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Recycling
Mr. Crausby: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what percentage of documentation used by his Department is (a) made from recycled paper and (b) collected for recycling. [111605]
Mr. Ingram: The information is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Decommissioning
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a further statement about decommissioning of illegally held arms in Northern Ireland. [111405]
Mr. Ingram: There is no doubt that we have experienced a number of setbacks in recent weeks. However, the maintenance of the IRA cease-fire, as General de Chastelain has acknowledged, represents an important step and has contributed greatly to the peace process. It is important that we build upon that.
General de Chastelain's last report gave some grounds for optimism, but it is imperative that we have clarity on the issue of decommissioning before we can restore
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devolved government in Northern Ireland. We are all agreed that the Good Friday Agreement has to be implemented in full. The obligations on all sides have not changed.
Our priority is to work together with the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland parties to restore the institutions quickly, and to see that decommissioning begins as soon as possible. What we all need to do now, after recent disappointments, is to move on together without any recrimination and without any precondition. What is important is that substantive progress is made now. The next step is to decommission weapons, and that must happen soon.
Mr. Beggs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the future of Ballymena Government Training Centre, Co. Antrim indicating the steps being taken to redeploy instructors, administrative staff and industrial staff employed at the Centre and the likely number of redundancies in each group of employees. [112406]
Mr. Ingram:
Responsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Training and Employment Agency under its Chief Executive. Mr. Ian Walters. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Ian Walters to Mr. Roy Beggs, dated 1 March 2000:
Jean Corston:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what changes there are to his Department's departmental expenditure limit. [113148]
Mr. Mandelson:
Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Revised Spring Supplementary Estimate the Departmental Expenditure Limit for the Northern Ireland Office will be increased by £4,221,000 from £1,025,277,000 to £1,029,498,000. This is to fund
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expenditure arising from the Northern Ireland Act 2000. Pending that approval, expenditure of £4,221,000 will be met by a repayable advance from the Contingencies Fund.
This increase will be offset by a reduction in expenditure of the Northern Ireland Departments and will therefore not add to the total of planned Public Expenditure.
Mr. Lansley:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what recent appointments she has made to support her work on the Government's anti-drugs strategy. [112384]
Mr. Ian McCartney:
My right hon. Friend has made no recent appointments in this area.
Mr. Lansley:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office (1) on what projects the UK Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator will work with the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward); [112383]
Mr. Ian McCartney:
The Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator has been asked to consider what more could be done to co-ordinate work on drugs in schools. This involves discussions with the Department for Education and Employment and organisations such as the Metropolitan Police and Childline. In the light of his experience with Childline, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) has met the UK anti-drugs co-ordinator on this issue. There is no question of civil service support being made available to the hon. Member for Witney.
The Secretary of State has asked me, as Chief Executive of the Training and Employment Agency, to reply to your question about the future of Ballymena Training Centre, the steps being taken to re-deploy staff, and the likely number of redundancies.
Following a review of training centres and Further Education colleges, the then Minister, Mr. McFall, confirmed in September 1999 that planning would proceed on the merger of the training centres and FE colleges. Plans are underway for Ballymena Training Centre to become fully integrated into the North East Institute of Further and Higher Education and the aim is for the merger to take effect in September 2000.
To help facilitate the merger process, the Department, acting through the Agency, has introduced a voluntary redundancy scheme for training centre staff in the instructional and industrial grades. In Ballymena, 11 staff out of a total of 30 staff have applied for and been granted voluntary redundancy. There will be a further opportunity for staff in these grades to apply for the voluntary redundancy scheme in the next few months.
Arrangements are being discussed for instructional and industrial staff who prefer to transfer to employment with North East Institute, to do so with appropriate protection of their employment rights.
I expect that all administrative staff in the training centre will be re-deployed to other parts of the Department or, perhaps, the wider Northern Ireland Civil Service. There is no need for a voluntary redundancy scheme for this group of staff.
I hope you find this information helpful.
(2) what Civil Service support will be made available to the hon. Member for Witney in his work in relation to drugs and children. [112385]
Mozambique
Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will list the emergency help sent so far to Mozambique during the recent flooding; and if she will make a statement. [112694]
Clare Short: My Department deployed two humanitarian specialists to the region during the initial stages of the flooding on 11 February. They conducted rapid assessments and liaised with the Mozambican authorities and humanitarian organisations to help identify priority needs. We despatched a consignment of over 400 tents on 12 February from the UK to Maputo for the Red Cross to distribute for emergency shelter to those made homeless. We also supported the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team who are assisting the Mozambican authorities with the targeting and coordination of the relief efforts. Given the deteriorating situation over the last week we redeployed a humanitarian specialist to Mozambique to work alongside permanent DFID staff in Maputo.
We have mobilised 11 helicopters, including four from the RAF, to assist with the rescue and relief effort. We have also provided US$1 million to the World Food
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Programme to support the continued operations of helicopters from the South African Defence Force. To assist with the effective tasking of all helicopters, we have seconded a logistics expert into the World Food Programme. But helicopters are not the total answer. We are also deploying 70 boats and specialist trained crews, together with a number of large capacity self-inflating life rafts. DFID has already contributed over £5.8 million for rescue and immediate relief including the provision of shelter, water, sanitation and health support. This funding has been channelled through the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNICEF, World Food Programme, Red Cross, ActionAid, Oxfam, Save the Children Fund and World Vision. These activities are being coordinated with the Mozambican authorities. We stand ready to provide further assistance.
NHS Dentistry
Mr. Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what assessment he has made of the level of demand for NHS dentistry in the next five years; [109828]
- (2) what estimate he has made of the number of dentists required to meet current demand for NHS treatment; [109855]
(3) what estimate he has made of the number of patients waiting to see an NHS dentist; [109866]
(4) what is the average waiting time to see an NHS dentist in Shropshire. [109835]
Mr. Hutton: The number of dentists in the General Dental Service in England at December 1999 (the latest date for which figures are available) was 17,746, an all time high and an increase of 480 from the previous year. Access problems are largely attributable to increases in the proportion of the time which dentists spend treating private patients and in the numbers of dentists working part-time. We therefore believe that we need to increase the level of dentists' commitment to the National Health Service. The Government will discuss with the profession a scheme to encourage and reward commitment to the NHS, paying out about £17 million a year.
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