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Green Transport Plans

Ms Osborne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list the headquarters buildings in his Department which have adopted green transport plans. [137972]

Ms Beverley Hughes: Travel plans have been prepared for all 16 DETR property centres (including Executive Agencies and Government Offices where the Department has management responsibility), covering some 44 headquarters and main buildings.

House Repossessions

Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many houses were repossessed in each of the past 20 years. [137833]

Mr. Mullin: The numbers of properties in the United Kingdom repossessed by mortgage lenders in each of the past 20 years is as follows:

Period	Properties repossessed
1980	3,480
1981	4,870
1982	6,860
1983	8,420
1984	12,400
1985	19,300
1986	24,090
1987	26,390
1988	18,510
1989	15,810
1990	43,890
1991	75,540
1992	68,540
1993	58,540
1994	49,210
1995	49,410
1996	42,560
1997	32,770
1998	33,820
1999	30,030

Source:

Council of Mortgage Lenders

Smoke Detectors and Water Sprinklers

Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) if he will list the local authorities that have not installed smoke detectors in their housing stock; [137835]

(2) if he will list the local authorities which have started to install automatic water sprinklers in local authority housing in England and Wales. [137834]

Mr. Mullin: This information is not collected from local authorities, and is therefore not centrally available.

Rough Sleepers

Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many rough sleepers there were in (a) England and (b) Wales in each of the last 15 years. [137730]

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Ms Armstrong: Reliable figures are not available for the number of rough sleepers in England prior to 1998. In 1998 a methodology was developed based on a series of single night street counts and estimates by local authorities to enable this information to be collected. It was estimated that as of June 1998 there were 1,850 people sleeping rough in England in any one night. These figures are updated annually and subsequent figures showed that the number of people sleeping rough fell to 1,633 in June 1999 and 1,180 in June 2000.

Responsibility for rough sleeping in Wales is a devolved matter.

River Pollution

Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) how many grossly polluted miles of river there were in each of the past 20 years; [137826]

(2) if he will list the rivers that failed to reach the EC Urban Waste Water Directive in each of the past nine years. [137828]

Mr. Mullin: The information available on grossly polluted rivers is as follows:

Year	River lengths classified(1) grade F (Bad) in England and Wales (miles)
1999	147
1998	186
1997	281
1996	263
1995	232
1994	254
1993	361
1992	424
1991	--
1990	496
1985(2)	404
1980(2)	398

⁽¹⁾ The General Quality Assessment (GQA) scheme bases chemical river assessments on three determinants: dissolved oxygen, ammonia and biochemical oxygen demand. Samples are taken at 7,000 sites representing 25,000 miles of rivers and canals. Rivers are classified according to one of 6 grades from "Very Good" (A) to "Bad" (F).

⁽²⁾ Assessments prior to 1990 were based on a slightly different scheme. These were the lengths classified as "Bad" in that scheme.

The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive does not set quality standards for rivers. It sets standards for the quality of treated effluent discharged from sewage treatment works, based on the size of the discharge and the nature of the receiving waters.

House Construction

Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many houses were built, broken down by (a) local authority, (b) housing association and (c) private sector builds, in England and Wales in each of the last 20 years. [137735]

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Mr. Mullin: The latest figures are as follows:

Number of dwellings completed--England and Wales

Year	Private enterprise	Registered social landlords	Local authorities	All dwellings
1980	116,179	20,216	78,537	214,932
1981	104,012	17,363	58,413	179,788
1982	113,893	11,970	33,539	159,402
1983	134,901	14,865	31,633	181,399
1984	145,282	14,511	31,397	191,190
1985	142,020	11,905	24,357	178,282
1986	156,065	11,158	20,535	187,758
1987	169,895	11,402	17,433	198,730
1988	185,733	11,502	16,920	214,155
1989	163,344	12,314	15,326	190,984
1990	144,849	15,625	14,625	175,099
1991	138,572	18,081	8,544	165,197
1992	127,020	23,418	3,649	154,087
1993	123,255	32,734	1,603	157,592
1994	130,066	33,823	1,321	165,210
1995	132,549	33,430	974	166,953
1996	129,278	29,582	576	159,436
1997	134,709	22,995	291	157,995
1998	127,563	21,414	289	149,266
1999	129,512	18,345	83	147,940

PRIME MINISTER

Millennium Dome

Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Prime Minister what advice he has received from the Chairman of the New Millennium Experience Company as to the value of the site of the Dome if it were to be demolished; and when. [138017]

The Prime Minister: It is established practice under section II, paragraph 7 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information not to disclose such information.

HOME DEPARTMENT

Correspondence

Mr. Malins: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to letters from the hon. Member for Woking, dated 15 March and 26 September, concerning the asylum case of Mrs. Thu Nga Ly, reference L322968; and if he will make a statement on outstanding asylum applications of people from Vietnam. [137815]

Mrs. Roche: I have written to the hon. Member on 9 November and apologise for the lengthy delay.

Applications from Vietnamese nationals are treated in the same way as similar applications from other nationals. We have committed substantial new resources to speed up the asylum system and as these begin to deliver we expect to see significant improvements in decision times in most asylum cases, including Vietnamese.

10 Nov 2000 : Column: 424W

Illegal Immigrants

Mr. Prior: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the number of people who have entered the United Kingdom illegally since 1970. [137817]

Mrs. Roche: There is no estimate of the total number of persons who enter the country illegally since, by the very nature of the problem, it is not possible to establish that a person is here illegally until they have been traced and interviewed.

Information is available only on people who have been detected and served with papers as illegal entrants. This information is available from 1973.

The total number of persons detected and served with papers as illegal entrants between January 1973 and September 2000 is just over 150,000.

A more detailed breakdown of this figure for 1989-99 can be found in Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 1999, a copy of which is held in the Library. Information on the first half of 2000 is due to be published on 30 November in a Home Office bulletin, a copy of which will also be placed in the Library.

Anti-social Behaviour Orders

Mr. Prior: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many anti-social behaviour orders have been made (a) in the United Kingdom and (b) in Norfolk; [137821]

(2) how many anti-social behaviour orders have been breached. [137820]

Mr. Charles Clarke: Over 100 orders have been made nationally since the measure came into force on 1 April 1999. Six of these have been made in Norfolk. According to provisional figures for prosecutions at the magistrates court and convictions for all courts, there have been four prosecutions for breaches of an anti-social behaviour order up to the end of June 2000. Three of these have resulted in a conviction.

Armed Robbery

Mr. Prior: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many incidents of armed robbery there were in each year from 1990. [137818]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The most recently available information has been published in 'Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1998', and is shown in the table.

Robberies recorded by the police in which firearms (including air weapons) were used

	Number
1990	3,939
1991	5,296
1992	5,859
1993	6,012
1994	4,239
1995	4,206
1996	4,013
1997	3,209
1997-98(3)	2,939
1998-99(3)	2,973

⁽³⁾ Year ending March

10 Nov 2000 : Column: 425W

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