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Workplace Parking
Mr. Gray: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many workplace car parking spaces are available at the buildings used and controlled by his Department. [116760]
Mr. Lock: The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS
Departmental Expenditure
Mr. David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to change his departmental expenditure limits for 1999-2000. [117304]
{**con**}{**/con**}
Mr. Prescott: (i)
The DETR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit will be increased by £700,000 from £10,403,990,000 to £10,404,690,000 as a result of a transfer of this amount from the DETR Local Government Departmental Expenditure Limit. There are
30 Mar 2000 : Column: 224W
also changes between the Voted and non-Voted elements of the Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit. The changes are set out in greater detail as follows.
(ii) The DETR Local Government Departmental Expenditure Limit will be increased by £720,000 from £34,218,737,000 to £34,219,457,000. This increase is the net effect of a take-up of end year flexibility of £1,420,000 and a transfer of £700,000 to the DETR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit. The changes are set out in greater detail as follows.
The transfers will be offset by transfers or charged to the DEL Reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.
Mr. Hoyle:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will provide the details of the 2000-01 charging scheme for local air pollution control under Part I of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. [117388]
Mr. Hill:
Charges to cover the costs of local enforcing authorities in regulating processes which are subject to Part I of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 were introduced in April 1991.
With the approval of the Treasury, and following consultation with local authority associations and industry, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions has made a revised scheme specifying the scale of fees and charges to take effect from 1 April 2000.
The initial application fee will be unchanged and the annual subsistence fee will be increased by roughly 0.75 per cent. The main change is that the standard subsistence fee is increased by £6 from £790 to £796. The standard application fee remains at £1,280.
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The scheme will be laid before both Houses and copies placed in the Libraries.
Mr. Fitzpatrick:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what amount of Greater London Authority transport grant he has determined for 2000-01. [117389]
Mr. Hill:
I have today formally determined GLA Transport Grant at £392,700,000. £73,768,000 is to cover period before Transport for London assumes its full responsibilities on 3 July 2000. This is therefore for amounts to be spent by the relevant predecessor bodies of Transport for London, including the Secretary of State himself. The balance of £318,932,000 will be paid in instalments to the Greater London Authority for the purposes of Transport for London.
Mr. Ivan Henderson:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he expects to announce the key targets for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for 2000-01. [117390]
Mr. Hill:
I have today placed in the House Library a copy of the Agency's Business Plan which includes its key targets for 2000-01. The key targets are:
Ms Harman:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what further progress has been made with the London Underground public private partnership; and if he will make a statement. [117391]
30 Mar 2000 : Column: 226W
Mr. Hill:
London Transport awaits bids for the two deep tube infrastructure service contracts tomorrow. These will be very detailed, weighty proposals. It will take several weeks to analyse and clarify them properly. When this process is completed, the bids will be tested for best value against the public sector comparator.
I have today placed in the Library of the House a detailed note which describes how London Transport have constructed the public sector comparator against which bids for infrastructure improvement and maintenance contracts under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) can be tested.
The methodology on which the comparator has been built is designed to offer a fair and reliable estimate of how much it would cost London Underground itself to carry out all the work needed to upgrade and maintain the Underground network over the next 30 years, to the standard required under the PPP contracts. The comparator will show the cost for each of the three infrastructure companies separately, so that each bid can be directly assessed against its public sector alternative.
The comparator will also explicitly establish how much it would cost to deliver the required contract outputs if London Underground were to raise the necessary finance through the issuance of public sector bonds. The bids will also be tested against this means of raising finance.
The methodology which London Underground is using, and which is described in the note that I have placed in the Library, has been reviewed by KPMG as London Underground's independent, external auditors. KPMG were asked to consider whether the note accorded with the relevant Treasury guidance and was appropriate to the circumstances of the PPP. KPMG will also be asked to review the actual comparator and the bond-financed variant before they are used to test bids for best value.
The actual values produced by the comparator can be released only once negotiations with bidders have been completed, so as not to expose the taxpayer's negotiating position, and thus jeopardise the chances of securing best value.
As well as the external audit undertaken by KPMG, the design, construction and use of the comparator will be made available for scrutiny by the National Audit Office (NAO). The NAO has made clear that while it is always available to give guidance to the bodies whom it audits on areas of risk and uncertainty, and to draw attention to relevant financial experience in NAO and Public Accounts Committee reports--my Department has accordingly received such guidance--it could not go further and become involved in the decision-making process. This would inevitably lead to questions about its ability subsequently to carry out an independent examination for Parliament, once the key decisions on the PPP have been taken.
The NAO, however, notes that as part of the decision-making process, London Transport is having its work on building and using the public sector comparator reviewed by KPMG. The NAO regards it as being in line with good practice for such comparators to receive scrutiny external to the project.
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(a) Provision within the non-Voted element of the DETR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit will be increased by £7,413,000 from £1,697,254,000 to £1,704,667,000. This reflects a transfer of £700,000 from the DETR Local Government Departmental Expenditure Limit, a transfer of £910,000 from Class III, Vote 2 (Planning, roads, local transport and vehicle safety); and £5,803,000 from Class III, Vote 6 (Transport industries).
(b) The transfer of £700,000 from the DETR Local Government Departmental Expenditure Limit to the non-Voted element of the DETR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit is to provide other capital support to the London Borough of Haringey.
(c) The change for Class III, Vote 2 (Planning, roads, local transport and vehicle safety) is a transfer of £910,000 to the non-Voted element of the DETR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit for transport Supplementary Credit Approvals.
(d) The change for Class III, Vote 6 (Transport industries) is a transfer of £5,803,000 to the non-Voted element of the DETR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit to take account of British Rail's revised grant claim for 1999-2000.
(a) Provision within the non-Voted element of the Local Government Departmental Expenditure Limit will be increased by £720,000 from £371,906,000 to £372,626,000. This reflects a take-up of end year flexibility of £1,420,000 for the Local Authority Capital Challenge programme, and a transfer of £700,000 to the DETR Main Programmes Departmental Expenditure Limit for other capital support to the London Borough of Haringey.
to agree a new statutory safety regime for under 12 m fishing vessels by 31 october for implementation by 30 April 2001;
to complete at least 95 per cent. of the agreed programme of vessel inspections by March 2001;
to decide on the search and rescue response to accidents and life-threatening situations, and to initiate action if necessary, within 5 minutes of being alerted in at least 95 per cent. of cases;
to undertake a review of the UK Search and Rescue Helicopter coverage as recommended in the National Audit Office report, "Civil Maritime Search and Rescue", and make recommendations to Ministers by December;
following the Marine Environment High Risk Areas consultation we will prepare for Ministers a response plan by autumn 2000 proposing the most cost effective options for Emergency Towing Vessel provision;
to evaluate and report to Ministers on the effectiveness of the National Contingency Plan for Counter Pollution by March 2001;
to evaluate the provision of UK port waste reception facilities and report to Ministers on this by December;
following an analysis of Headquarters and regional management costs, produce a specific programme for new efficiency measures and proposals to reduce such costs, and set targets for Agency management costs against pay and non-pay costs by July, for each of the years 2001-04;
to analyse the first annual cycle of the time-recording Management Information System to agree, by September, specific national and regional targets for chargeable, other core and non-core activities undertaken by operational staff for 2001-04;
to complete re-location programme by releasing properties in Liverpool, Great Yarmouth, Plymouth and Newcastle by 31 March 2001.
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