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Customs and Excise

Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the key operating divisions of HM Customs and Excise are; and how many full-time equivalent staff are engaged in each. [57542]

Mr. Boateng: The key operating divisions of HM Customs and Excise are their three businesses:
Business Services and Taxes
Full-time equivalent staff in post—10,979 on 1 May 2002
Law Enforcement
Full-time equivalent staff in post—7,531 on 1 May 2002
Support Services
Full-time equivalent staff in post—3,776 on 1 May 2002.

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Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the responsibilities (a) added to and (b) removed from HM Customs and Excise since 1997. [57541]

Mr. Boateng: (a) Responsibilities added:

Money Laundering Regulations—responsibility as regulators for Money Service Businesses (MSBs).


Climate Change Levy—administration 1 April 2001.


Aggregates Levy—administration 1 April 2002.

(b) Responsibilities removed:

None.

Work-related Illness

Mr. Clapham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many claims for work-related illness were settled by his Department in the last year for which records are available; and what the cost was in compensation. [56087]

Ruth Kelly: No claims were made for work-related illness in 2001. The Treasury has a legal obligation to provide a safe working environment for all employees and is committed to minimising the number of working days lost generally due to work-related injuries and illness.

Mr. Clapham: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many days of sick leave were taken by employees in his Department in the last year for which records are available; what proportion of those were due to work-related illness or injury; and what the cost was to the Department. [56089]

Ruth Kelly: The latest published information on sick absence covering 2000 is contained in the annual report "Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Civil Service" published by the Cabinet Office. That report shows an average number of working days sickness absence per staff year of 9.9 days for non-industrial civil servants. The Treasury figure was 3.9 days per staff year. Information on the extent to which those figures are purely work-related and on costs are not held and could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost. The Treasury has a legal obligation to provide a safe working environment for all employees and is committed to minimising the number of working days lost generally due to work- related injuries and illness.

Vehicle Excise Duty

Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent representations he has received from (a) motorists and (b) motoring organisations in relation to motorists who did not qualify for VED rebate because their VED was purchased before the qualifying date of 1 November 2000. [57275]

Mr. Boateng: The Government extended the reduced rate of VED following consultation with motoring organisations who were generally supportive of the move.

Following its introduction the Government have received representations from motorists on a wide range of issues including the extension of this scheme, which ensured that an additional five million cars attracted the reduced rate of VED.

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Emissions

Mr. Peter Ainsworth: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent estimate he has made of reductions in emissions of (a) carbon dioxide, (b) methane, (c) nitrous oxide, (d) hydrofluorocarbons, (e) perfluorocarbons and (f) sulphur hexafluoride which are attributable to the climate change levy. [57446]

Mr. Boateng: The most recent estimate of the carbon emission savings attributable to the Climate Change Levy is published in EFSR 2002 (Table 7.2, page 142). These emission savings related solely to carbon dioxide. No estimate has been made of reductions in the other five greenhouse gases.

Credit Unions

Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much has been spent on the promotion of credit unions in (a) Scotland and (b) England and Wales by (i) central and (ii) local government since 1979. [57166]

Ruth Kelly: This information is not readily available. However, research by Liverpool John Moores University in 1999 estimated that total public investment in credit unions in Britain could be in the range of £15–20 million per annum.

Customs Officers

Lynne Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many complaints have been made about the behaviour of customs officers in each of the last five years; how many have been (a) upheld and (b) referred to the independent adjudicator; and what proportion of referrals have been upheld by the adjudicator. [49773]

Mr. Boateng: Figures for the total number of complaints against HM Customs and Excise for the financial years 1997–98 to 1999–2000 are contained in the Department's annual reports for those years. The total number of complaints against HM Customs and Excise in 2000–01 was 10,092. The complaints upheld for the financial years 1997–98 to 2000–01 is as follows:

Year	Percentage
1997–98	45
1998–99	48
1999–2000	51
2000–01	70

Note:

Figures for 2001–02 are not yet available.

Figures for the number of complaints against HM Customs and Excise received by the Adjudicator and the number upheld are published in the Adjudicator's annual report.

Maladministration

Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many findings there have been of maladministration by ombudsmen with responsibility for agencies under the remit of his Department since 1997. [56300]

Ruth Kelly: Information on the handling of complaints is set out in tabular form by the parliamentary ombudsman each year as an attachment to his annual report. For

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those complaints where there was evidence of maladministration which warranted a full investigation, the table sets out how many complaints were upheld as being fully or partially justified. Copies of the parliamentary ombudsman's annual reports for the period 1997–98 to 2000–01 inclusive can be viewed in the House Library, or on the parliamentary ombudsman's website at www.obmudsman.org.uk.

