| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Late Payments
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the suppliers to his Department who are owed outstanding amounts, indicating the amounts and the due date on which the account should have been settled. [13547]
Dr. Howells: All Departments are required to pay all their bills within agreed contract terms, or 30 days from receipt of the goods or service or a valid invoice, which ever is later, where no such terms exist. Such detailed information on payment performance for the current financial year could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The Treasury will shortly be publishing a league table of departmental payment performance for 1996-97.
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
Timeshare Industry
Mr. Levitt: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will make a statement on the regulation of the timeshare industry. [12757]
Mr. Nigel Griffiths: The timeshare industry in the United Kingdom is regulated by the Timeshare Act 1992, as amended by the Timeshare Regulations 1997, which implemented the EU timeshare directive. Member states were required to implement the directive by 29 April 1997. A number have not yet done so, including Spain where many UK citizens buy timeshares. I have written to the Spanish Government about this and will raise the matter when I meet the Spanish Consumer Minister later this month.
Minister's Unpublished Articles
Mr. Paterson: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list those articles written by the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths), awaiting publication. [12542]
Mr. Nigel Griffiths: I have written a number of articles awaiting publication, in accordance with paragraphs 101, 102, 104-106 of the ministerial code: "A Code of Conduct and Guidance on Procedures for Ministers".
Inward Investors
Mr. Cousins: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps she is taking to establish a code of practice on the offering of state aids to inward investors; and when she expects to report to Parliament on this matter. [12977]
Mr. Ian McCartney
[holding answer 27 October 1997]: As foreshadowed in the Scotland and Wales White Papers on devolution, common UK guidelines and consultation arrangements on financial assistance to industry will be set out in a published concordat, which is currently being prepared. I shall report to Parliament when that concordat is published.
30 Oct 1997 : Column: 869
Mrs. Dunwoody:
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will place in the Library copies of the responses to the draft Bill on competition policy. [12987]
Mr. Nigel Griffiths:
Copies of the responses to the consultation document "A prohibition approach to anti-competitive agreements and abuse of a dominant position: draft bill" will be placed in the Library shortly with the exception of the responses from those respondents who have requested that their responses be kept confidential. Copies will also be placed in the library of the Department of Trade and Industry, which is open to the public. In the consultation document, we said it would be helpful to have responses by September 30. However, we said that responses received after that date would still be considered, and responses are accordingly still being received.
Mrs. Dunwoody:
To ask the President of the Board of Trade what action she proposes to take following the publication of the Office of Fair Trading report on the sale of used cars. [12989]
Mr. Nigel Griffiths:
I have asked the Director General of Fair Trading to bring forward detailed proposals on the legislative changes he sees as necessary to implement the recommendations contained in his report.
Mrs. Dunwoody:
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list her Department's priorities in relation to consumer affairs for the United Kingdom presidency of the EU. [12985]
Mr. Nigel Griffiths:
While preparations are well under way to conduct a successful presidency of the Consumer Council, with over a third of the Luxembourg presidency still to run, we have not finalised our plans. I am to pursue the Government's policy of ensuring that UK consumers achieve the best possible consumer protection.
Mr. Todd:
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list each of the functions relating to payment for goods or services supplied for which her 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. [12572]
Mrs. Roche:
In line with other Government Departments, the DTI is responsible for payments relating to the goods and services it procures. There are well-established procedures aimed at promoting efficient and effective procurement and prompt payment. In general, each management unit within the Department is responsible for purchases in relation to its own needs. The Department's central procurement standards unit formulates overall policy and disseminates best practice. Payments of invoices are contracted out to CSL Managed Services, which provides the Department's accounts services and similar services to a range of other public
30 Oct 1997 : Column: 870
sector bodies. As procurement is an integral part of each management unit's activity, it is not possible to disaggregate the costs.
Mr. Redwood:
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if it is her policy to implement whatever recommendation the Low Pay Commission makes on the minimum wage. [13044]
Mr. Ian McCartney
[holding answer 29 October 1997]: The Government will decide the level at which the national minimum wage will be set after considering the Low Pay Commission's recommendations.
Caroline Flint:
To ask the President of the Board of Trade when the statistics on export licences issued and refused for the second half of 1996 will be placed in the Library. [14185]
Mrs. Roche:
1. It has been normal practice for statistics relating to decisions on applications for standard individual export licences for strategic goods to be placed periodically in the Library. However, a number of problems have been identified with the export control licence information processing system, ECLIPS, which came into operation in March 1995, on which details of such applications are recorded.
2. It should be made clear that the problems identified relate to the accuracy of recording and subsequent retrieval of information from the databases; they have not affected the processing of, and decision-making on, individual export licence applications. They fall into three main categories:
3. Data integrity problems also arise with the separately recorded data on applications for open individual export licences, on which information has not been included in the statistics placed in the Library.
4. Having identified these problems, this Government have taken urgent steps to improve the situation:
30 Oct 1997 : Column: 871
While these can be searched by rating, comparison with a generic or specific description may be possible only in some cases by examining the original paper records.
5. As a result of checking answers given to parliamentary questions since this Government took office, three errors have now been identified affecting the answer to five separate questions; four asked by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) and one by the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber). Both have been informed by letter, copies of which have been placed in the Library of both Houses. Apart from this, however, as it is now clear that the databases do not provide a fully accurate record, some previous answers, using information obtained from the databases, could be proved wrong if recourse were made to the original paper records, of which there are some 280,000. In the light of this, all information given by this and previous Administrations--either in answer to parliamentary questions, or in correspondence, or elsewhere--relying on data obtained from these databases, should be read in conjunction with the following caveat:
6. However, while it would not be cost-effective to seek to correct all the data available in the Library, the data for the second half of 1996 is being corrected by examination of the paper records. This work will be completed as soon as possible and the aim is to place in the Library before the end of the year statistics covering this period, albeit subject to the above caveat.
(i) In general, over the last few years, where a single application has involved a range of goods, only the major item of goods on the application has been recorded on ECLIPS, together with the entry in the legislation under which this item is controlled (known as the 'rating'). Any other goods on the application have been considered in the licensing process, but not recorded on the computer system.
The House will be aware that it has been necessary in the past to correct a number of answers to questions, for example the question asked by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), Official Report, 13 June 1996 column 263.
(ii) Conversion and input errors have been found in data transferred to ECLIPS from earlier computer systems.
(iii) Errors and omissions have been found in the entry and updating of information on ECLIPS since it came into operation.
Checks have been made on all answers given to parliamentary questions since this Government took office;
New procedures have been put in place to ensure that all goods listed on export licence applications and their ratings will be recorded for all applications in future, and this work will be backdated to cover all applications on which a decision has been taken since 2 May;
Data input procedures and their enforcement have been reviewed and strengthened;
In order to assist industry and minimise input errors, work is in hand to allow companies to complete standard individual export licence applications electronically and it is hoped that this will be ready for testing in the new year; and
In the same time scale, a new database is being developed to hold the data. All this work is being undertaken to a rigorous timetable and the result will be a significant advance on the present situation. However, some goods on an application may be listed under a range of different terms or even brand names.
"This information is based on data retrieved from computer databases that have been found not to be fully comprehensive. It should therefore be treated as indicative only. For any single application involving a range of goods, all of the entries in the legislation under which all of these goods were controlled may not have been recorded. Additionally, there may have been errors and omissions in recording some information. The information could only be verified by undertaking a complete search of all paper records, which would entail excessive cost".
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |