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Conoco Humber Refinery

Shona McIsaac: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he will announce his decision on Conoco Global Development UK Ltd.'s proposal to build a combined heat and power station at the Conoco Humber Refinery at South Killingholme. [138420]

Mrs. Liddell: I have today granted consent under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to Conoco Global Power Developments UK Ltd. for the construction of a 475 megawatt gas-fired combined heat and power station at the Conoco Humber Refinery at South Killingholme in North Lincolnshire. The station has also today been given clearance as a gas-fired station under section 14 of the Energy Act 1976 and planning permission for the station has been deemed to be granted subject to 47 planning conditions agreed with the North Lincolnshire Borough Council.

The station will supply the energy requirements of the Conoco Humber Refinery and the Lindsay Oil Refinery and is the largest combined heat and power station given approval by the Government. This demonstrates our continued support to promote CHP stations, wherever practicable, and our commitment to reducing emissions of carbon to fulfil the promises we gave at Kyoto.

Copies of the Press Notice and decision letters are being placed in the Library of the House.

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Green Technologies

Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on progress made by his Department's Joint Environmental Markets Unit in securing sales of British green technologies and services abroad. [137873]

Ms Hewitt: The Joint Environmental Market Unit's (JEMU's) role--working with others such as Trade Partners UK--is to promote the UK's environmental industry's capabilities and to help provide market access to relevant suppliers. JEMU has made good progress in implementing specific initiatives identified in its three year Business Plan, published in 1998. A key achievement has been the development of the first online database of UK environmental capabilities, providing a world wide shop window which enables companies to be contacted directly from one site. Representatives of the UK environmental industry have recently acknowledged JEMU's contribution to trade promotion as being relevant and effective.

MOX Fuel

Mr. Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representation his Department received at the Plutonium 2000 Conference held in

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Brussels in October; and what assessment he has made of the presentation made on the business viability of BNFL's plutonium MOX fuel plans. [137870]

Mrs. Liddell: Officials from my Department attended the Plutonium 2000 Conference but received no formal representations.

Presentations made at the Conference will be considered in the context of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions' forthcoming consultation document on Radioactive Waste Management as appropriate.

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Mr. Simon Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much he has spent on the development of (a) on-shore wind generated power, (b) biomass energy, (c) wave generated power, (d) Solar energy and (e) off-shore wind power in each year since 1995. [137213]

Mrs. Liddell: The DTI's new and renewable energy programme supports research, development and demonstration, as well as technology transfer and export promotion activities. The breakdown of net expenditure on specific technologies is as shown.

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	£ million
	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000
(a) On-shore wind	3.4	2.5	1.2	1.0	0.9
(e) Off-shore wind(28)
(b) Biomass energy	3.4	2.7	1.4	1.2	1.6
(c) Wave power	0.08	0.14	0.06	0.17	0.15
(d) Solar energy(29)	1.9	2.0	1.7	1.0	1.3

⁽²⁸⁾ Historically data are not broken down between on-shore and off-shore wind technologies.

⁽²⁹⁾ Up to 1998 the solar programme was focused on passive solar design of buildings. Since then work has primarily focused on photovoltaics.

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Oil

Mr. Simon Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received on the environmental impact of using oil as an energy source. [137218]

Mrs. Liddell: A number of representations have been received, including from business organisations.

Mr. Simon Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action his Department (a) has taken and (b) intends to take to address the environmental impact of using oil as an energy source. [137219]

Mrs. Liddell: Environmental issues related to the extraction of oil are regulated in the main according to the Offshore Petroleum Production and Pipe-lines (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1999. Other environmental legislation such as the Prevention of Oil Pollution Act 1971 also applies. The environmental aspects of oil production are kept under review and it is planned to introduce further legislation to deal with specific aspects.

UK refineries have invested heavily in recent years to meet rising environmental standards, influenced--among other requirements--by the EU's Auto-Oil programme. They are regulated under the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control regime. All oil-fired Large Combustion Plant will be controlled through the revised EU Large Combustion Plant Directive. In addition, the UNECE Gothenburg Protocol and the proposed EU National Emissions Ceiling Directive will set annual emission ceilings for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from 2010.

Emissions attached to the final use of oils in transport are the responsibility of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions.

Much of the industrial use of oil will come under the requirements of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control regime.

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Compensation Claims

Mr. Watts: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action he is taking to speed up the process of settling outstanding compensation claims. [136961]

Mrs. Liddell: In relation to claims for respiratory disease, progress has been too slow. However, in September I announced a twin track approach.

Firstly, we are making offers of increased amounts as expedited payments to thousands of miners and are extending expedited offers to some claimants not previously eligible, without them undergoing further tests. To date we have already made some 9,720 additional and new offers totalling £32.4 million. Altogether we hope to make over 19,000 offers totalling around £100 million before Christmas.

In addition, I announced an increase in the numbers of medical testing centres and record scanning teams. We are also seeking to streamline the Medical Assessment Process and records collection, and these proposals are being taken forward with the claimants' solicitors.

On Vibration White Finger, we aim to have carried out initial assessments on all the existing claimants by the end of next year. A further assessment may be required for those claimants seeking compensation for loss of services but this is still under consideration.

In total, this Government have now paid out some £250 million in respect of the liabilities we inherited from British Coal.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

Physical Education

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what the average time is spent by each pupil per week on physical education in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools. [134709]

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Jacqui Smith: The total number of hours spent on Physical Education is not available as the length of the school week varies from school to school. However, recent research by MORI confirms that the most popular out-of-school hours learning activity was participating in sport. It shows that the vast majority of schools have increased their extracurricular activities over the last two years. We have set an aspiration that all schools should provide two hours of curricular or extracurricular activities a week, and we are working to encourage schools and partners in the sports sector to deliver this through the Sports Strategy, an important part of which is promoting team games.

Individual Learning Accounts

Mr. Hilary Benn: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on progress in developing Individual Learning Accounts. [137369]

Mr. Wicks: According to the latest figures, people in England had opened around 400,000 Individual Learning Accounts. This represents good progress towards meeting the UK target of 500,000 accounts opened by March 2001 and of one million accounts by April 2002.

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