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Lawyers

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many lawyers are employed by his Department; and how many were employed in 1995. [117816]

Mr. Chris Smith: No lawyers are employed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Legal services are provided through an agreement between the Department and the Treasury Solicitor's Department.

12 Apr 2000 : Column: 159W

Five lawyers at the Treasury Solicitor's Department were allocated to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as at 31 March 2000 and four were allocated to the Department for National Heritage in 1995.

TREASURY

Working Families Tax Credit

Siobhain McDonagh: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact of the increase in the Working Families Tax Credit on families in Northern Ireland. [117429]

Mr. Timms: 30,722 families in Northern Ireland had been awarded the Working Families Tax Credit by the end of February 2000. In addition, 4,351 families were still on Family Credit at that date. The sum of these two figures is more than 5,000 higher than the number of Northern Ireland families with Family Credit awards current at August 1999.

For the United Kingdom as a whole it is expected that families will get £24 per week more on average under the Working Families Tax Credit than under Family Credit. This includes families who would not have qualified for Family Credit.

Mr. William Ross: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many families are receiving Working Families Tax Credit in Northern Ireland; of these how many he estimates are farming families; and what percentage of farming families in Northern Ireland this represents. [116358]

Mr. Timms: 30,722 families in Northern Ireland had been awarded the Working Families Tax Credit by the end of February 2000. Of these, 1,149 were awards to families where the main earner was classified to the Standard Occupation Code "Farmer". It is not known how many families with children in Northern Ireland have a farmer as their main earner.

Tax Credits

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the differences are between administration targets for the handling of tax credit related claims in respect of (a) working families and (b) disabled people. [118011]

Mr. Timms [holding answer 6 April 2000]: The targets adopted by the Tax Credit Office for handling applications for Working Families Tax Credit and Disabled Person's Tax Credit for the period from 1 October 1999 to 31 March 2000 were the ones which the Benefits Agency had agreed for Family Credit and Disability Working Allowance respectively for the period from 1 April to 30 September 1999. The targets were:

Working Families Tax Credit
to clear 90 per cent. of express applications (those from employees making their first application) within five working days
to clear 95 per cent. of non-express applications within 42 working days (and 60 per cent. within 13 working days)
to process 91 per cent. of all applications accurately.

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Disabled Person's Tax Credit
to clear 90 per cent. of applications within 43 working days (60 per cent. within 17 working days)
to process 94 per cent. of all applications accurately.

My hon. Friend the Paymaster General is currently discussing with the Inland Revenue all targets for the year 2000-01.

Mr. Field: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will disaggregate by income decile the number of families claiming the child care component of the Working Families Tax Credit; [117502]

(2) if he will disaggregate by income decile the number of people in receipt of each tax credit since its introduction. [117503]

Mr. Timms [holding answer 3 April 2000]: The two tax credits introduced to date are the Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) and the Disabled Person's Tax Credit (DPTC). Insufficient data on income are provided by applicants for these tax credits to allocate them between decile groups of income as conventionally defined for such analyses. Also, household survey data available for analysis do not yet cover families receiving the tax credits. So it is not yet possible to provide the requested analysis for recipients of the tax credits.

Smuggling

Mr. Ruane: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many customs officers were employed on anti-smuggling activities in each of the past 10 years. [117549]

Mr. Timms [holding answer 3 April 2000]: The total number of Customs officers (in terms of staff years) allocated to frontier anti-smuggling work in the last 10 years, and planned for the next three years, is as follows:

Year	Number
2002-03	2,676
2001-02	2,576
2000-01	2,449
1999-2000	2,281
1998-99	2,263
1997-98	2,288
1996-97	2,288
1995-96	2,580
1994-95	2,715
1993-94	2,895
1992-93	2,895
1991-92	3,082
1990-91	3,082

Lawyers

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many lawyers are employed by his Department; and how many were employed in 1995. [117806]

Miss Melanie Johnson: Legal advice to the Treasury is provided by the Treasury Legal Advisers' Team of the Treasury Solicitor's Department. These lawyers are employed by the Treasury Solicitor's Department and then allocated to the Treasury. There were 14 legal advisers allocated to the Treasury on 1 April 1995 and

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18 on 1 April 2000. Although allocated to the Treasury, these advisers also provide some advice to other Departments.

Beta Interferon

Mr. Heppell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what import duty and tax is paid on imported Beta Interferon. [118528]

Mr. Timms: All drugs and medicines are subject to VAT at 17½ per cent. on importation. This product is free of customs duty at importation.

Where imported drugs and medicines are subsequently dispensed to patients on prescription, the zero-rate of VAT applies.

VAT (Low-emissivity Glass)

Mr. Paul Marsden: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will cut the rate of VAT on low-emissivity glass; and if he will make a statement. [118413]

Mr. Timms: The Government introduced a reduced rate for the installation of energy saving materials in all homes in the Budget. The reduced rate applies only to the installation of certain materials whose primary purpose is to save energy. Low-emissivity glass increases the energy efficiency of windows, but that feature is incidental to its main purpose.

Budget Calculations

Mr. Hunter: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what rate of inflation he used when calculating the increase in petrol duty, and VAT, announced in his recent Budget statement. [118746]

Dawn Primarolo: The methodology for calculating the changes in taxes to take account of inflation is set out in Appendix A1 in the Financial Statement and Budget Report.

Mr. Hunter: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which measures announced in the Budget statement were based on a forecast inflation rate. [118748]

Dawn Primarolo: The details of how the tax base is indexed to take account of inflation, and when a forecast is used, is set out in Appendix A1 in the Financial Statement and Budget Report.

Climate Change Levy

Dr. Starkey: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the cost would be of extending the 80 per cent. discount on the climate change levy to horticulture for the financial year 2000-01. [118584]

Mr. Timms: As announced in Budget 1999, the Government intend to bring forward legislation in the Finance Bill 2000 to introduce a climate change levy with effect from April 2001. The levy will not be applied in the financial year 2000-01.

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Employment Statistics

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimates he has made of the number of (a) men and (b) women in (i) full-time and (ii) part-time work who are aged (1) over 90, (2) 85 to 90, (3) 80 to 85, (4) 75 to 80, (5) 70 to 75 and (6) 65 to 70 years. [118648]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from John Pullinger to Mr. Gordon Prentice, dated 12 April 2000:

The Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been asked to reply to your recent question on people of various age groups who are in employment. I am replying in the Director's absence.
The attached table shows non-seasonally adjusted estimates from the Labour Force (LFS) which is the main source of labour market data on individuals. It gives the average number of men and women in full or part-time employment by age group between winter (December to February) 1998/9 and autumn (September to November) 1999.
The estimates for groups over 80 years of age have been combined in the table as those for the individual age groups requested proved to be statistically unreliable.
People aged 16 or over are classed as in employment by the LFS if they have done at least one hour of paid work (as an employee or self-employed) in the week prior to their LFS interview of if they have a job that they are temporarily away from. People who do unpaid work in a family business and people on Government- supported training and employment programmes are also included according to the International Labour Organisation convention.

People in employment (working full or part-time by age and gender) UK, annual average, winter 1998-99 to autumn 1999

			Thousand
Age group	All in employment (1)	In full-time employment	In part-time employment
Men
65-69	180	69	111
70-74	68	17	51
75-79	24	(2)--	20
80 or over	10	(2)--	9
Women
65-69	112	12	99
70-74	36	(2)--	32
75-79	13	(2)--	12
80 or over	6	(2)--	(2)--

(1) Includes people who did not state whether they work full or part-time.

(2) Sample size too small for reliable estimate.

Source:

Labour Force Survey, ONS

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