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Social Model (Disability)

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make it his policy to adopt a social model of disability in framing all future and amending previous relevant legislation and guidance; and if he will make a statement. [1678]

Mr. Morley: Within the Ministry, those with responsibility for the development or review of policies or practices are required to consider the potential effect on any particular group, including those with a disability, and consult as appropriate. These requirements reflect the definitions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and will be reviewed in the light of any relevant amendments.

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Scrapie

Mr. Pendry: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cases of scrapie have been confirmed since it became a notifiable disease. [2075]

Mr. Rooker: The following table shows the number of cases which have been confirmed as positive since January 1993 when scrapie became a notifiable disease.

	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997 (until end of May)
Confirmed positive	328	235	254	453	213

Cases are greater in each year than those previously reported on 19 February 1997, Official Report, column 635, owing to the inclusion of cases from research studies which have not been previously reported.

Public Access (Lancashire)

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the total acreage of uncultivated open land and moorland in Lancashire to which the public are denied access solely by reason of ownership. [1017]

Ms Eagle: I have been asked to reply.

We have no information about the extent of uncultivated open land and moorland in Lancashire, nor is there any information about landowners who have been approached about opening up their land to the public.

DEFENCE

White Paper

Mr. Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he intends to publish the 1997 White Paper on Defence. [1274]

Dr. John Reid: As the Strategic Defence Review will be conducted during 1997, it would not be appropriate for the Department to publish this year a forward-looking statement of policy in the form of the Statement on the Defence Estimates (SDE). Factual material on the activities of the Department and the Armed Forces in the last year, which is usually contained in the SDE, will appear in an expanded MOD Performance Report which the Department plans to publish in the Autumn.

Pricing and Quality Services Organisation

Mr. Wareing: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has for the future of the Pricing and Quality Services Organisation within the MOD Procurement Executive; and if he will make a statement. [2013]

Mr. Spellar: A new Defence Agency, formed from the Pricing and Quality Services (PQS) elements of the Procurement Executive, was established on 1 June 1997. The agency will be known as Specialist Procurement Services (SPS). The Chief of Defence Procurement will be the Owner of the Agency and the current head of PQS will be the first Chief Executive (CE); subsequent CEs

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will be appointed through external competition. The Chief Executive has been set the following Key Targets for the first year of operation:

1. Establish Service Level Arrangements (SLAs) with customers, covering the activities of the following business units; Pricing, Quality Assurance and Cost Forecasting.
2. Develop/implement methods of measuring customer satisfaction.
3. Offer Cost Forecasting advice on 90 per cent. of Category A and B equipment projects identified within the agreed Equipment Approvals Committee (EAC) programme.
4. Develop a programme for accreditation to the Investors in People (IIP) standard.
5. Audit 95 per cent. of core accounts in the first year and 100 per cent. of major accounts over a three year period with respect to Government Furnished Equipment (GFE).
6. Develop an efficiency and business improvement programme.

I will arrange for copies of the Agency's Framework Document and Corporate Plan to be placed in the Library of both Houses.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

Teaching Staff (Ethnic Minorities)

Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what proportion of (a) teachers and (b) lecturers come from ethnic minority backgrounds; and what initiatives he proposes to increase their number. [1042]

Ms Estelle Morris: The Department does not collect the information required. The Teacher Training Agency has introduced various initiatives to attract ethnic minority entrants to teaching, including targeting recruitment advertisements. The Agency is responsible for allocating student numbers to teacher training institutions, based on the quality assessment of the institution. Within any given quality category, trainers with special features, including their record in recruiting people from ethnic minorities, may be given priority over others.

Performing Arts Graduates

Mr. Rowe: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps he proposes to take to ensure that the numbers of students graduating in the performing arts in each year more nearly equates to the employment opportunities available to them. [1345]

Dr. Howells: None. Individual universities and colleges are responsible for the allocation of places on performing arts courses in the light of demand from suitably qualified applicants, whose numbers may be influenced by job opportunities.

Salaries (University Vice-chancellors)

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) if he will list in rank order the salaries of the vice-chancellors of United Kingdom universities indicating for each institution the number of students enrolled; [1443]

(2) what assessment he has made of the advantages and disadvantages of setting a salary scale for university vice- chancellors; [1470]

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(3) what factors underlie the range of variation in the salary and benefits packages offered to vice-chancellors by United Kingdom universities. [1469]

Dr. Howells: Universities are independent bodies and it is for them to determine levels of pay for their staff, including the vice-chancellor, in the light of their own particular needs and requirements. Other than requiring that universities take account of the Government priorities for public sector pay, the Department plays no part in considering or setting academic salary scales and does not collect information about the salaries of vice-chancellors.

The Higher Education Funding Councils for England, Scotland and Wales and the Department of Education for Northern Ireland require universities to disclose the salary levels of senior staff. This information is published in the annual accounts of individual universities. Information on student enrolment is published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in its reference volume series: Students in Higher Education Institutions.

Departmental Computer Systems

Mr. Nigel Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has to ensure that his Department's computer system will be millennium compliant; and if he will make a statement. [1248]

Dr. Howells: The Department's plan for ensuring that all its computer systems will be millennium compliant by early 1999 are well established. A project has been set up which has already identified all the Department's computer systems which will be affected by the Millennium date change. A detailed impact analysis in under way. This project will provide detailed costings covering all the work needed up to the Millennium. We will take forward those changes where they are cost justified.

Funding (Further Education and Tertiary Colleges)

Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has to reform the funding of further education and tertiary colleges; and if he will make a statement. [1461]

Dr. Howells: Under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 it is the statutory responsibility of the Further Education Funding Council for England to give financial support to the governing bodies of institutions in the further and higher education sector for the provision of further education. My right hon. Friend has no plans to change that arrangement.

Training Costs Estimates

Mr. Rowlands: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate his Department has made of the amounts currently spent by employers on training; and if he will list equivalent figures for 1987 provided by the Training Agency in the study, Training in Britain (1989); and if he will make a statement. [1233]

Dr. Howells: Employers in the UK are estimated to have spent £10.6 billion on formal training courses and supervised on-the-job training in 1993. This estimate is the latest available and was published in the report 'Employer Provided Training in the UK 1993'. An equivalent figure is not available from the 'Training in

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Britain' study because of differences in survey methods and the definitions of training used. The study estimated that total expenditure by employers in Great Britain in 1986-87 was £14.4 billion.

Estimating employers' total expenditure on training is inherently difficult. While the latest survey provides a more accurate estimate of expenditure than that previously available, on its own the estimate does not convey much about training behaviour. More significantly, the survey shows a rising trend in the number of employees receiving training, both on and off-the-job. However we know that many companies--especially smaller ones--face difficulties in obtaining the training their businesses need. That is why we have pledged to help them, particularly by making the Investors in People Standard more accessible to small firms, and through the development of a University for Industry.

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