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Mr. Leigh : The information requested is published by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys as table 5 in "Mortality Statistics", series DH4 (numbers 13-15 for years 1987-89), copies of which are available in the House of Commons Library.
New Homes
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has completed his examination of new homes structural warranty services ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Redwood : Following publication of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on structural warranties for new homes the Secretary of State has been consulting widely on possible remedies. He is considering the outcome of this process of consultation and will announce his decision in due course.
BCCI
Ms. Mowlam : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what equity shareholding CCL Assurance had in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International ; and what information he has on the amount of clients' funds invested in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International by CCL Assurance.
Mr. Redwood : CCL Assurance has told my Department that it has no equity shareholding in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). It has also provided me in confidence with information about the location of all its assets, including assets representing its policyholders' funds.
Ms. Mowlam : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether his Department is carrying out an investigation into CCL Assurance, in connection with the closure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
Mr. Redwood : I am prepared to consider any information the hon. Member may provide which might warrant an investigation.
Bass, Preston Brook
Mr. Butler : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, pursuant to the answer of the Secretary of State for the Environment of 8 July, if he has anything to add to his answer of 28 June, Official Report, column 577 about assistance to Bass at Preston Brook.
Mr. Leigh [holding answer 11 July 1991] : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to amend the statement made in my answer of 28 June, that Preston Brook is not in an assisted area. It is, and companies there can qualify for DTI regional assistance. I apologise for this mistake, which arose from an administrative error in my Department. Action is being taken to prevent recurrence. I can now add that Bass received £494,102 of regional development grant under the original scheme, paid in 1987-88 ; this grant was not linked to job creation.
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Public Opinion Surveys
Mr. Dobson : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the public opinion surveys carried out by his Department since his answer of 19 December, Official Report, column 187.
Mr. Leigh [holding answer 11 July 1991] : There have been no such surveys.
Advertising Campaigns
Mr. Dobson : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the advertising, promotional or public relations companies employed by, or on behalf of, his Department who are involved in the campaigns given in his answer of 1 July, Official Report, column 20.
Mr. Leigh [holding answer 11 July 1991] : The Department does not normally employ contractors in a purely promotional or public relations capacity. Four advertising agencies are currently retained in connection with activities listed in my earlier answer. They are : WCRS (enterprise initiative) ; BMP DDB Needham (various) ; Barkers LBW Human Resources Advertising (staff recruitment) ; and Spring, O'Brien, Tolson (inward investment--activities in the United States of America).
ENVIRONMENT
Local Government Finance
Mr. Dewar : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will deposit in the Library an analysis of the estimated distributional impact using the Treasury's interdepartmental group on tax-benefit modelling's tax-benefit model of the proposed council tax in (a) England, (b) Scotland and (c) Wales using the illustrative bills published by the responsible Departments, which is, as far as possible, comparable with appendix 7 of HC 289 of Session 1990-91 and the answer of 22 May, Official Report, column 471 ; (2) if he will publish a list of those parliamentary answers on the impact of (a) the council tax and (b) other local government tax options which have been based, in part or in whole, upon evidence derived from the Treasury's interdepartmental group on tax-benefit modelling's tax-benefit model.
Mr. Portillo : I have been asked to reply.
Information to indicate the distribution of households with one, two and three or more adults by region has been provided. No answers have been given on the impact of the council tax using the interdepartmental group on tax-benefit modelling's tax-benefit model.
Since 1988 the Department of the Environment has made extensive use of the interdepartmental group on tax -benefit modelling's tax-benefit model to illustrate the distributional impact of the community charge, and the effect of the transitional relief and community charge reduction schemes. A large number of parliamentary answers have been provided which are reliant to some degree on information from the model. We do not, however, intend to publish any analysis of the impact of the council tax derived from the model.
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Drinking Water
Mr. Wray : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures Her Majesty's Government are taking in order to implement the recent Luxembourg agreement to reduce the level of permitted nitrates in drinking water.
Mr. Baldry : The directive agreed at the recent Environment Council in Luxembourg did not change the level of nitrate permitted in drinking water. It provided for action to reduce leaching of nitrate from agricultural sources into raw water. The Government are considering the scope and content of the measures needed to implement the directive.
Squash Clubs
Mr. French : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will review the method by which uniform business rates are applied to commercially operated squash clubs.
Mr. Key : No. Most non-domestic property is subject to rates. Ratepayers who were dissatisfied with their rating assessments had the right to challenge them within the first six months of the life of the 1990 rating lists.
Water Companies
19. Mr. David Nicholson : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the turnover in the last year before privatisation of each of the English and Welsh water authorities.
Mr. Baldry : This is a matter for the companies. However, this information is contained in the annual reports and accounts for the year ending 1989, copies of which were placed in the Library of the House.
Boundary Commission
Mr. Barron : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when the Local Government Boundary Commission is going to publish its report on the response to its draft proposals on its review of the boundary of the borough of Rotherham with the boundaries of Sheffield, Doncaster, the county of Derbyshire and the county of
Nottinghamshire.
Mr. Key : The conduct of the review is a matter for the commission.
City Challenge
Mr. Andrew MacKay : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many local authorities have bid for city challenge funds.
