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ECG Screening
Mr. David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to introduce ECG screening for cardiac risks in the young; and if he will make a statement. [82081]
Mr. Hutton: The National Screening Committee, which advises Ministers about changes to screening policy, has commissioned a report on screening for heart disease in children. This will be considered by its Child Health Screening Policy Sub-Committee shortly. The National Screening Committee will be in a position to offer advice in the autumn.
WALES
National Assembly
Mr. Dafis: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the posts created in the National Assembly for Wales which stipulate knowledge of the Welsh language as (a) necessary and (b) desirable; and those posts for which there is no such stipulation. [78773]
Mr. Michael: Welsh has been specified as essential for posts in the translation service and in the editorial team for the record of Assembly business. Jobs for which Welsh is essential are carefully considered before reaching that conclusion and have attracted a choice of candidates. Posts for which Welsh is desirable or an advantage have been well subscribed by both English and Welsh speakers and also those speaking other modern World languages. An example is the recent Middle Managers recruitment scheme for which Welsh was identified as desirable and which generated over 1,000 applications for a possible 20 posts, the majority from English speakers.
Welsh has been described as an advantage for a number of other posts. For posts where Welsh is advertised as desirable or an advantage, it could be used as a deciding factor only where two candidates were equally good in all other respects. There are no posts for which a knowledge of Welsh is undesirable.
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1. Posts for which Welsh is essential
Translators
Editorial Team
Committee Clerks--2 (out of 7)
Deputy Committee Clerks--2 (out of 7)
2. Posts where Welsh is an advantage
Head of Committee Secretariat
Staff of Committee Secretariat
Head of Public Information and Education Services
Public Information and Education Support Team
Head of Members Information and Briefing Service
Members Information and Briefing Service Support Team
Head of Chamber Secretariat
Head of Table Office
Table Office Support Team
Private Secretary to the Presiding and Deputy Presiding Officer
Librarian
Assistant Economist
General Executive Officer
Assistant Librarian
IS/IT Co-ordinator
Record of Proceeding Support Team
3. Other posts
Director of Public Information and Education
PS/PA to Director of Assembly Communications
Middle Managers
Security Guards/Ushers.
Consultations (Postal Costs)
Mr. Keetch: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will pay the postal costs of voluntary bodies and registered charities requested to respond to Government consultation documents; and if he will make a statement. [80916]
Mr. Michael: When voluntary bodies and registered charities are invited to respond to a Welsh Office consultation paper, postal costs are not covered automatically. The Department would consider any claim on its merits, taking account of such factors as the nature of the organisation, the scale of the consultation exercise and the information requested.
The Welsh Office does not pay postal costs incurred by organisations responding to consultation from other Government Departments. It is for individual Departments to decide whether to cover these.
Gifted Children
Mr. Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what initiatives the Government have announced with respect to gifted children; [81585]
- (2) what provision his Department advises local authorities to make with respect to gifted children at state schools. [81584]
Mr. Hain: Local education authorities have a statutory duty to ensure pupils of statutory school age receive education suitable to their age, ability or aptitude, including pupils of above average ability. This will usually be in a mainstream school. The National Curriculum provides for children of all abilities, including those who are gifted. The Education Act 1996 gives LEAs discretion to arrange for the withdrawal of a pupil from primary school for the purpose of receiving secondary education once a child has reached the age of 10 years and 6 months.
Our priority is to improve standards of educational attainment for all children in Wales. The Welsh Office Education White Paper "Building Excellent Schools Together", published in July 1997, recognised the need for schools to stretch gifted pupils to achieve their full potential. The Government have established a Gifted and Talented Advisory Group to contribute to the development of a strategy for the early identification and effective provision for gifted and talented children. The Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for
29 Apr 1999 : Column: 255
Wales (ACCAC), which is represented on the Group, will also ensure that the needs of such pupils are considered as part of their review of the National Curriculum in Wales.
Following the transfer of functions, these issues will become the responsibility of the National Assembly.
Mr. Dismore:
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on his Department's policy when (a) conducting legal proceedings and (b) seeking legal advice as to the circumstances in which Queen's Counsel should be instructed; and for each of the last three years (i) on how many occasions his Department instructed Queen's Counsel and (ii) what was the total cost of instructing Queen's Counsel. [81767]
Mr. Michael:
The Treasury Solicitor's Department, acting on behalf of the Welsh Office, predominantly use junior counsel when it is necessary to instruct counsel to provide legal advice or to conduct legal proceedings.
In civil cases, the two First Treasury Counsel are both junior counsel and they will advise and represent the Government without a Queen's Counsel in many of their important cases. In addition, the Attorney-General maintains four panels of junior Counsel whom Departments are expected to use for the majority of the Government's civil litigation. The Attorney-General's approval, or that of the Solicitor-General, is required before a Queen's Counsel can be instructed to appear for any Government Department in civil litigation.
In determining the level of counsel to use, the Department considers the individual circumstances of each case. Amongst other things it takes into account, inter alia, the importance and sensitivity of the case, the complexity of the law, the weight and complexity of the evidence, and the degree of experience and expertise required before deciding whether to instruct Queen's Counsel or junior counsel.
For the years in question Queen's Counsel were instructed as follows:
Mr. Evans:
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if consents for building power stations will be a matter devolved to the Welsh Assembly. [82245]
Mr. Wilshire:
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much central Government money was spent per capita in 1998 in Wales on helping schools meet special educational needs. [82198]
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Mr. Hain
[holding answer 26 April 1999]: Local authorities are funded to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs through the annual local government revenue settlement. It is not possible to identify school expenditure on SEN from the returns made by local authorities.
In 1997-98, £1.3 million was made available under the Grants for Education Support and Training programme to promote SEN provision.
Following the transfer of functions, this issue will become a matter for the National Assembly.
Mr. Lansley:
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list, for each health authority and NHS trust in Wales, the projected budget surplus or deficit planned by that authority or trust for the financial year 1999-2000. [82671]
Mr. Jon Owen Jones:
I regret the information requested is not yet available. Health authorities and trusts will prepare their financial projections for the year 1999-2000 once they have had an opportunity to assess the financial implications of the health authority allocations which will be issued shortly.
Following the transfer of functions, this issue will be a matter for the National Assembly.
1997: 3 occasions
1998: 4 occasions
1999: 3 occasions.
Costs paid to date in instructing Queen's Counsel, excluding Counsel engaged on the North Wales Child Abuse Inquiry, are currently £83,376 for the years in question. So far as the costs arising from the North Wales Inquiry are concerned, this is information which cannot be extracted from the file and invoice records without incurring disproportionate cost.
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