of an evaluation commissioned by the Department from Reading university.
Drift Nets
Dr. David Clark : To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his policy on the proposed amendment to the EC regulation 3094/86 to restrict the use of drift nets to prevent fishing of tuna and billfish and limit net lengths to less than 2.5 km on boats registered in EC member states ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Gummer : The United Kingdom fully supported the United Nations resolution to curtail or ban the use of large-scale pelagic drift net fishing on the high seas. We are currently examining carefully the Commission's proposal, made available to member states on 10 December, although not in final form, which would limit the use of any drift nets to 2.5 km per boat whatever the target species. It should be noted that very few United Kingdom vessels use drift nets with an aggregate length of more than 2.5 km.
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