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Departmental Cash Limits

Mr. Spring: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has to change his Department's cash limits for 1995-96. [23438]

Mr. Gummer: I propose to make the following changes:

(a) The DOE/HC (Housing Corporation) non-voted cash limit, covering grants and capital expenditure by the Housing Corporation in England, will be increased by £4,316,000 from £1,149,089 to £1,153,405,000. The increase is to fund an additional £2,820,000 in respect of city challenge expenditure; and to effect a transfer of £1,496,000 from current to capital expenditure under the rough sleepers' initiative.


(b) The DOE/LACAP (local authority capital) non-voted cash limit will be increased by £1,649,000 from £1,924,064,000 to £1,925,713,000. The increase is due to take up of end-of-year flexibility for supplementary credit approvals to local authorities to enable funding of projects within the Housing Partnership Fund. The EYF entitlement of £933,000 was announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 13 July 1995, Official Report, columns 776-82, but was subsequently recalculated following revised forecast outturn data. The increase will be charged to the reserve and will therefore not add to the planned control total of public expenditure.


(c) The DOE/RCW (regeneration and countryside and wildlife) non-voted cash limit will be decreased by £2,262,000 from £1,504,274,000 to £1,502,012,000. The decrease is the net effect of a transfer of £2,820,000 to the non-voted cash limit for the Housing Corporation (DOE/HC), to allow expenditure on city challenge projects financed by the Housing Corporation in England and an increase met by a transfer of £558,000 from the cash limit on class VII, vote 4 to allow the issue of supplementary credit approvals in respect of the urban programme.


(d) The external financing limits will be increased for urban development corporations by £500,000 from £259,514,000 to £260,014,000 to allow Merseyside development corporation to bring forward regeneration projects; and for housing action trusts by £2,855,000 from £89,979,000 to £92,834,000 to accelerate progress on the redevelopment of housing action trust estates.


(e) The DOE/OES (other environmental services) non-voted cash limit will be increased by £4,703,000 from £32,832,000 to £37,535,000. This increase reflects the take up of end year flexibility (£2,310,000) as announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 13 July 1995, Official Report, columns 776-82, to fund increases in provision for: contaminated land; recycling; and, Isles of Scilly water and sewerage supplementary credit approvals. The increase also includes a technical transfer of £2,393,000 from the DOE/NT (new towns) non-voted cash limit in respect of local authority contributions to the Commission for the New Towns under road cost sharing arrangements. The increase will be used to provide supplementary credit approvals to local authorities to cover their capital contributions to the Commission for the New Towns.

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(f) The DOE/NT (new towns) non-voted cash limit will be reduced by £2,025,000 from -£125,000,000 to -£127,025,000. The reduction is the result of additional receipts of £2,393,000 from local authorities financed by the increase in DOE/OES described above. In addition, there is a decrease of £315,000 resulting from a change in the final EFL (from nil to -£315,000) of the former Letchworth Garden city corporation which ceased to exist on 30 September. This is offset by an increase of £683,000 through take up of end year flexibility as announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 13 July 1995, Official Report, columns 776-82. I draw attention to the presentation of the DOE/NT (new towns) non-voted cash limit for 1995-96 in the Summary and Guide to the Supply Estimates 1995-96 (Cm. 2775). It incorrectly showed the cash limit to be -£134,301,000 instead of the correct figure of -£125,000,000.


(g) The external financing limits for the British Waterways Board will be increased by £200,000 from £49,640,000 to £49,840,000. The increase arises from savings on other sub-heads within vote 3 (environmental protection and water) and it will fund additional capital and maintenance expenditure.


(h) The cash limit for class VII, vote 4, (local government and planning, England) covering sections A to F of that vote, will be reduced by £558,000 from £30,086,810,000 to £30,086,252,000. This change is to allow savings due to lower charges for Valuation Office Agency non-domestic rating work on section A (valuation services) to be transferred to the non-voted cash limit for regeneration and countryside and wildlife to allow the issue of supplementary credit approvals for the urban programme.

