| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Cattle Carcase Incineration Sites (Kent)
Mr. Green: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many proposals he has been notified of for cattle carcase incineration sites in Kent.[10357]
Mr. Rooker: The Intervention Board, which administers the over-30-months slaughter scheme, has issued one letter of intent for cattle carcase incineration in Kent following a tender last autumn. Contracts will depend on the operators obtaining all necessary licences and consents.
Four bids for cattle carcase incineration in Kent have been received under a subsequent tender which is at evaluation stage.
Food Advisory Committee
Mrs. Ann Winterton: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the members of (a) the Food Advisory Committee and (b) the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, indicating the qualifications for membership and the relevant remunerated interests of each member. [10516]
Mr. Rooker:
Both the Food Advisory Committee and the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, which is appointed by the chief medical officer, publish annual reports which give information on the wide range of work carried out during the year. These reports contain details of the committees' full membership and list the relevant remunerated interests of each member. Copies of the committees' most recent reports are available in the Library of the House.
29 Jul 1997 : Column: 121
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he plans to lay the statutory instruments to give powers to exclude European beef from sale in this country, if it has not been processed with specified bovine material removed. [11322]
Mr. Rooker:
At the July Agriculture Council, a simple majority of member states supported Commission proposals for EU-wide controls on specified materials from cattle, sheep and goats. As a result, the way is now clear for the Commission, acting on its own competence, to adopt the measure which will come into force on 1 January. It is therefore no longer necessary for the UK to introduce any unilateral measures in this area as all European beef will be subject to rigorous controls similar to those that we already have in the UK.
Mr. Curry:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what estimate he has made of the number of poultry slaughtered according to halal tradition other than in licensed premises in the United Kingdom; and what assessment he has made of the health risk associated with unregulated slaughter; [11254]
Dr. John Cunningham:
Data are not held separately for poultry slaughtered by traditional halal methods.
I am concerned about the possible health risks associated with the production of poultry meat in unlicensed premises. That is why we have undertaken a review of the exemptions under the Poultry Meat, Farmed Game Bird Meat and Rabbit Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1995, as announced on 19 June 1997, Official Report, column 443.
Mr. Curry:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to meet representatives of the Halal Food Authority to discuss poultry slaughter methods. [11245]
Dr. Cunningham:
The Halal Food Authority wrote to me on 3 June about, among other things, the law as it relates to slaughter by the halal method. It has been invited to set out in more detail the nature of its concerns.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his estimate of total departmental expenditure on computer-related current and capital work for (a) 1995-96, (b) 1996-97, (c) 1997-98, (d) 1998-99 and (e) 1999-00; and if he will make a statement. [11383]
Mr. Morley:
Total departmental expenditure on computer-related current and capital work is as follows:
The estimate of future years expenditure is as follows:
29 Jul 1997 : Column: 122
Mr. Fabricant:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what have been the savings to the United Kingdom per capita as a result of reforms to the CAP during the past three years. [11238]
Mr. Rooker:
There have been no reforms to the CAP during the past three years which were designed to reduce budgetary expenditure. However, reforms to the rice regime in 1995 and to the fruit and vegetables regime in 1996 will progressively reduce price support, with consequent benefits for consumers.
Mr. Stephen Twigg:
To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what plans his Department has to outlaw the practice of gazumping in the property market. [10240]
Mr. Hoon:
We are determined to tackle the problems of gazumping and gazundering. Work is in hand across a number of Departments, steered at ministerial level, to improve the home-buying process generally, and specifically to address the issue of gazumping. This work will lead to detailed proposals which will be in the interests of everyone involved in the sale and purchase of homes.
Ann Clwyd:
To ask the Attorney-General if he will publish his legal opinion in the case of arms exports to Indonesia. [11079]
The Attorney-General:
It is the established convention that the advice of the Law Officers is not disclosed, nor whether they have advised on a given question.
Mr. Todd:
To ask the Attorney-General if he will list each of the functions relating to the payroll for which his Department is responsible, indicating the management systems purchased, all sub-contractors involved in the work, co-operative arrangements with other Departments and the costs of the systems and processes in the last year for which figures are available. [10741]
The Attorney-General:
The personnel branch of the Treasury Solicitor's Department handles the payroll for that Department and for the legal secretariat to the Law Officers. It calculates the pay entitlement of staff including basic pay, allowances, overtime, voluntary deductions and deductions under court orders. Payments are made by Chessington Computer Services Ltd. which also processes statutory deductions and the deductions of properly authorised trade union subscriptions.
29 Jul 1997 : Column: 123
Similar functions are carried out for the Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office and the Government Property Lawyers by those departments' pay sections and by Chessington.
The standard payroll input and retrieval system--SPIRE--is used.
(2) what estimate he has made of the number of poultry being slaughtered by halal traditional methods in the United Kingdom. [11253]
(a) 1995-96: £35,150,000
(b) 1996-97: £39,260,000
(c) 1997-98: £34,425,000
(d) 1998-99: £26,027,000
(e) 1999-00: £25,765,000
| Chessington | In-house costs | |
|---|---|---|
| Treasury Solicitor's Department | 20.4 | 38.2 |
| Legal Secretariat | 1.7 | (5)-- |
| Crown Prosecution Service | 380 | 415 |
| Serious Fraud Office | 20.5 | 33.1 |
| Government Property Lawyers | 6.9 | 18.9 |
(3) Included in figure for Treasury Solicitor's Department.
HOUSE OF COMMONS
Members' Dining Room
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the President of the Council for what reasons the hot and cold buffet was not available in the Members' Dining Room on Thursday 24 July; and who was responsible for this decision. [11198]
Mrs. Ann Taylor: This is a matter for the Catering Committee once it is set up.
HEALTH
Hospital Procedures
Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information his Department collates on costs per hospital procedure in each trust. [10420]
Mr. Milburn: A limited amount of information is available on average specialty costs but this is not attributable to individual procedures or individual trusts.
Information on the prices of extra-contractual referrals has been collated at regional level for several years and is available on a trust by trust basis from the relevant regional office. The current year--1997-98--is the first year that this information has been collected nationally. The prices for surgical activity are based on costed health care resource groups--HRGs--which are a way of categorising patient treatments below specialty level. Each HRG contains a set of treatments that are clinically similar and should use roughly the same level of resources.
Extra-contractual referrals account for a small percentage of the overall activity of the national health service. These prices do not necessarily reflect the costs of activity provided through purchaser/provider agreements. In general, it is expected that ECR costs would be higher.
On occasions, procedure-based information is requested on a sample basis, to support specific initiatives.
29 Jul 1997 : Column: 124
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |