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Radioactive Waste
Mr. Chaytor: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the quantities of (a) low, (b) intermediate and (c) high level radioactive waste which will arise from the reprocessing of Swiss irradiated oxide nuclear fuel at Sellafield; what negotiations have been held to date with Swiss authorities concerning the repatriation of the waste; and if Switzerland has indicated whether it would accept its waste to be returned following the application of substitution. [67708]
Mr. Battle:
BNFL has signed contracts with all four Swiss utilities for the reprocessing of a total of 422 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel. Under the terms of those contracts BNFL has had discussions with each company on the return of wastes, including substitution. I understand that, although Switzerland is still pursuing the development of deep waste disposal facilities, it has almost completed an
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interim storage facility capable of accepting the wastes returned under the terms of the above mentioned contracts, whether as a result of substitution or not.
Mr. Dalyell:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when the report of the Safeguards Office study of the nuclear materials accountancy aspects of the UKAEA report, Dounreay Shaft Inventory will be made public. [68538]
Mr. Battle:
The Government have today published in full the Safeguards Office review of the nuclear materials accountancy aspects of UKAEA's Dounreay Shaft Inventory report.
The main findings of the review are as follows. No evidence was found to support suggestions that have been made following the publication of the UKAEA's Dounreay Shaft Inventory (DSI) report that high enriched uranium has been lost from Dounreay, i.e. that it has been stolen, diverted for military purposes or somehow removed from the site using an unidentified route.
The false impression given by the DSI report that there had been a loss of 170kg U-235 over the period 1 April 1965 to 30 September 1968 was the result of a misinterpretation of 30-year old UKAEA records, arising from a misunderstanding of the nuclear materials accountancy terminology in use at that time.
If the nuclear material inventories over this period had been taken according to modern nuclear materials accountancy practices, the material unaccounted for (MUF) would have been significantly less than 86 kg U-235. Even a MUF of 86kg U-235, at less than 1 per cent. of the amount of material processed at Dounreay over the period, would be considered acceptable against present day international standards of nuclear materials accountancy.
Review of the DSI report by nuclear materials accountancy specialists would have provided explanations for and clarifications of information contained in early UKAEA nuclear materials accountancy reports, and thus could have helped avoid the understandable concerns raised by the report as published.
Copies of the report have been placed in the Library of the House.
Mr. Don Foster:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the total expenditure and the breakdown of expenditure in his Department since May 1997 on (a) public opinion research, (b) television, radio and newspaper advertising and (c) direct mail. [63917]
Mr. Byers:
Expenditure from centrally-managed budgets on advertising and direct mail where separately identifiable has been £2.18m and £56k respectively. It is not possible to identify a separate figure for public opinion research.
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Mr. Gordon Prentice:
To ask the Prime Minister what classification is given to the minutes of meetings of the JCC; and if copies are circulated to Liberal Democrat hon. Members of the JCC. [67474]
The Prime Minister:
Minutes of the JCC are classified according to their content.
Members of the Committee of course receive the minutes of the meetings of the Committee.
Mr. Paterson:
To ask the Prime Minister what the Government's policy is with regard to employees who are found to have made false or misleading declarations on (a) internal documents and (b) external documents when seeking loans. [67286]
The Prime Minister
[holding answer 27 January 1999]: The Theft Acts 1968 and 1978 apply to employees and other persons alike.
Mr. Paterson:
To ask the Prime Minister what total costs borne by the public purse have been for security, administration and other costs related to his overseas holidays since 1 May 1997. [67323]
The Prime Minister
[holding answer 27 January 1999]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to his right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) on 9 February 1998, Official Report, column 15.
Mr. Dismore:
To ask the Minister of State, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will set a retirement age for QCs; and if he will make a statement. [67656]
Mr. Hoon:
My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has no jurisdiction regarding the age at which Queen's Counsel retire. He has no plans to make a statement.
Mr. Michael J. Foster:
To ask the Minister of State, Lord Chancellor's Department what plans he has for departmental (a) White and (b) Green Papers to be made available on floppy disk format in a form which facilitates access for the visually impaired. [67842]
Mr. Hoon:
The Lord Chancellor's Department has no plans to make White or Green Papers available on floppy disks but all Departmental White and Green Papers are published on the LCD Internet website which allows the visually impaired to increase text size.
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Mr. Chaytor:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if she will list, for each of the last 10 years, the percentage of live births delivered by caesarean section within each health authority in Northern Ireland. [67704]
Mr. McFall:
The percentage of live births delivered by caesarean section in each Health and Social Services Board area in the years 1992 to 1997 are as follows:
(Access for Visually Impaired)
| Health Board | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern | 12.0 | 10.2 | 14.8 | 17.8 | 18.5 | 20.9 |
| Northern | 11.6 | 12.9 | 14.8 | 17.2 | 16.7 | 19.6 |
| Southern | 12.9 | 15.5 | 15.0 | 16.6 | 17.4 | 19.2 |
| Western | 13.0 | 12.4 | 13.2 | 13.3 | 14.1 | 15.9 |
SOCIAL SECURITY
Pensioners (Stoke-on-Trent)
Mr. Stevenson: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the number of (a) pensioners, (b) single pensioners and (c) pensioners in couples in Stoke-on-Trent; and what estimate he has made of the number of (i) single pensioners and (ii) pensioners in couples in Stoke-on-Trent who will qualify for the minimum pension guarantee. [67101]
Mr. Timms: Figures for the number of pensioners are not available at Local Authority level.
