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Departmental Overspend

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which Departments overspent their allocated budget in 2000–01; and by how much in each case. [27927]

Mr. Andrew Smith: As set out in "Public Expenditure 2000–2001 Provisional Outturn" Cm 5243, one Department overspent its departmental expenditure limit in 2000–01—the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by £4,932,000.

International Aid

Tony Baldry: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he estimates the Government will reach the UN target of 0.7 per cent. of GNI for international aid. [27863]

Mr. Boateng: The Government remain fully committed to the UN 0.7 per cent. oda/GNP target. We have set out our plans for the next three years to 2003–04 and, as these show, development assistance as a proportion of GNP will rise to 0.33 per cent. in 2003–04, up from 0.26 per cent. in 1997. In his speech in New York and in his pre-Budget report speech, the Chancellor emphasised his commitment to ensuring further substantial increases in development assistance. The forthcoming Spending Review is an opportunity to consider plans for development spending beyond 2003–04, alongside other priorities and pressures.

Aid effectiveness is also important as well as aid volumes. The Government are committed to redirecting their development assistance budget to the poorest countries, particularly those with effective Governments pursuing high growth and pro-poor economic and social policies. In addition the Government have untied all their aid as from 1 April last year.

Enron

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will suspend Arthur Andersen accountants from Government contracts until the US Senate Committee investigation into Enron is completed. [28518]

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Mr. Andrew Smith: I am aware of no evidence to suggest any involvement by UK members of Arthur Andersen and so there are no grounds to consider suspending the firm from Government contracts.

Oil and Gas Industry (National Insurance)

Mr. Salmond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans HM Treasury has to amend the liability for and collection method of NIC contributions from those individuals employed offshore in the UK continental shelf area by non-UK companies; and if he will make a statement. [29479]

Dawn Primarolo: We have no plans to amend the liability for or collection method of national insurance contributions from these individuals.

Aggregates Levy

Mr. Salmond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact of the introduction of the aggregates levy on the Scottish economy in terms of (a) employment and (b) output. [29362]

Mr. Boateng: A Regulatory Impact Assessment for the aggregates levy was published at the time of the Budget 2000. It is available from the Customs and Excise website.

Terrorism (Spending)

Mr. Howard: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will provide a breakdown of the expected cost to Her Majesty's Government over the current financial year of the measures to combat terrorism announced by the Home Secretary on 15 October 2001, Official Report, columns 923–25. [10008]

Mr. Blunkett [holding answer 25 October 2001]: I have been asked to reply.

£8.5 million of additional funding has been allocated for a range of anti-terrorism measures in the current year. In addition to this, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Statement on the pre-Budget report, announced on 27 November that a further £30 million had been made available to the Metropolitan police and other police forces to fund the need for additional policing since 11 September, during the current financial year.

National Minimum Wage (Wealden)

Mr. Hendry: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people in Wealden received the recent increase in the national minimum wage. [29712]

Ruth Kelly: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Charles Hendry, dated 23 January 2002:

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question about the number of people in Wealden who have received the increase in the national minimum wage (NMW). (29712)

Estimates for Parliamentary Constituencies are not available.

Estimates for the United Kingdom and Government Office Regions are posted on the National Statistics website at: www.statistics.gov.uk/ nsbase/themes/labour_market/nmw_lowpay_tables.asp

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DEFENCE

Gulf War Veterans

Mr. Savidge: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the latest figures are for deaths to Gulf veterans; and what the figures are among the control group. [30323]

Dr. Moonie: Peer reviewed scientific data comparing the mortality rates of UK Gulf veterans to an era group of service personnel who did not deploy to the Gulf were published for the first time in the Lancet on 1 July 2000. Updates to these figures were provided by the Ministry of Defence to the House on 20 July 2000, 22 January 2001

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and 18 July 2001. The MOD has undertaken to continue to monitor the mortality of both Gulf veterans and the era group and will publish updated figures on a regular basis. The figures as at 31 December 2001 are shown in the table.

Overall, in the period 1 April 1991 to 31 December 2001, the mortality of UK Gulf veterans was no different than that of the control group. Slightly fewer Gulf veterans have died from disease-related causes than have those in the control group, whereas the number of Gulf veterans dying of external causes is a little higher than for the control group. These differences are similar to those shown by the figures published in July 2001.

Deaths to UK Gulf veterans⁽⁶⁾ 1 April 1991 to 31 December 2001 Causes (coded to ICD-9)⁽⁷⁾

ICD Chapter	Cause of death	Gulf	Era	Mortality rate ratio(8)
	All deaths	524	520	1.00
	All cause coded deaths	514	510	1.00
I-XVI	Disease-related causes	198	240	0.82
I	Infectious and parasitic diseases	3	2	1.49
II	Cancers	84	94	0.89
III	Endocrine and immune disorders	1	4	0.25
V	Mental disorders	11	12	0.91
VI	Diseases of the nervous system and sense organs	7	6	1.16
VII	Diseases of the circulatory system	68	90	0.75
VII	Diseases of the respiratory system	10	5	1.99
IX	Diseases of the digestive system	11	16	0.68
IV, X-XVI	All other disease-related causes	3	11	0.27
EXVII	External causes of injury and poisoning	316	270	1.17
	Railway accidents	4	1	3.98
	Motor vehicle accidents	110	92	1.19
	Water transport accidents	4	1	3.98
	Air and space accidents	25	17	1.46
	Other vehicles accidents	0	1	0.00
	Accidental poisoning	10	14	0.71
	Accidental falls	8	6	1.33
	Accidents due to fire/flames	0	2	0.00
	Accidents due to natural environmental factors	2	2	1.00
	Accidents due to submersion/suffocation/foreign bodies	17	7	2.42
	Other accidents	31	27	1.14
	Late effects of accident/injury	0	2	0.00
	Suicide and injury undetermined whether accidental	97	90	1.07
	Homicide	5	4	1.24
	Injury resulting from the operations of war	3	4	0.75
	Other deaths for which coded cause data are not yet available	7	7	—
	Overseas deaths for which cause data are not available	3	3	—

⁽⁶⁾ Service and ex-Service personnel only.

⁽⁷⁾ World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases 9th revision 1997.

⁽⁸⁾ Mortality rate ratios differ marginally from the crude deaths ratio owing to some small differences between the Gulf and Era cohorts.

Computer Crime

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many cases of computer (a) hacking, (b) fraud and (c) theft his Department recorded in 2000 and 2001; and on how many occasions in 2000 and 2001 computer systems in his Department have been illegally accessed by computer hackers within and outside his Department. [10975]

Dr. Moonie: The number of incidents affecting computer systems for the years 2000 and 2001 are summarised in the table:

Incident type	2000	2001(9)
Computer hacking total	9	12
of which there were:
website defacements	3	2
internal incursions	6	10
Computer fraud	4	4
Computer theft(10)	267	312

⁽⁹⁾ Reports thus far.

⁽¹⁰⁾ Computer theft figures include desktops, laptops and items of computer peripheral equipment.

None of the instances of hacking had any operational impact, and despite widespread and frequent probes of the Ministry of Defence firewalls connected to the internet, there is no evidence of any successful incursion from an external source to any departmental computer system. While website defacement may constitute an offence under The Computer Misuse Act 1990, none of the instances recorded provided clear grounds for prosecution.

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In the case of computer fraud, all instances are cases where MOD computers have been used in support of fraudulent activities, rather than specific fraud of a computer based system.

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