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First Place Housing
Sir David Madel: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions for what reason First Place Housing of Tavistock Street, Dunstable have been refused a further grant from his Department; and if he will make a statement. [129312]
Mr. Raynsford [holding answer 7 July 2000]: My Department offered First Place Housing a grant this year towards the costs of their outreach service. They decided however to forgo this grant and discontinue this area of their work. First Place Housing then bid for a grant under the new Special Innovation Fund. The Fund was significantly oversubscribed and we had to make some very tough choices, which has led to a large number of organisations being disappointed--many of which, like First Place Housing, had submitted proposals for worthwhile projects.
Houses (Multiple Occupancy)
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he plans to introduce compulsory licensing for homes in multiple occupancy. [129531]
Mr. Raynsford: We plan to introduce a licensing system for houses in multiple occupancy as soon as Parliamentary time can be found for the necessary primary legislation.
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Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many homes in multiple occupancy there are in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) the UK. [129532]
Mr. Raynsford: Information given to my Department by local authorities indicates that there are 1,000 houses in multiple occupation in Coventry, and 15,441 in the West Midlands. The English House Condition Survey indicates a figure of 525,000 for England. My Department does not hold information concerning houses in multiple occupation in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Household Statistics
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will publish the projected number of households in each five year period for each county and metropolitan area between 1996 and 2021, assuming zero net internal migration. [129751]
Ms Beverley Hughes: This information is not available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) if he will make a statement on (a) the scale of net regional population migration assumed in its projected level of household formations proposed for the current trend of draft regional planning guidance and (b) the assumed scale of migration underlying the figures published by the Office for National Statistics in the sub-national population projections; [129749]
- (2) what scale of net regional population migration is assumed in the projected level of household formation proposed for the current round of draft regional planning guidance (a) in each of the eight English regions and (b) for the spatial development plan for London. [129748]
Ms Beverley Hughes: Household projections are just one of the considerations taken into account in determining likely housing requirements. No explicit assumptions about population migration are made in considering draft regional planning guidance.
One of the inputs into the household projections is the sub-national population projections. These contain assumptions about inter-area migration. The migration assumptions for each area are set out in Table 6 of the Office for National Statistics 1996-based Sub-national population projections, England, Series PP3 No. 10, published by TSO.
This publication does not include information on migration flows between regions. The Office for National Statistics will be making some additional information available on these flows, shortly. I will write to my hon. Friend once this statistical information has been derived.
Rail Freight
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what will be the (a) initial and (b) longer-term cargo-deck heights on the sprinter trains proposed by the winner of the recent rail freight competition; and if the layout of their longer-term sprinter-train design has been finalised. [129997]
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Mr. Hill: The deck-height of the Railtrack MPVC (multi-purpose vehicle container) used in the trials is 120 mm and of the intermediate container flats 100 mm. Further development of the Multi-Purpose Vehicle into a freight Multiple Unit will be on the basis of a 1100 mm deck-height.
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what the target date is for having new road-rail equipment and systems in-service to allow containers arriving at docks to reach their final destinations by rail. [129998]
Mr. Hill: 9' 6" deep sea containers can be conveyed on most rail routes today. The shadow Strategic Rail Authority is developing a routing and gauge enhancement strategy with Railtrack intended to permit the carriage of 9' 6" high ISO containers on the network in the forecast over the next 20 years. The implementation of the various stages of this plan will be flexible.
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what will be the maximum cargo height on the piggyback trailer systems that have been proposed by the winner of the recent rail freight competition. [129996]
Mr. Hill: The maximum cargo-height will be 3.4 m permitting the conveyance of the semi-trailer of 9' 6" ISO containers in the wagon pockets or a C45 Swapbody over SB1-c cleared routes. SB1-c is Swapbody clearance agreement version c. This is an agreement between freight operators and the Channel Tunnel operators concerning maximum dimensions for swapbody containers which will be conveyed through the channel tunnel and also on such internal rail lines within Great Britain as have been cleared to that standard.
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions for which loading gauges the piggyback trains that have been proposed by the winner of the recent rail freight competition will be suitable. [129999]
Mr. Hill: The piggyback trailer on the multi-modal wagon will conform to the Railtrack W6A loading gauge, enabling it to run over most of the rail network.
Transport Council
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what was the outcome of the Transport Council held in Luxembourg on 26 to 27 June; and what plans there are to make EASA a European Community agency. [130000]
Mr. Hill: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 5 July 2000, Official Report, columns 181-83W to my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood), which described the outcome of the Council. There was a debate on the establishment of a European Aviation Safety Authority, at the end of which the Council asked the commission to produce a formal proposal for a community agency.
Air Traffic Control
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when the
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software that failed at West Drayton Air Traffic Control Centre on 17 June was installed; and if he will make a statement. [130009]
Mr. Hill: The software which failed on 17 June was a Flight Data Processing System known as the National Airspace System (NAS). The current software version was introduced in January 2000, with an interim upgrade in April 2000. In addition to this, the system's database and configuration parameters are modified each month. Until June this year, this software version had continued the excellent track record of reliability established by the NAS system in recent years.
The failure was cleared by reverting to a previous version of the software and as an additional precautionary measure a system message was input which actively prevented the system from exercising the faulty code sequence. Subsequently a permanent software design solution was devised, tested, and successfully installed. This has enabled National Air Traffic Services Ltd. (NATS) to restore capacity levels in the key Scottish sectors which carry a substantial amount of North Atlantic traffic.
EU Galileo Project
Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what estimate he has made of the share of the capital cost of the EU Galileo project that will fall to the UK taxpayer; and if he will make a statement. [129994]
Mr. Hill: The costs of the Galileo project would depend on decisions taken by the Council of Ministers on the project later in the year. The Government have not made an independent estimate of the costs, but the European Commission's current estimate of the capital cost is 3 billion euro for the period 2000-08, of which an estimated 1.25 billion euro would be provided by member states through European Community Programmes and the European Space Agency (ESA). The UK makes its contributions to the EU budget as a whole, not to specific programmes. We estimate that the UK share of the EU budget is around 18 per cent. The UK is contributing about 7 million euro to ESA's work on the definition phase of Galileo. A decision on whether to proceed to the development phase of Galileo may be taken by the December Transport Council. No decision has yet been made as to the UK's contribution to ESA's share of the development costs.
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