All the increases will be offset either by savings or charged to the reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

Home Energy Efficiency Scheme

Ms. Ruddock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many (a) requests for information and (b) applications for grants were made under the home energy efficiency scheme in (i) February 1995, (ii) February 1996, (iii) March 1995 and (iv) March 1996 to the latest available date; and if he will supply the information in the same form as his answer of 7 February, Official Report, column 201. [23073]

Mr. Robert B. Jones: The table shows the numbers of requests for information received by Eaga Ltd. the scheme managers, and the numbers of applications made for grant.

Month	Requests for information	Grant applications
February 1995	27,322	42,801
February 1996	53,874	58,551
March 1995	18,805	32,390
March 1996 (until 22nd)	37,398	43,450

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HOME DEPARTMENT

Merseyside Fire Brigade

Mr. Parry: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the current situation in the Merseyside fire brigade dispute; and if he will make a statement. [22494]

Mr. Sackville: The dispute is a local matter about changes to leave arrangements proposed by Merseyside fire and civil defence authority. I understand that the authority and the Fire Brigades Union are engaged in talks at the Advisory, Consiliation and Arbitration Service and I hope that these discussions will lead to an early end to the dispute. In the interim, military assistance to provide fire cover if there are further strikes continues to be available to the fire and civil defence authority.

Loyal Orange Lodge (Liverpool)

Mr. Parry: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many marches have been made by the Loyal Orange Lodge on the streets of Liverpool in each of the past three years; how many police were involved in policing the marches; what was the cost to public funds; and if he will make a statement. [22450]

Mr. Maclean: The deployment of police resources and details of police arrests at particular events in Liverpool are operational matters for the chief constable of the Merseyside police. Such information is not held centrally.

Immigration (Computers)

Mr. Devlin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has for introducing computers into the handling of immigration casework. [23566]

Mr. Kirkhope: The immigration and nationality department has developed a programme to computerise the handling of immigration casework in order to deliver improvements in service, to strengthen the administration of the control and to produce substantial efficiency savings. A seven-year contract is to be awarded to Siemens Business Services under the private finance initiative, by means of which the company will design, build, finance and operate a comprehensive new information technology system for this purpose and assist IND in the introduction of appropriate working methods.

National Lottery

Mr. Devlin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the effect of the national lottery on charitable income. [23567]

Mr. Howard: The national lottery has provided an unparalleled source of new funds for charities and the voluntary sector generally. The National Lottery Charities Board has so far made awards totalling £159 million, exclusively for the benefit of the voluntary sector. Furthermore, a very large part of the awards from the other lottery distributors has gone to the voluntary sector. Of the £1 billion allocated so far to arts, sports, heritage and millennium projects, almost £400 million has been awarded to voluntary sector organisations. This means that almost 50 per cent. of available lottery moneys for

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good causes has gone to charities and voluntary organisations. As the lottery continues, similar sums of money will be available to the sector year on year.

The claims which have been made so far have been based on surveys in which people state whether they have made any recent unplanned donations. These surveys say little about the size of donations, nor about whether any changes in giving are due to the lottery. A wide range of economic and social symptoms has been blamed on the lottery, from a decline in savings to a reduction in cinema attendances; but the causal link, not least for charities, is far from clear. The situation is further complicated by the fact that, while there are charities which have seen donations declining since the introduction of the national lottery, others have reported an increase.

During the passage of the National Lottery etc. Bill, the Government gave a commitment to monitor changes in charities' income following the introduction of the Lottery. With the participation of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Government have set up a research programme to look at charities' income before and after the lottery was established. Provisional findings should be available by late spring, more comprehensive findings by next year and final results by early 1998.

Examination of charities' accounts is a more reliable and factually based method of approaching this issue than surveys of the public can be. It is, however, inevitably a longer-term exercise and, in the meantime, public surveys, a useful but secondary method of researching the issue, remain the main source of information. While this is the case, firm conclusions cannot be drawn.

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