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Property Improvement Grants

Mr. Opik: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the rules governing qualification for an improvement grant where the property is used for both residential and commercial purposes; and what plans he has to change the rules for qualification. [11912]

Mr. Raynsford: Under part I of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 renovation grants are available for the improvement or repair of a dwelling, which is defined as a building or part of a building which is occupied as a separate dwelling. We have no plans to change this provision.

Out-of-town Developments

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to revise planning policy guidance in respect of the development of out-of-town stores. [11921]

Mr. Raynsford: We have no current plans to revise PPG6.

Green-field Sites

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will seek an urgent meeting with the relevant planning authorities in Suffolk in respect of his policy towards releasing more green-field sites for development in Suffolk. [11619]

Mr. Raynsford: No. The Suffolk structure plan makes provision for 54,690 dwellings until 2006 and green-field site specific issues are mostly resolved within the local plans framework introduced by schedule 54a to the Town and Country Planning Act 1991.

Green Belt

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what proposals he has to revise legislation relating to planning guidance in respect of the protection of the green belt. [11712]

Mr. Raynsford: We have no current plans to revise planning policy guidance note 2 which sets out the Government's policy on this issue.

Car Boot Sales

Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he

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has to restrict the number of days during the calendar year when car boot sales may be held without planning permission; and if he will make a statement regarding permitted development rights in so far as they affect car boot sales. [12240]

Mr. Raynsford: Part 4 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 grants a general planning permission for the temporary use of land for up to 28 days in any calendar year. However, the general permission for car boot sales is limited to 14 days, in recognition that they may, in some locations, cause problems such as parking, litter and noise. We are considering whether further controls over such markets are necessary.

Population and Household Changes

Mr. Luff: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he has made of (a) population and (b) household changes in (i) Birmingham and (ii) Worcestershire over the next 10 years; and if he will make a statement. [12194]

Mr. Raynsford: Population estimates and projections are the responsibility of the Office for National Statistics--formerly the Office for Population Censuses and Surveys. The projections of the numbers of the households, which uses this information are the responsibility of my Department.

Populations and household projections for Worcestershire alone are not available as it was not a separate county at the time the most recent projections were made. The population and household projections over the next 10 years for both the metropolitan district of Birmingham and the county of Hereford and Worcester are as follows:

	1996	2001	2006
Population(23) (thousands)
Birmingham	1,008	1,006	1,002
Hereford and Worcester	708	731	751
Households(24) (thousands)
Birmingham	402	408	416
Hereford and Worcester	285	301	317

Source:

(23) "1993-based Subnational population projections", OPCS Series PP3 number 9,1994.

(24) "Projections of Households in England to 2016", DoE 1995.

Business Start-up Scheme

Mr. Rooney: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many unemployed people have qualified for assistance on the business start-up scheme since its incorporation into the single regeneration budget in each region and for England as a whole; what was the annual expenditure; and which

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training and enterprise councils have taken part in each year. [12171]

Angela Eagle: Information in the form requested is not available.

The single regeneration budget provides support to local partnerships for schemes which promote the wider regeneration of their chosen area. Under the first two rounds of the challenge fund, 238 schemes have included plans to assist business start ups. Over their lifetime of up to seven years, and subject to satisfactory progress on delivery plans, these schemes stand to receive some £1.7 billion in challenge fund support towards a wide range of economic, environmental and social measures including an estimated 80,000 new business start ups. Training and enterprise councils are involved with the vast majority of the 238 schemes. Further support for new business start ups will also be provided under rounds 3 and 4 of the challenge fund.

Information on the number of new business start ups supported under the challenge fund in 1995-96 and 1996-97 for each of the 10 Government offices for the regions and for England is as follows:

	Number of new business start ups
Region	1995-96 (actual)	1996-97 (provisional)
Eastern	440	739
East Midlands	463	943
London	1,858	2,236
Merseyside	577	1,747
North-east	1,740	2,232
North-west	1,283	1,869
South-east	123	375
South-west	571	1,042
West Midlands	1,993	2,476
Yorkshire and Humber	1,410	2,702
England	10,458	16,361

Global Temperatures

Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what the global average temperature was relative to the 51 to 80 average in (a) June and (b) the period from January to May. [12243]

Angela Eagle: Climate monitoring carried out at the Met Office's Hadley centre, supported by my Department, shows provisionally that the global average temperature--relative to the 1951-1980 average--was +0.44oC in June 1997 and +0.37oC for the period January to May 1997.

Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what prediction the Government have made of global average temperature relative to the 51 to 80 average in each month from July to November of this year. [12244]

Angela Eagle: Climate monitoring is carried out at the Met Office's Hadley centre, supported by my Department. However, data for July are not yet completed and the Government make no such predictions of global average temperature.

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Regional Boundaries

Mr. Chope: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make the Local Government Boundary Commission responsible for regional boundaries in England. [12099]

Mr. Caborn: I announced on 11 June that we intend the boundaries of regional development agencies to be the same as the administrative areas of the Government offices for the regions, except that there will be a single agency for the north-west region including Merseyside.

Mr. Levitt: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the effect on the powers and responsibilities in respect of planning and development in their geographical areas of those bodies which straddle borders between Government regions of his proposals in respect of the regions, with particular reference to the Peak District national park. [12110]

Mr. Raynsford: Government offices and the various regional planning bodies already liaise on cross boundary regional planning matters. We envisage that the regional development agencies which we are proposing to set up will be able to cooperate with one another in developing and implementing economic strategies for the regions.

Rural Poverty

Mr. Levitt: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what plans he has for the future role of the Rural Development Commission in respect of rural poverty. [12107]

(2) what measures the Government are taking to combat rural poverty; [12108]

Angela Eagle: The Government recognise the special needs of people who live and work in rural areas and of the need to tackle poverty. My Department is responsible for the Rural Development Commission which operates a number of economic and community support programmes, designed to promote regeneration and tackle disadvantage in the countryside. We have been discussing with the Commission its draft 1997 corporate plan which sets out the Commission's future expenditure proposals. The Commission expects to publish its plan later this summer.

We are currently considering how the proposed new regional development agencies might promote economic regeneration in rural areas. We are in the process of consulting interested parties in the regions to hear what they have to say about our proposals.

A number of programmes in my Department and others may impact on rural poverty. The policies and programmes of my Department are being reviewed as part of the comprehensive spending review, in order to consider how far we are meeting the aims of enhancing opportunity, fairness and sustainable development, while promoting employment and investment for sound economic growth.

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