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European Commission
Mr. Chaytor: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the membership of the Article 113 Committee of Directorate-General I of the European Commission. [72042]
Mr. Wilson: The Article 113 Committee is an organ of the Council, not the Commission. It meets monthly at Full Member level, weekly at Deputy level, and on an ad-hoc basis at expert level. Each EU Member State is represented on the Committee as is the European Commission. Secretariat services are provided by the Council Secretariat.
Mr. Chaytor: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement clarifying the (a) status and (b) decision-making process of Article 113 Committee of Directorate-General I of the European Commission. [72054]
Mr. Wilson: The Article 113 Committee is an organ of the Council of the EU. The Commission is required to conduct the Common Commercial Policy, in particular in negotiations with third countries and international organisations, in consultation with the Committee. It does not have a formal decision-making role.
Postal Charges
Mr. Burstow:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, pursuant to his answer of 16 February 1999, Official Report, column 662, concerning postal charges, what representations he has received concerning the financial effects of the charges on the publishers of periodicals. [72596]
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 100
Mr. Ian McCartney:
My right hon. Friend and I have received representations from a number of individual companies and from the Periodical Publishers Association on the effects of the proposed changes to postal tariffs on the publishers of periodicals, which we have carefully noted. Changes to postal tariffs are primarily a matter for the Post Office in consultation with the Post Office Users' National Council.
Mr. David Atkinson:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if an internationally agreed standard for year 2000 compliance for computer systems has been agreed and published; and if he will make a statement. [72157]
Mr. Wills:
I understand that a draft international standard ISO/IEC/16509 has been circulated by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for balloting within their member bodies. National standards bodies have been asked to reply by 12 March 1999. The British Standards Institution (BSI) is presently formulating the United Kingdom response to the document.
Rev. Martin Smyth:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the development of global rules for tobacco marketing and on the resources he plans to commit to developing such rules. [70760]
Ms Jowell:
I have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Ms Osborne) on 15 December 1998, Official Report, column 456.
Mr. Maclean:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the simpler legislation for the Internal Market Initiative applies to single market legislation which does not take the form of European Community directives; and what measures exist to simplify legislation currently in force outside of the single market field. [72531]
Mr. Kilfoyle:
I have been asked to reply.
Apart from EC Directives, the Simpler Legislation for the Internal Market (SLIM) initiative also covers EC Regulations--the other type of generally-applicable legally-binding EC instrument--in the Single Market field.
A Community simplification initiative that goes wider than the Single Market field is the work by the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of Ministers on codification of existing EC legislation. By providing official consolidated texts of legislative acts and their amendments it makes EC legislation more accessible and provides greater legal certainty. It covers all areas of EC legislation and has for example already been applied to legislation in the fields of agriculture, fisheries and social policy in addition to Single Market legislation.
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 101
Mrs. Ray Michie:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has responded to the request from the UN for an explanation of the licensing of oil developments around St. Kilda; and if he will make a statement. [70868]
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 102
Mr. Macdonald:
I have been asked to reply.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has asked that we respond to the request by 15 April and we shall comply with that timetable.
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 103
Mr. Maclean:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will provide a breakdown for (i) persistent young offenders and (ii) all young offenders, for each of the past three years, of the time taken from (a) arrest to charge, (b) charge to first appearance, (c) first appearance to start of trial, (d) start of trial to verdict and (e) verdict to sentence. [70620]
Mr. Boateng:
I shall write to the right hon. Member.
Mr. Greenway:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many young offenders appeared before youth courts and were convicted for the first time in the most recent year for which figures are available. [71086]
Mr. Boateng:
The most recent estimate of the number of first time young offenders found guilty in magistrates' courts (both youth and adult magistrates' courts) sets the figure at around 37,000 in 1996. This figure rises to approximately 38,900 if cases heard in the Crown Court are included.