Global New Deal

Tony Baldry: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if the Treasury will publish annual projections of market borrowing in relation to global economic growth under the Global New Deal; [56401]

(2) when the Government expect to reach 0.4 per cent. ODA/GNI as proposed in the Global New Deal; [56395]

(3) what the relationship will be between the Global New Deal and the usual channels of ODA; [56396]

(4) what, under the Global New Deal, will be the lending conditions; when these will be published; and what representations he has made to DAC donors on the lending conditions in particular to the US and Japan; [56402]

(5) what role the (a) Bretton Woods Institutions and (b) UN Statistical Office take on assessing progress towards the MDGS in relation to the Global New Deal; [56405]

(6) if the Global Health Deal will focus on specific MDGs; [56398]

(7) if the Global New Deal will focus resources on those developing countries struggling most to meet the MDGs; [56399]

(8) how ODA flows will be controlled after 2015 for sub-Saharan African countries once the Global New Deal fund expires; [56400]

(9) what the accountability will be of the Global New Deal's dispersal of the ODA in respect of (a) developed countries' institutions and (b) developing countries' Governments in receipt of financial aid; [56403]

(10) if the Global New Deal will propose that ODA from all DAC donors below 0.4 per cent. ODA/GNI will be used to finance the fund. [56397]

Mr. Boateng: The Government remain focused on its long-term goal of helping to tackle global poverty and achieve the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These include halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, providing universal access to primary education, reducing child and maternal mortality and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other fatal diseases.

To advance these goals the Government are promoting a significant increase in development aid from all donor countries and international institutions to build capacity and address the long-term causes of poverty in the poorest countries. To tackle global poverty the Chancellor has proposed a Global New Deal as a modern Marshall plan for the developing world. As part of the Global New Deal the Government have proposed an international development trust fund to pool contributions and build on the work of the World bank, IMF and the Regional Development banks.

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However, creating new channels for distributing aid would impose unnecessary costs and burdens on developing countries. We therefore believe that any additional aid from the international development trust fund should be distributed in a balanced way through existing bilateral, multilateral and civil society mechanisms used in supporting poverty reduction strategies in developing countries.

No specific target for ratio of overseas development assistance (ODA) to gross national income (GNI) has been proposed as part of the Global New Deal. However, the UK is committed to the target of raising ODA to 0.7 per cent. of national income, and has increased the budget for the Department for International Development by 45 per cent. in real terms between 1997–98 and 2003–04. Moreover, we have made clear that we will significantly raise the amount of our aid, and raise its share of national income, in our next spending round covering the years up to 2005–06.

There are no plans to propose that ODA from all Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors below 0.4 per cent. of GNI is used to finance an international development trust fund. However, at the meeting of European Finance Ministers on 5 March 2002 the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed that the European Union (EU) should commit to reach an ODA/GNI ratio of 0.39 per cent. by 2006. At the EU Council Meeting in Barcelona on 15–16 March 2002, just before the United Nations conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, EU members committed to increase their collective ODA to 0.39 per cent. of GNI by 2006 as a step towards the 0.7 per cent. target. Within this, all member states would strive to attain at least 0.33 per cent. by 2006, with other member states above that ratio maintaining or improving their levels of aid.

Clearly the international community will need to debate how any additional aid flows are used to greatest effect in order to help developing countries tackle global poverty and achieve the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). To that end the UK has consistently argued that resources should be focused on the poorest countries.

In terms of the prospective accountability of developing countries receiving assistance from such a fund a major step forward has been the establishment of the poverty reduction strategy process. It includes consulting widely with civil society and producing a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) as a framework for IMF, World bank and other donor support. These PRSP's must be clearly linked to the MDGs and provide a budgetary framework to allocate Government revenue, aid and debt relief so that the impact on poverty reduction is maximised.

The Government believe that any lending conditions must be set so that we never return to a situation where countries build up unsustainable burdens of debt. So the very poorest and most vulnerable countries should receive investment help primarily in the form of grants to partner their soft IDA loans and all other low-income countries should be offered interest-free loans. Assistance to middle-income countries should be given via interest- reduced loans conditional upon implementing agreed poverty reduction strategies and engaging civil society.

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The extent to which an international development trust fund might have to leverage funds from international financial markets would depend on a wide range of factors, including donor contributions, interest rates, the total amount disbursed and the proportions and terms of any grants and loans within that total. If such a fund were to cease dispensing ODA in 2015 the total volume of ODA would then depend on other bilateral and multilateral ODA flows at that time.

The Government have not proposed a separate Global Health Deal but regards achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals in all developing countries as essential to combating global poverty.

Following the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit, the United Nations is charged with the task of reporting on progress towards the millennium development goals at the global and country levels, coordinated by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat and UNDP, respectively. Reporting is based on two principles:

1. Close consultation and collaboration with all relevant institutions, including the United Nations Development Group (including WHO and UNCTAD), other United Nations departments, funds, programmes and specialized agencies, the World bank, IMF and OECD, and regional groupings and experts; and

2. The use of nationally owned poverty reduction strategies, as reported in poverty reduction strategy papers, United Nations common country assessments and national human development reports, which emphasise a consultative process among the development partners.

An annual report is to be submitted by the UN that will chart progress, made or not made, in fulfilling the Millennium commitments, and highlight particular themes of special significance for that year. Every five years a comprehensive progress report will be submitted.

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