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Customer Charters
Mr. Donohoe:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage how much her Department and its executive agencies have spent drafting publishing and circulating each of their customer charters and customer standard documents; and how many copies of each document have been issued. [19385]
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Mr. Sproat:
The only document my Department has issued is the "Export Licensing Unit Code of Practice." This was issued in 1994 at a cost of £1,360.38 and approximately 1,000 have been issued. The Royal Parks agency has published and circulated a visitor's charter. This was first produced in 1994 at a total cost of £2,072.61 and has recently been revised at a total cost of £2,222.61. To date approximately 5,000 copies have been issued. Whilst the Historic Royal Palaces agency has its own visitor's charter it has not been published. It is prominently displayed at all ticketing offices at the palaces.
Ms Walley:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if she will list for each of the last five years, the football clubs which have received grant aid from the Football Trust indicating in each case (a) the amount of money awarded and (b) if the money was awarded in respect of (i) safety and (ii) community. [19906]
Mr. Sproat:
Over the past five years, the Football Trust has provided £140 million for Taylor-related redevelopment work, £20 million for ongoing safety work and £5.5 million for community work at professional clubs in England, Wales and Scotland, as well as £12.4 million for non-professional and grass roots football. I am today placing in the Libraries of both Houses a schedule, provided by the Football Trust, setting out information on the grants awarded to individual clubs.
Mrs. Clwyd:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage how many questions were tabled from reply by her Department in each Session since 1979-80; in how many instances in each year the reply has been that providing the information involved disproportionate cost; and in how many instances in each year questions have been given the reply that the information was not available centrally. [16793]
Mr. Sproat:
The Department of National Heritage was established in April 1992.
| Session | Number of questions answered |
|---|---|
| 1992-93 | 1,281 |
| 1993-94 | 1,099 |
| 1994-95 | 1,226 |
| 1995-96 | 1,124 |
Source:
POLIS.
The rest of the information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Legislation
Mr. Austin Mitchell:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage how many Bills her Department has sponsored in each year since it was formed; and how many have been passed by Parliament. [19769]
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Mr. Sproat
[holding answer 18 March 1997]: The Department of National Heritage was formed in April 1992.
The following Bills have been sponsored by my Department:
Dr. Howells:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage how much S4C will receive from her Department in the current year; and how much it received in the previous year. [20718]
Mr. Sproat
[holding answer 18 March 1997]: S4C received £68,416,000 from my Department in 1996 and there is provision of £73,300,00 for the current year.
Dr. Howells:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what restrictions and requirements are placed on S4C as regards the language of programmes made using public funding provided by her Department. [20717]
Mr. Sproat
[holding answer 18 March 1997]: The Welsh Fourth Channel Authority receives public funding to fulfil its function which is set out in section 57 of the Broadcasting Act 1990: to provide a television broadcasting service of high quality for reception wholly or mainly in Wales. Under that Act, S4C is required to ensure that a substantial proportion of its programmes broadcast between 6.30 pm and 10 pm are in Welsh.
Dr. Howells:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage how many of the new digital channels available to S4C will be used for broadcasting in (a) English and (b) Welsh. [20547]
Mr. Sproat
[holding answer 18 March 1997]: The Government have offered S4C guaranteed capacity of half of the third multiplex in Wales. S4C is required to simulcast the Welsh language programmes in its peak analogue service as part of its digital service, but is not otherwise constrained as to the language in which its digital services are broadcast.
Dr. Howells:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if the chairman or any of the members of S4C have declared interests or shareholdings in any independent production company. [20715]
Mr. Sproat
[holding answer 18 March 1997]: The chairman and members of the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority are required under the Broadcasting Act 1990 to declare any interests or shareholdings they may have in any independent production company. None has declared such an interest.
Dr. Howells:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what monitoring her Department carries out of the use of the public funds provided to S4C; and what assessment it has made of the use of those funds in the past year. [20719]
Mr. Sproat
[holding answer 18 March 1997]: It is a long standing policy that broadcasting services are independent of Government editorially and, to the greatest
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extent possible, in economic and regulatory terms. It is for the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority to regulate S4C and for S4C's management to supervise the efficiency of the broadcaster. There is a memorandum of understanding between my Department and S4C, the primary purpose of which is to ensure that S4C's systems of financial management are sufficient to safeguard public funds. The actual management of those funds is a matter for the authority.
Dr. Howells:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what restrictions exist on television companies in receipt of public funds bidding against each other to broadcast sports events. [20716]
Mr. Sproat
[holding answer 18 March 1997]: The obligations placed on the BBC and the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority in respect of their broadcasting services, which are set out in the royal charter and agreement and the 1990 Broadcasting Act respectively, do not impinge on the freedom of these broadcasters to negotiate for programme rights to sports events.
Mr. Timms:
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage if she will provide figures for her Department's private finance initiative projects in the same form as used by the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, in his answer to the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) of 6 March, Official Report, columns 692-93; and if she will list her latest estimates of annual totals for PFI projects, on the same basis as those given in table 5.5 of the Red Book. [20394]
Mr. Sproat:
For the first part of the hon. Member's question, I refer him to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Darlington on 13 March, Official Report, columns 281-82.
The current estimates of annual totals for PFI projects, are shown in the following table:
They have all been passed by Parliament.
National Lottery etc. Act 1993
Broadcasting Act 1996
National Heritage Act 1997
| £ million | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PFI capital expenditure | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | Total |
| Signed contracts | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 4.2 |
| British Museum Study Centre | 6.0 | 15.8 | 6.0 | 27.8 |
| British Museum Great Court | -- | -- | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Science Museum Wellcome Wing | -- | -- | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Tate Bankside Roof Observatory | -- | -- | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Tate Millbank Queen Alexander site | -- | -- | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| Tate Millbank electric sub-station | -- | 0.3 | -- | 0.3 |
| Natural History Museum combined heat and power | -- | 1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 |
| British Library bibliographic cataloguing | 4.0 | -- | -- | 4.0 |
| British Library catering and conference | 1.5 | -- | -- | 1.5 |
| British Library digitisation | -- | 35.0 | 40.0 | 75.0 |
| Sports Council IT | -- | 2.0 | -- | 2.0 |
| English Heritage--Stonehenge | -- | 5.5 | 20.5 | 26.0 |
| English Heritage--GIS | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| Total | 13.2 | 61.3 | 91.2 | 165.7 |
19 Mar 1997 : Column: 662
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