As at May 1998 (the latest figure) there were 9,100 pensioner benefit units in receipt of Income Support in Stoke-on-Trent of which 7,800 were single pensioners and 1,300 were couples.
Estimates suggest that approximately 1.5 million pensioners nationally will receive payments from the Minimum Income Guarantee when it is introduced in April 1999. Some 65,000 people not already entitled to Income Support are expected to qualify for the Minimum Income Guarantee. The figures are not available by Local Authority area.
Mr. Hancock:
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what the target times are for the CSA to deal with applications for compensation; and what are the actual times; [67228]
(3) what is the average time taken for the CSA to determine applications for compensation; [67227]
(4) how many applications for compensation received by the Child Support Agency in the last two years have been determined within 30 days. [67132]
Angela Eagle:
The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mrs. Faith Boardman. She will write to the hon. Member.
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Letter from Faith Boardman to Mr. Mike Hancock, dated 27 January 1999:
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(2) how many applications for compensation, received by the Child Support Agency before 1 May 1998, are still awaiting determination; [67131]
I am replying to your Parliamentary Questions to the Secretary of State for Social Security about applications to the Child Support Agency for compensation, normally referred to as special payments.
I am not able to provide all of the information in the precise format that you have requested, but have provided as much as is available.
A special payment is considered where a clear and unambiguous error by the Agency has resulted in an actual financial loss to the client which is not recoverable through other means. Each case is carefully considered on its individual merits and depending on the complexity of the case, the length of time required to reach a decision can vary considerably.
We have a discrete unit to deal with applications for special payments. This ensures that each case receives individual attention and helps achieve fairness and an appropriate standard of consistency in an essentially discretionary scheme.
The difficulties that we faced as an Agency during our first two years of operations are well documented. We built up a substantial backlog of cases awaiting maintenance assessment, and the accuracy of the assessments we completed was not up to the standard we would hope to achieve. Tackling the backlog of cases awaiting a maintenance assessment and bringing cases up to date has been a major priority for us this year, and the result of this has been an increase in the number of applications for special payments. We recognise that the length of time taken to deal with special payments in some instances has been protracted and we have taken steps to address this over the last twelve months.
In December 1997 we reorganised the way we handle special payments and streamlined procedures with the aim of resolving special payments more speedily. We set an internal target to clear applications to special payments within 30 working days of receipt. Prior to establishing the new unit, applications were taking in excess of 90 working days to be dealt with. However as we began to clear our backlog of cases the number of applications for special payments rose significantly. From January 1997 to November 1997 we received 2,253 applications and from December 1997 to December 1998 we received 8,080 applications. Initially we were not able to meet the target we had set ourselves of clearance within 30 working days. Between April 1998 and June 1998 the average clearance time was 51 working days. More recently we have improved on our performance and the average clearance time for new applications between October 1998 and December 1998 was 8 working days.
The number of applications which we received before 1st May 1998 and which are at various stages of action is 410. We expect to have cleared these applications by the end of 1998/99.
We acknowledge that in the past our basic levels of customer service have been unacceptable and we are sorry that our failings may on occasion have caused inconvenience, frustration, distress and financial hardship.
We are very conscious of the importance of applications for compensation but the number of applications is small compared with our overall caseload of over 827,000 live and assessed cases. It has risen as a result of the increases in the Agency's current workloads and of our recent actions to clear the backlog of maintenance applications which had accumulated in the Agency during its first 2-3 years. In 1997/98 the Agency cleared 595,000 maintenance applications compared with 357,000 in 1996/97 and reduced the number of maintenance applications over 52 weeks old from 225,000 to 110,000. We recognise that by improving our underlying service and efficiency we can avoid the need for such applications. We expect to clear the rest of the backlog of maintenance applications over 52 weeks old by the end of 1998/99.
To improve our customer service in other areas we have reviewed the way that we handle complaints and we have increased resources for our Client Helplines and the National Enquiry Line. Also we have extended our hours of opening to cover 8.00am to 8.00pm Monday to Friday and 9.00am to 5.00pm on Saturdays and carried out trials to greatly improve and increase clients' opportunities to
secure a face to face service. Through these measures our aim is to deal with clients' problems at an early stage and prevent problems escalating.
We recognise and have started to address the problems we have in delivering an acceptable level of customer service. Where we discover we have made mistakes or caused delay we will apologise to our clients and do everything we can to put things right as quickly as possible. I recognise that we have a long way to go to remedy our problems fully, but I am confident that our clients will continue to see improvements in the service they receive by the end of 1998/99 and beyond.
I hope this is helpful.
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