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NATIONAL HERITAGE
Arts Council Grants
Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if she will list the total grants provided by the Arts Council for organisations in (a) Crewe and Nantwich and (b) Cheshire for each of the last five years. [36386]
Mr. Sproat: Between 1991-92 and 1995-96, North West Arts made 25 awards totalling £63,735 to arts organisations in Crewe and Nantwich. In Cheshire as a whole, 324 awards, totalling £1,896,975, were made to arts organisations during the same period. I have today placed a full list of awards in the Library of the House.
Museums and Galleries
Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if she will list the total grants provided by her Department for museums and galleries in (a) Crewe and Nantwich and (b) Cheshire for each of the last five years. [36387]
Mr. Sproat: My Department, through the museums and galleries improvement fund, and the Museums and Galleries Commission--MGC--which is funded by the Department, has awarded the following amounts to museums and galleries in Cheshire over the past five years. The north-west museum service, funded by the MGC, also made awards. They include one of £1,480 to the Nantwich museum in 1993-94.
| 1991-92 £ | 1992-93 £ | 1993-94 £ | 1994-95 £ | 1995-96 £ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund | 0 | 37,500 | 7,500 | 7,500 | 25,000 |
| MGC capital grants | 0 | 2,200 | 0 | 0 | 10,000 |
| MGC Victoria and Albert museum purchase grants | 13,250 | 7,500 | 22,162 | 12,300 | 391 |
| PRISM(7) | 1,300 | 7,700 | 7,064 | 3,800 | 0 |
| North-West Museums Service | 44,518 | 42,101 | 43,167 | 36,202 | (8)-- |
| Total | 59,068 | 97,001 | 79,893 | 59,802 | 35,391 |
(7) Preservation of industrial and scientific material.
(8)--Not yet available.
European Broadcasting Directive
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage when the European Commission will publish its second monitoring report on the implementation of articles 4 and 5 of the European broadcasting directive; and if she will make a statement. [36941]
Mr. Sproat: The European Commission has published its report today. The document will be deposited in Parliament and my Department will submit an explanatory memorandum in accordance with the usual arrangements for the scrutiny of European Community documents.
I welcome the Commission's work on this subject, which shows that many of the television channels licensed in this country which qualify for meeting the quota regime are exceeding the minimum requirements set out in the broadcasting directive for programming of European
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origin and for independent European production. The report also notes the good progress being made by those satellite services which have yet to achieve the quota targets.
Finance Ministers
Mr. Callaghan: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the Finance Ministers of other EC countries; and what subjects were discussed. [36268]
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I represented the UK at the Economic and Finance Council--ECOFIN--of the European Union in Brussels on 8 July.
The Council debated the incoming Irish presidency's work programme in open session. The programme will focus on European monetary union--EMU--employment, fraud, taxation issues, financial services and Community lending to third countries.
I emphasised the importance we attach to tackling unemployment in the Community, through sound public finances, low inflation and labour market reform. I also urged the need for budget discipline in the Community and rejected any increase in the financial perspectives of the EU budget. I said the UK would continue to play a full and constructive part in discussions of EMU. I strongly supported the presidency's emphasis on fighting fraud. Recalling the UK's long-standing support for EU enlargement, I urged early consideration of reforms to the common agriculture policy and the structural funds so that enlargement could go ahead on the right terms.
The Council welcomed the Austrian convergence programme. It also agreed recommendations to 12 member states--Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and the UK--with excessive budget deficits.
The Council heard Commission and European Investment Bank--EIB--proposals to modify guarantee arrangements for the bank's lending operations outside the EU.
The Council agreed the conclusions of the Commission's 1995 annual report on the fight against fraud and noted progress with the SEM 2000 initiative designed to improve the Commission's financial management.
There was a meeting with Ministers from the associated countries of central Europe, within the framework of the "Structured Dialogue", on the implications for the financial sector of eventual EU membership. The discussion focused on pension reform, EIB work in the region, and the implications of extending the transit regime.
Mr. David Shaw:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to improve the accounting and financial reporting to Parliament of United Kingdom unfunded pension liabilities. [36351]
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Mr. Heathcoat-Amory:
The Government are planning to improve the accounting and reporting of the main occupational public service pension schemes administered by central Government. This will take place in the context of the development of resource accounting and budgeting. For each scheme, there will be a scheme statement attached as a note to the departmental resource account. There is further work to be done on the details of these statements, and this will be taken forward in accordance with the timetable for resource accounting published in the White Paper "Better Account for the Taxpayer's money"--Cm 2929.
Mr. Jim Cunningham:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if products designed for sufferers of ulcerative colitis are exempt from VAT; [36692]
(3) what medical products are currently exempt from value added tax. [36691]
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory:
Medical products, including those designed for sufferers of ulcerative colitis, are exempt from VAT when they are supplied in connection with the provision of care or medical or surgical treatment in any hospital or other institution which has been registered or exempted from registration pursuant to an Act of Parliament. Incontinence products which are supplied directly to disabled people are also zero rated. There are no official figures available for VAT receipts on medical products designed for sufferers of ulcerative colitis.
Mr. Donohoe:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 4 June, Official Report, column 355, when he will be in a position to give the cost of answering (a) oral and (b) written questions in April. [36566]
Mrs. Angela Knight:
The average cost of answering questions in April this year will be calculated after data on movements in earnings become available in October. I expect the information requested to be available by the end of November.
Mr. Donohoe:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 21 March, Official Report, column 257, about parliamentary questions, what method would be used by his Department in collating the information requested. [37431]
Mrs. Knight:
The examination of more than 20,000 files dating back to 1987.
Mr. Matthew Banks:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement about the future of the Paymaster agency. [37789]
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory:
The report of the prior options review of the Paymaster agency that I announced on 4 December 1995, Official Report, columns 15-16,
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has now been completed. I have accepted its recommendations and am placing copies of the report in the Library of the House.
Briefly, the report confirms that Paymaster has made itself much more cost-efficient and responsive to customer needs since it achieved agency status on 1 April 1993. It has won a number of market tests for its existing work against private sector rivals, but remains constrained by statute from taking on work for the private sector. If it transferred to the private sector, it would be free to seek new work in both private and public sectors, thereby strengthening its long-term viability.
The review showed that a small part of its banking business is concerned with work that must stay with the Government. The rest, including all its pensions business and IT support, could be contracted out to the private sector. Given that the agency has already proved its competitiveness against private sector rivals, the Government intend to privatise all but any non-divestible elements as a going concern.
The proposal is that both the pensions and the banking business should be offered, jointly or separately, for a trade sale, with the present management, staff, IT support and their building in Crawley. At least the pension business--which constitutes some 85 per cent. of the whole--should be privatised within the current financial year. The preparations for the banking business may be more complex, but every effort will be made to have it ready for privatisation in the same timeframe.
(2) what revenue the Treasury received from VAT on products designed for the sufferers of ulcerative colitis in the last year for which figures are available; [36693]
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