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Environment Council
Mr. Congdon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Environment Council on 15 October. [654]
Mr. Clappison: Together with my noble friend the Earl of Lindsay I represented the UK at the Environment Council in Luxembourg on 15 October.
Policy debates were held on the review of the fifth environment action programme and on the proposals to revise directive 90/219 on the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms. In each case, the Council is expected to reach agreement in December. There were also useful discussions on the "auto-oil" proposals, the proposals for a revision of the drinking water directive and on the review of the Community waste management strategy.
The Council agreed conclusions on the EU position for the third conference of the parties to the convention on biological diversity. The Council noted a report from the presidency on the progress which is being made on the negotiation of a protocol to the UN framework convention on climate change and on a framework agreement on humane trapping standards.
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Mr. Matthew Banks:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the recent Council meeting of the Economic and Finance Ministers of the European Union. [190]
Mr. Kenneth Clarke:
I represented the UK at the Economic and Finance Council--ECOFIN--of the European Union in Brussels on 14 October.
The Council considered a Commission report on guarantee arrangements for lending outside the Union by the European investment bank. The main issues discussed were the coverage and level of the guarantees on EIB lending provided by the loan guarantee fund and the proportion of lending on which the EIB should find third party guarantees--that is, guarantees which do not fall on the EU budget or member states. No final agreement was reached, and this item will be taken again at a future ECOFIN meeting.
Over lunch, EU Finance Ministers met EFTA Finance Ministers to discuss employment policy. A joint communique was issued which emphasised the need for macro-economic frameworks to support strong and sustainable economic growth, prudent budget policies and joint efforts further to implement the single market.
Commissioner Monti presented the Commission's work programme on VAT. Over the period to 2000, the Commission plans to bring forward a series of proposals to overhaul the current EC VAT arrangements to allow tax authorities to collect revenue and tackle tax avoidance with greater certainty. There was no discussion of this item.
The Council noted the report of the high-level working group on trans-European networks. This report rules out extra funding for TENs by a revision to the financial perspective and instead concludes that every effort should be made to remove all non-financial delaying factors.
Mr. Matthew Banks:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what changes to labour market statistics the director of the Office for National Statistics will introduce following the Steel report; and if he will make a statement. [191]
Mr. Kenneth Clarke:
The director of the Office for National Statistics has conducted wide-ranging consultation on the Steel report both inside and outside Government. This showed some support for monthly publication of employment and unemployment and estimates from the labour force survey, but also doubts about whether the additional £7 million to £8 million annual cost of redesigned and enlarged survey represented value for money. An alternative option, costing an additional sum of around £200,000 a year, was also considered based on monthly publication of three-month rolling average estimates from the existing quarterly survey. The benefits of this in terms of informing macro-economic debate could, however, be diminished by potential problems of misunderstanding estimates which related not to individual months but to rolling three-month periods.
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Accordingly, ONS will retain the current quarterly frequency of publication for the LFS. The Government have, however, accepted the recommendation, in the Employment Select Committee's report on unemployment and employment, that greater prominence should be given to the results from the existing quarterly LFS. ONS will be developing proposals for enhancing the dissemination strategy used for the survey in order to achieve this aim.
Further details are set out in the Government's response to the Employment Committee's report sent earlier to its successor, the Education and Employment Committee.
Mr. Matthew Banks:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the progress of his proposals for stamp duty on share trading. [192]
Mr. Kenneth Clarke:
I announced on 24 July 1996 that I intended to replace the current stamp duty on exemptions for market makers and broker dealers on the London stock exchange with a new relief for purchases made on any UK recognised investment exchange or European Economic Area regulated market by any firm fulfilling the role of intermediary on that exchange. The new regime would apply to all UK shares on which stamp duty is levied. Following detailed consultation by the Treasury over the last three months, I have now decided that it is not necessary to confine the relief available to intermediaries to purchases which are offset by sales within a given period. The introduction of such a time limit would impose additional compliance costs on firms; it would encourage a new type of tax-driven trading; and it would do little, if anything, to protect the revenue from stamp duty on shares.
My central expectation is that the proposed new regime, without a time limit, should deliver broadly the same yield from stamp duty on shares as the current regime. However, in order to guard against any potentially significant losses in revenue which may emerge on the introduction of the new tax regime and the stock exchange's new trading system, I propose to take reserve powers to impose a non-zero rate of stamp duty on share purchases and other defined classes of transactions by intermediaries. These powers could be activated to prevent against loss of revenue arising from abuse of the extended relief for intermediaries' transactions.
As well as replacing the current reliefs for stock exchange market makers and broker dealers, the proposed regime would also replace the existing stamp duty reliefs for market makers and principal traders on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange. Stamp duty relief would be available to LIFFE equity options intermediaries for equity purchases on other exchanges of the stocks in which LIFFE trades an option and the purchase is made on a recognised investment exchange or an EEA regulated market. LIFFE intermediaries would not necessarily have to become intermediaries on other exchanges in order to gain relief.
Detailed provisions, reflecting these proposals, will be brought forward for the 1997 Finance Bill, with a view to implementing the new regime as soon as is practicable during 1997-98.
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Mr. David Porter:
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what progress has been made to establish a Disability Discrimination Act telephone information line. [84]
Mr. Burt:
I am pleased to announce that following a successful tender exercise, the contract to run the Disability Discrimination Act information line has been awarded to Merit Direct Ltd. The line will be operational by 2 December 1996. Literature and fact sheets on the employment rights and the rights of access to goods, facilities and services will be available through an operator, by textphone, and on the Internet. Additionally, the fact sheets will be available by fax. Initially an automated service may be used for re-ordering literature.
Mr. Devlin:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress to complete the work on the secondary legislation for the Reserve Forces Act 1996. [82]
Mr. Soames:
Work to develop the necessary secondary legislation to enable the Act's new powers to operate is proceeding well. Both new regulations and amendments to existing ones will be necessary, with some requiring formal public consultation before they are made.
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