Mr. Beith:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will ask the Active Community Unit to investigate the effect of the cost of criminal record certificates on the voluntary sector; and if he will make a statement. [71864]
Mr. Boateng:
The Criminal Records Bureau is being established to enable checks to be carried out to help prevent unsuitable people from working with children or vulnerable adults. Costs will be kept to a minimum and the highest form of certificate should cost around £10 for those volunteers having substantial, largely unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults.
Not all volunteers will require a certificate, and a certificate will not obviate the need for voluntary organisations to carry out their own checks and references as part of normal recruitment procedures. However,
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the over-riding consideration at all times must be the protection of the vulnerable, and the service to be provided by the Criminal Records Bureau will help to achieve this. We do not believe that volunteering will diminish with the introduction of these checks.
Mr. Beith:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the categories of people he plans to exempt from charges for applications for (a) criminal conviction certificates and (b) criminal record certificates; and if he will make a statement. [71863]
Mr. Boateng:
All applicants will have to pay for certificates from the Criminal Records Bureau. We considered very carefully whether there was any way in which free checks could be provided for any groups, especially volunteers. We have concluded that it will not be practicable to provide any free checks from the Criminal Records Bureau. We realise that this is unwelcome news but providing free checks would prove an unsustainable burden on the public purse and may increase demand for certificates from the Bureau to an uncontrollable extent. In addition, we do not consider it would be fair to allow one or two groups to have free certificates when there are other equally deserving groups.
Mr. Clappison:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the number of (1) new instructions and (2) disposals in (a) asylum and (b) immigration appeals undertaken by (i) the Immigration Advisory Service and (ii) the Refugee Legal Centre for 1997-98 and the number of appeals in both categories disposed of by the Immigration Appellate Authority in the same period together with the unit cost in both categories. [70755]
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
The information requested is shown in the table.
It should be noted that the figures for the Refugee Legal Centre and the Immigration Advisory Service are based on outcomes (those cases in which the appeal may or may not have finally been disposed). The cases dealt with by the Refugee Legal Centre based on outputs is 8,154. The Immigration Advisory Service do not have any comparable statistical information on outputs.
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 103
| New instructions | Appeals disposed of | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997-98 | Asylum | Immigration | Asylum | Immigration | Unit cost (£) |
| Refugee Legal Centre | 6,123 | -- | 4,454 | -- | (27)796.38 |
| Immigration Advisory Service | 3,020 | 4,667 | 1,279 | 3,536 | (26)640.89 |
| Immigration Appellate Authority | -- | -- | (25)18,600 | (25)11,200 | -- |
(25) Both rounded to the nearest 00.
(26) Overall unit cost for asylum and immigration cases. Immigration cases may be more easily dealt with, which may affect the overall figure.
(27) Refugee Legal Centre normally deal with more complex asylum claims.
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 103
Mr. Coleman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons claimed asylum (a) at the port of entry and (b) at his Department in each of the years 1993 to 1998, broken down by (i) successful application, (ii) unsuccessful application and (iii) application as yet undecided. [70731]
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
This information is not available at present but I hope to receive it shortly. I will then write to my hon. Friend.
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 104
Fiona Mactaggart:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average length of time (a) European Union nationals and (b) non-European Union nationals who have not applied for asylum have spent on temporary admission in each year from 1993 to the latest date for which figures are available. [70747]
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
Information is available only for non-European Union nationals granted temporary admission at the 12 largest ports in 1998 whose case has
22 Feb 1999 : Column: 105
been resolved. Such persons, excluding those who applied for asylum, spent an average of 11 days on temporary admission.
Fiona Mactaggart:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average length of time between lodging an out-of-country appeal against refusal of entry and removal from the UK and the date of hearing of the appeal in (a) asylum and (b) non-asylum cases, for those (i) removed on the latest convenient date and (ii) who had appeal hearings on the latest convenient date. [70746]
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
The average length of time between the lodging of an out-of-country non-asylum appeal and the date of the appeal hearing date is 366 days. This information relates to data extracted on 15 February 1999, and covers the 12 largest ports (Heathrow (4 terminals), Gatwick (2 terminals), Manchester (2 terminals), Dover East, Harwich, Stansted and Waterloo.)
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