Mr. Heseltine : Twenty-one. In addition to the 15 local authorities invited to participate in the pacemaker round of city challenge on 23 May [ Official Report, column 549 ], Coventry, Newham, Sandwell, St. Helens, Stockton-on-Tees and Sunderland have submitted bids. Next week my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government, and I are due to visit the 15 invited authorities to receive presentations of the bids.
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I have been impressed by the hard work, enthusiasm and commitment behind all the bids. This is precisely the spirit we are aiming to foster through city challenge.I have considered carefully six additional bids that we have received and decided that Sunderland and Stockton-on-Tees should also be asked to present their bids to a Minister. We shall then consider their case alongside the invited bids.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State is today writing to the other four authorities to thank them very much for their bids, but to let them know that they will not be successful in this year's pacemaker round of city challenge.
We hope that they will build on what they have achieved and that they will participate in the further round of city challenge which we intend to hold next year, subject to the successful progress of the first round.
Nuclear Reactors
Mr. Flynn : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether his Department has conducted any research on the use of nuclear reactors as facilities to neutralise bacteria and viruses in raw sewage during their decommissioning phase.
Mr. Baldry [holding answer 11 July 1991] : No such research has been carried out by this Department.
NATIONAL FINANCE
Building Societies
Mr. Peter Bottomley : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration had been given at the time of the 1985 Budget to proposals for transitional arrangements to obtain the tax subject to the Woolwich case judgment and to clause 50 of the Finance Bill ; when the intention was first made public ; and in which way.
Mr. Maples : The 1985 Budget announcement followed confidential discussions between the Inland Revenue and the Building Societies Association over a period of some months, about the building societies' tax scheme as a whole, including the transitional arrangements required on the changeover from an annual to a quarterly accounting system in line with that for banks. A Budget day press release mentioned the need for transitional provisions to deal with the changeover.
Soft Drinks Industry
Mr. Pawsey : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the amount of tax paid by the soft drinks industry in the United Kingdom in the last year for which figures are available.
Mr. Maude : We estimate that VAT accruing on consumer's expenditure on soft drinks in 1990 was £430 million. Figures for taxes paid by the soft drink industry itself are not separately identifiable.
Tax Revenue
Mr. Battle : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what would be the projected additional yield in tax revenue from (a) income tax, (b) VAT and (c) corporation tax over five years consequentially of an
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annual compounded economic growth rate of 2.5 per cent. assuming that tax rates remain as they are and personal allowances are increased in line with the previous year's inflation.Mr. Maude : Tax receipts would be expected to rise broadly in line with growth in the economy, perhaps a little faster because of a contribution from real fiscal drag. However, estimates of the effects of economic growth on individual taxes will depend, among other things, on the composition of that growth between the different sectors of the economy, and could be made only at disproportionate cost. Rising tax receipts, under resumed growth in the economy, are an element of the Government's medium- term fiscal projections, published in the "Financial Statement and Budget Report". Projections of tax revenues are shown in FSBR table 2A.4.
Taxation
Mrs. Wise : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the procedure for informing the next of kin about the tax position of the person who has died and when this procedure started.
Mr. Maude : There is no procedure for informing the next of kin about the tax position of a deceased person. This is because an individual's tax affairs are confidential. So when a person dies, the Inland Revenue discloses details of the deceased person's tax affairs only to his or her duly constituted legal personal representatives or persons authorised to act on their behalf. Next of kin very often become the legal personal representatives, but this is not always the case.
Value Added Tax
Mr. French : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many demands by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise for alleged VAT arrears have been found to be incorrectly calculated in the last 12 months.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard : Customs and Excise does not maintain a record of incorrect demands for VAT arrears. In the year ended March 1991 approximately 35,000 final demand notices were issued each month for outstanding tax (including civil penalties, surcharge and interest) which had previously been declared by the registered trader as due (or assessed by Customs and Excise) and not paid. Each demand contains a paragraph advising the trader to contact Customs and Excise if they believe the amount demanded is not due or payment has already been made.
Public Opinion Surveys
Mr. Dobson : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the public opinion surveys carried out by his Department since his answer of 17 December, Official Report, column 10.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard [holding answer 11 July 1991] : The only public opinion survey that the Treasury has been involved in is the "Share Ownership Survey 1991" which the NOP included on its random omnibus survey between 16 January and 11 February 1991. The cost of £28,780 was shared equally between the Treasury and the international stock exchange.
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Foundation for Sport and the Arts
Mr. Pendry : To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table setting out the rate of football pools betting turnover for each of the past 10 years and the rate of pool betting turnover that would be required to provide (a) £75 million and (b) £70 million to the proposed foundation for sport and the arts, expressed (i) numerically and (ii) as a percentage increase.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard [holding answer 11 July 1991] : Pools turnover (mostly on football pools) based on pool betting duty receipts in each of the last 10 financial years was :
Year |Turnover
|£ million
------------------------------
1981-82 |443.8
1982-83 |473.1
1983-84 |486.4
1984-85 |512.9
1985-86 |553.5
1986-87 |598.2
1987-88 |647.5
1988-89 |656.1
1989-90 |714.7
1990-91 |766.1
It is estimated that, to provide (a) £75 million and (b) £70 million to the proposed foundation for sport and the arts, chargeable turnover (ie not including the exempt donations by clients) would have to rise to (a) £1,000 million and (b) £933 million, representing increases of (a) 30.5 per cent. and (b) 21.8 per cent. over chargeable turnover for 1990-91.
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