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19 Mar 1999 : Column: 823

Written Answers to Questions

Friday 19 March 1999

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

EU Fraud

Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what (a) discussions she has had and (b) proposals her Department has put forward at Council of Ministers' meetings in respect of EU fraud; and if she will make a statement. [77781]

Clare Short: The Development Council most recently discussed EU fraud on 30 November 1998 in the context of allegations about the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO). The Government seek to ensure that anti-fraud considerations are taken fully into account when new policies are being developed and new or revised Regulations are on the table.

Specific discussions on fighting EU fraud will be discussed at ECOFIN where the Treasury leads. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will provide details in answer to the hon. Member's question.

Commonwealth Development Corporation

Mr. Streeter: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will list what her Department's budget for the Commonwealth Development Corporation was or is for (a) 1997-98, (b) 1998-99 and (c) 1999-2000. [77624]

Clare Short: The relevant figures are as follows:

Voted in estimates

			£ million
	Payments to CDC	Receipts from CDC	Net provision
1997-98(1)	23.286	33.276	-9.900
1998-99(2)	35.919	35.919	0
1999-2000(3)	38.670	38.670	0

(1) outturn

(2) estimated outturn

(3) budget

Non-voted budget figures score as part of my Department's public expenditure figures. These reflect changes in CDC's cash deposits between year ends, not the absolute amount of cash balance which CDC holds. (A negative figure means an increase in cash deposits over the year). Relevant figures for the period in question are £12.5 million, -£15.2 million, and zero respectively.

British Council

Mr. Streeter: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what is her Department's expenditure or budgeted expenditure through the British Council for (a) 1997-98, (b) 1998-99 and (c) 1999-2000. [77619]

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Clare Short: In 1997-98 we provided a grant-in-aid of £29.8 million to support the British Council's development activities. In 1998-99 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) assumed responsibility for the Council's grant-in-aid and the resources set aside in the Department for International Development's (DFID) budget--some £30.3 million--have been transferred to the FCO.

The Council also undertakes work for DFID under contract arrangements, typically project management. In 1997-98 the value of contracts which they won was £28.7 million.

Debt Relief

Mr. Streeter: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much debt relief was granted by her Department in (a) 1997-98 and (b) 1998-99. [77622]

Clare Short: In 1997-98 the Department for International Development (DFID) approved new debt relief arrangements totalling £26.1 million. To date in 1998-99 a further £10.3 million of debt relief has been granted. In addition, over the past two years, we have foregone repayments of aid loans totalling £38.8 million under debt relief arrangements reached before April 1997.

As well as cancelling aid debts owed to my Department, we have provided assistance to countries to help them meet their debt service payments. We have provided £10 million to Mozambique in 1997-98 and £16 million in 1998-99 for this purpose. For Tanzania we have provided £16.6 million in 1997-98 and £25 million in 1998-99, and we contributed £5 million to the Multilateral Debt Trust Fund for Rwanda in January 1999. Most recently, in March 1999, we contributed £10 million to the Trust Fund set up following Hurricane Mitch, to assist Nicaragua and Honduras meet their international debt service payments.

DFID is also assisting the international financial institutions in providing debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. In June 1998, we contributed £6.3 million to the HIPC Trust Fund to assist the African Development Bank (AfDB) with its costs in providing debt relief for Uganda. We have pledged a further £30 million for the AfDB, £11 million of which is earmarked for Mali and Mozambique, who are expected to receive HIPC debt relief later this year.

Departmental Staff

Mr. Streeter: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many people were directly employed by her Department on 1 March. [77620]

Clare Short: Statistics are produced on a quarterly basis. As at 1 January 1999, the Department for International Development directly employed 1,130 staff.

