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Column 310

60. Iran

61. Iraq

62. Republic of Ireland

63. Italy

64. Jamaica

65. Japan

66. Jordan

67. Kenya

68. Kiribati

69. Korea, Republic of

70. Kuwait

71. Lao People's Democratic Republic

72. Lebanon

73. Lesotho

74. Liberia

75. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

76. Liechtenstein

77. Luxembourg

78. Madagascar

79. Malawi

80. Malaysia

81. Maldives

82. Mali

83. Malta

84. Mauritius

85. Mexico

86. Mongolia

87. Morocco

88. Mozambique

89. Nauru

90. Nepal

91. Netherlands

92. New Zealand

93. Nicaragua

94. Nigeria

95. Norway

96. Panama

97. Papua New Guinea

98. Paraguay

99. Peru

100. Philippines

101. Poland

102. Portugal

103. Qatar

104. Romania

105. Rwanda

106. St. Lucia

107. St. Vincent and the Grenadines

108. San Marino

109. Sao Tome and Principe

110. Saudi Arabia

111. Senegal

112. Seychelles

113. Sierra Leone

114. Singapore

115. Soloman Islands

116. Somalia

117. South Africa

118. Spain

119. Sri Lanka

120. Sudan

121. Suriname

122. Swaziland

123. Sweden

124. Switzerland

125. Syrian Arab Republic

126. Tanzania

127. Thailand

128. Togo

129. Tonga

130. Trinidad and Tobago

131. Tunisia

132. Turkey

133. Tuvalu

134. Uganda

135. Uruguay

136. Venezuela

137. Vietnam

138. Western Samoa

139. Yemen, Republic of


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140. Yugoslavia

141. Zaire

142. Zambia

Notes :

1. Taiwan (not recognised as a State by Her Majesty's Government) signed the Treaty in Washington on 1 July 1968 and deposited an Instrument of Ratification in Washington on 27 January 1970. 2. North Korea (not recognised as a State by Her Majesty's Government) acceded to the Treaty on 12 December 1985 in Moscow.

Rio Group

Mr. Wray : To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether, during the last six months, he has met any of his counterparts from the member countries of the Rio Group.

Mr. Garel-Jones : My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, met the Argentine and Chilean Foreign Ministers on separate occasions in April. I attended the first meeting of the institutionalised dialogue between EC and Rio Group Ministers in Luxembourg on 26-27 April. The meeting covered a wide range of political and economic matters. I have also had bilateral meetings with the Foreign Ministers of Argentina, Brazil and Chile and with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Colombia.

India

Mr. Frank Cook : To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his assessment of India's nuclear weapons capability.

Mr. Douglas Hogg : We are concerned about the unsafeguarded nuclear programme in India. We have always encouraged all non-parties to accede to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty ; this would engage them in an undertaking not to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons.

HEALTH

Census Forms

Ms. Hoey : To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of forms still have to be collected nationally for the 1991 census ; and what percentage still need to be collected in the London borough of Lambeth.

Mr. Dorrell : Virtually all 1991 census forms have now been collected. There were problems in contacting householders to collect completed forms, particularly in city areas, and special measures were introduced to deal with this. Initially a letter, a reply paid envelope, and another form were left at such households with a request that they post a completed form to the local census manager. This was followed by the setting up of a census freepost facility ; and, in selected areas, where the proportion of households from whom a return had still not been received was reported to be substantially higher than the national average, a postal reminder was issued by the census office.

The estimate of the number of addresses where no household had been contacted was made by local field staff. The follow-up action, particularly the postal reminder issued by the census office, has indicated that some of this accommodation was not occupied on census


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night. However, the measures described above, have reduced the initial estimate of the proportion of households which were not contacted to two-thirds of 1 per cent. for England and Wales as a whole. In the London borough of Lambeth, some 3,600 households were sent a postal reminder, and about 1,000 replies have already been received back. The overall percentage of addresses classified as non-contacts will be available only after the returns for Lambeth have been processed early next year.

A full evaluation of under-coverage, nationally and for inner London, will be possible in summer 1992 once the computer processed statistics and the results from the census validation survey are both available.

General Practitioner Contracts

Mr. Redmond : To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will review the general practitioner contract in respect of (a) the extra workload on general practitioners required for assessment activities, and (b) the deprivation allowance to general practitioners so that it is more closely related to the Jarman deprivation index.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley : We do not see a need to review the general practitioner contract in these areas.

Any extra workload resulting from assessment activities is taken into account by the Doctors and Dentists Review Body when making its annual recommendation on general practitioners' pay.

The Government already use the Jarman index as the basis for delivery of deprivation payments to general practitioners. Our objective is to target payments on those practices that serve areas with the highest levels of deprivation.

Community Health Councils

Mr. Redmond : To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will take steps to require the exclusion of community health service observers from district health authority or family health service authority meetings to be permitted only in exceptional circumstances and on the submission of explicit reasons.

Mr. Dorrell : Community health council (CHC) observers have the right to attend district health authority and family health services authority meetings that are open to the public. It remains for the authority concerned to decide to which of its meetings that are closed to the general public a CHC observer may be invited to attend.


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