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Trade and the Environment

Mr. Dafis: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the discussions at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Singapore on the relationship between trade and the environment. [10796]

Mr. Nelson [holding answer 13 January 1997]: There was no substantive discussion at the World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in Singapore on the relationship between trade and the environment. In the conference declaration, Ministers reaffirmed the importance of the work of the Trade and Environment Committee and confirmed that it should be established on a permanent basis to carry that work forward.

Arms Sales

Mr. Fatchett: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will set out the procedures followed by his Department to ensure that the subsequent use of defence equipment is consistent with the Government's policy on arms sales and with export licences. [9988]

Mr. Nelson [holding answer 13 January 1997]: My Department does not operate as a matter of routine any procedures to check the actual end use of defence equipment exported from the UK under licence. Any information received by my Department that gave reason to believe that exported goods had gone to an end-use for which a licence would not have been issued, would be passed to the commissioners of HM Customs and Excise, who are responsible for enforcement of export controls. It would then be for the Commissioners of HM Customs and Excise to determine on the basis of the information available what, if any, further investigation was appropriate.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

Chartered Aircraft

Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what aircraft he has chartered in each of the last 12 months; which airlines he has chartered them from; and what was the (a) purpose, (b) destination and (c) cost in each case. [9869]

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Sir Nicholas Bonsor: The following aircraft have been chartered in the last 12 months by the Department on the Secretary of State's behalf.

Date	Destination/Purpose	Airline company	Cost £
28 May to 2 June	Bilateral visit to USA (Washington) Canada (Ottawa, Toronto) and Iceland (Reykjavik) and attendance at NAC/NACC Meeting Germany (Berlin)	Air London Falcon 900B Intercontinental Executive Jet LHR/Edinburgh Washington/Ottawa/ Toronto/Reykjavik/RAF Northolt/Berlin LHR	98,860
1 to 3 July	Bilateral visit to Saudi Arabia (Riyadh, Jeddah) Jordan (Amman)	Air London Boeing 727 100 series LHR/Jeddah/Aquaba/LHR	109,570

Hong Kong

Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what arrangements have been made for the transfer of outstanding business from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Court of Final Appeal on 1 July 1997. [11006]

Mr. Hanley: The jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council will automatically lapse with Britain's administration of Hong Kong as from 1 July 1997.

The Judicial Committee will make every effort to ensure that outstanding Hong Kong business is dealt with before 1 July. It is nevertheless clear that there will come a point after which it will become unlikely for practical purposes that the committee will be able to accept new business with a reasonable expectation of being able to dispose of it before the handover. That point is likely to be 1 March. Hong Kong's court of final appeal ordinance provides that any appeal in respect of which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council or the Hong Kong Court of Appeal has granted conditional, final or special leave to appeal to the committee and the appeal has not finally been disposed of on or before 30 June 1997 shall proceed in the court of final appeal.

TREASURY

Publicity

Mr. Donohoe: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what promotional and public information campaigns his Department is (a) currently running and (b) planning to run during the next six months; and for each campaign (i) how much it will cost (1) in total and (2) to his Department, (ii) what agencies or bodies are undertaking the work and (iii) what is its planned duration. [7417]

Mrs. Angela Knight: The Treasury is not currently running, or planning to run, any such promotional and public information campaigns.

Mr. Donohoe: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much his Department has spent on promotional or public information campaigns in each of the last five

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years; and how much he estimates will be spent on these campaigns during the (i) current and (ii) next financial year. [7546]

Mrs. Knight: The Treasury has not run promotional or public information campaigns in the last five years except in the sale of shares of BT2, BT3 and GENCO2. The costs of these campaigns are as follows: BT2 (1991) £14.7 million, BT3 (1993) £12 million and GENCO2 (1995) £8 million. These campaigns have now concluded.

Manufactured Imports

Mr. Milburn: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for each year since 1979 what proportion of United Kingdom demand for manufactured goods was met through imports. [7828]

Mrs. Angela Knight [holding answer 6 December 1996]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the chief executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Alan Milburn, dated 14 January 1997:

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply as the Director of the Office for National Statistics to your recent question on what proportion of United Kingdom demand for manufactured goods was met through imports, for each year since 1979.

The table below shows the import penetration ratios for the years 1979 to 1995, with the exception of the years 1989 to 1992 where figures are not available. Latest revised data are shown together with the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) on which data are based. From 1993 data were collected according to a SIC 1992 classification which changed the definition of manufacturing. The 1993-1995 data have been grouped to a SIC(80) basis to produce a series which is broadly comparable over the period.

Year	SIC	Percentage
1979	1980	26.9
1980	1980	26.2
1981	1980	27.8
1982	1980	29.0
1983	1980	31.1
1984	1980	33.4
1985	1980	34.3
1986	1980	34.3
1987	1980	35.2
1988	1980	35.6
1993	1992	43.0
1994	1992	47.0
1995	1992	45.0

Staff

Mr. Hain: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many (a) permanent and (b) non-permanent staff there have been in (i) his Department and (ii) executive agencies of his Department in each year since 1992. [9628]

Mrs. Angela Knight [holding answer 18 December 1996]: The information requested is contained in civil service staff in post summary tables, copies of which are available in the Library.

Unemployment

Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for

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Dagenham (Ms Church) of 25 November, Official Report, column 72, on the number of people in Great Britain who have experienced at least one spell of unemployment since 1992, if he will list (a) how many have had more than one spell of unemployment, (b) how many are still unemployed and (c) how many are currently in work.[9667]

Mrs. Angela Knight [holding answer 18th December 1996]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the chief executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Tim Holt to Mr Frank Field, dated 14 January 1997:

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply as the Director of the Office for National Statistics to your recent question on how many claimants have experienced at least one spell of unemployment in Great Britain since 1992, and of these claimants how many have experienced more than one spell of unemployment, how many are still unemployed and how many have found work.

Since 1 January 1992, an estimated 10,451,600 claimants in Great Britain have experienced at least one spell of claimant unemployment and of these claimants 5,090,260 have experienced more than one spell. As at 14 November 1996, 1,775,250 claimants in Great Britain were claiming unemployment-related benefits although only about a half of these would have been unemployed for more than three months. These figures exclude clerically operated claims which numbered 23,000 in November l996.

Information on the destinations of leavers from the claimant count is only available from January 1995 and is therefore not available for the period requested. However, in November 1996 an estimated 68 per cent. of claimants with a known destination left the claimant count because they had found work.

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