HOME DEPARTMENT

999 Calls

Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many 999 calls were received by each police force in each of the last five years. [77287]

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Mr. Boateng: The information requested is as follows:

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AC2a total 999 calls received

	1993-94	1994-95	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98
Avon and Somerset	89,235	159,800	159,095	197,706	198,390
Bedfordshire	43,200	51,192	34,466	59,863	56,870
Cambridgeshire	53,504	58,805	73,923	79,332	82,541
Cheshire	75,094	80,035	90,243	94,953	102,2665
City of London(4)	0	0	0	0	0
Cleveland	67,398	84,346	87,253	89,061	86,318
Cumbria	33,985	34,729	37,047	37,749	36,206
Derbyshire(5)	49,457	n/a	94,632	96,746	103,413
Devon and Cornwall	102,391	121,798	148,381	165,013	175,942
Dorset	55,155	54,791	71,700	71,362	73,005
Durham	29,447	29,923	31,424	46,178	51,729
Dyfed-Powys	21,231	24,068	25,208	25,374	29,382
Essex	110,005	114,883	121,934	129,165	176,374
Gloucestershire	40,462	45,388	46,678	62,790	57,833
Greater Manchester	416,873	446,345	500,820	501,093	584663
Gwent	32,191	35,360	36,088	53,471	57,143
Hampshire	162,082	170,560	191,090	211,000	225,355
Hertfordshire	67,610	77,071	87,256	101,283	107,675
Humberside	85,632	88,402	87,653	95,238	106,042
Kent	130,015	141,769	161,149	170,908	168,849
Lancashire	71,986	102,984	156,349	132,194	177,088
Leicestershire	100,232	114,314	129,686	130,940	127,316
Lincolnshire	34,694	45,828	46,556	46,102	48,247
Merseyside	200,711	220,432	251,985	326,654	246,646
Metropolitan Police	1,347,207	1,538,385	1,681,620	1,772,871	1,875,381
Norfolk	37,143	48,984	56,261	63,684	69,852
Northamptonshire	25,027	32,256	55,994	60,028	69,581
Northumbria	213,369	224,569	222,835	229,478	227,129
North Wales	39,945	40,575	42,864	48,131	71,690
North Yorkshire	31,956	56,646	60,561	53,226	43,423
Nottinghamshire	119,489	115,695	129,831	147,739	156,239
South Wales	150,370	158,006	179,586	175,535	196,599
South Yorkshire	123,144	149,178	153,276	177,278	180,197
Staffordshire	58,935	65,266	74,900	76,400	87,737
Suffolk	27,521	30,253	56,112	60,951	61,961
Surrey	56,182	67,268	74,763	80,201	82,399
Sussex	94,251	138,265	151,652	162,452	172,250
Thames Valley	125,754	195,016	221,119	228,508	240,002
Warwickshire	43,468	48,870	54,921	60,861	63,503
West Mercia	80,894	98,539	99,012	110,688	111,924
West Midlands	358,009	412,211	455,056	462,052	479,112
West Yorkshire	267,786	323,081	348,120	342,199	353,125
Wiltshire	25,000	42,768	56,064	60,762	48,243
England and Wales Total(5)	5,297,040	(5)6,088,654	6,881,163	7,297,219	7,670,039

(4) Calls included in with the Metropolitan Police.

(5) Figures for Derbyshire are missing for 1994-95 due to the installation of a new call logging system.

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Interception of Communications Act 1985

Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many warrants under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 were (a) in force on 31 December 1998 and (b) issued during the course of 1998 for (i) the interception of telecommunications, (ii) the interception of letters and (iii) in total. [77276]

Mr. Straw: The Commissioner appointed under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 publishes figures on the number of interception warrants issued by the Home Secretary in his annual reports. In his report for 1998, (which will shortly be presented to the Prime Minister) the Commissioner will record the following numbers.

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Numbers of interception warrants issued by the Home Secretary:1998

	Number
Interception warrants in force on 31 December 1998:
Telecommunications	385
Letters	48
Total	433
Interception warrants issued during the course of 1998:
Telecommunications	1,646
Letters	117
Total	1,763

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Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for warrants under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 were refused in each of the last five years. [77278]

Mr. Straw: The information requested is not available. Each application for interception of communications is subject to careful scrutiny at a number of stages before a warrant is issued. The application is submitted by a very senior officer following scrutiny within the Agency concerned. Within my Department, it will normally be examined by officials at four successive levels of seniority before being presented to me for approval. I examine each application carefully before issuing the warrant.

At any stage in this process the case may be, and on occasion is, referred back to the applicant agency for clarification or further detail. This may, and occasionally does, result in a decision that the application should be withdrawn or that a warrant should not be issued. Records are not kept in a form which would enable the information requested to be extracted without disproportionate cost. But given the very careful scrutiny which I have described, it is seldom necessary for the Home Secretary to refuse to issue a warrant.

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