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Departmental Website

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on his policy towards monitoring public contributions to his Department's website. [57910]

Mr. MacShane: The guidelines for moderating public contributions to the FCO website are published on the site itself under "Acceptable Use Policy".

EU Information Campaigns

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place in the Library a list of organisations external to the European Communities which receive Communities funding for information campaigns (budget lines under B3). [57893]

Peter Hain: Chapter B3 of the European Communities budget covers a wide range of activities including European Resource Centres, training for librarians, the SOCRATES programme, the Leonardo programme and promoting minority languages. Providing a full list of the several hundred organisations who receive funding for information initiatives could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) of 19 March 2002, Official Report, column 196W, if he will list expenditure on his EU Information Campaign broken down by publication and project. [57888]

Peter Hain: The total cost to date of the EU information campaign for the financial year 2001–02 is £246,819.

21 May 2002 : Column 259W

Major EU information initiatives included:

	£
FCO website, Europe Day website and other new media initiatives	52,203
Opinion polls	25,477
Grants	40,000
Regional visits, display materials, consultancy research and other initiative costs (transport, accommodation etc.)	82,833

The cost of each publication follows:

	£
EU newsletter	5,377
Britain: a Champion of EU Enlargement booklet	8,758
Europe Day promotional flyers, posters and cards	5,057
"Heard about European Law?" booklet	2,244
"What has the EU ever done for us?" leaflet	450
"The EU: What's in it for you?" leaflet	880
The Stockholm European Council leaflet	1,458
"The European Treaties in under 300 words" leaflet	2,465
Information posters and flyers regarding the introduction of euro notes and coins	16,425
"The EU: Fighting Crime and Promoting Justice" leaflet	1,068
The Treaty of Nice leaflet	2,124

Liaison Officers

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the answer of 26 March, to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), Official Report, column 815W, if he will list the pay grades of those liaison officers identified; and if he will identify companies involved. [57889]

Mr. MacShane: In accordance with good employer practice and under exemptions 8a and 12 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, it is not appropriate to release such information into the public domain.

Companies are not involved; liaison officers are employed on a freelance basis.

EU Directives

Mr. Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many EU (a) directives and (b) regulations have been incorporated into UK law in each year since 1997. [57879]

Peter Hain: We estimate that the number of EU directives incorporated into EU law is as follows:

1997: 85;


1998: 109;


1999: 100;


2000: 91; and


2001: 83 (until end November).

It would require a disproportionate cost to compile the number of regulations incorporated over the same period.

Gibraltar

Mr. Spring: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the red lines which Britain will not cross in its negotiations with Spain on the future of Gibraltar under the Brussels Process; and if he will make a statement. [57550]

21 May 2002 : Column 260W

Peter Hain: Our objectives under the Brussels Process remain to preserve Gibraltar's way of life, establish greater self-government, deliver lasting practical benefits and a stronger economy, and secure a lasting agreement on sovereignty so that Gibraltarians can enjoy security for their way of life. Negotiations continue.

Chechnya

David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the report of the Parliamentary ombudsman into the complaint received from the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) on behalf of Mrs. Louisa Petschi (Case No. C974/01) concerning his Department's handling of a news report received on Sunday 6 December 1998 about actions affecting British nationals held hostage in Chechnya. [58710]

Mr. Bradshaw: I welcome the fact that the ombudsman found no evidence of maladministration by officials in the way in which the decision to discount the report was taken, and therefore no basis for questioning the merits of that decision. However, in view of the possible confusion over the timing of the handling of the report by FCO officials, reflected in statements by Ministers at the time, the Permanent Under-Secretary, on the Ombudsman's recommendation, wrote to Mrs. Petschi and her Member of Parliament on 21 March to offer his apologies for the lack of clarity as to the sequence of events.

To the extent that this touches on the statement of the then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), to the House on 9 December 1998, Official Report, column 322, I wish to confirm that the Minister's answer reflected the judgment of officials at the time that the news report did not represent an advance warning of a rescue attempt. This remains our view.

Chemical Weapons

Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the states that he described in his letter of 19 March to José Bustani as OPCW's main member states were. [58331]

Mr. Bradshaw: In this context, the 41 member states drawn from all regional groups represented on the Executive Council—the executive organ of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what complaints were made by the Chief Financial Officer of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in respect of the financial management of the organisation. [58320]

Mr. Bradshaw: There is no post with the title of Chief Financial Officer at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). However, the former Director-General, as Chief Executive Officer of the OPCW Technical Secretariat did, on occasions, criticise the staff working under him in the financial areas of the Secretariat.

21 May 2002 : Column 261W

Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the differences between OPCS's main member states and José Bustani referred to by the Foreign Secretary in his letter to Mr. Bustani dated 19 March were. [58330]

Mr. Bradshaw: The differences between Mr. Bustani and states represented on the Executive Council of the OPCW, centred on the financial and administrative management of the organisation.

Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent complaints were made about the Chief Financial Officer to member states of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in respect of the financial management of the organisation. [58307]

Mr. Bradshaw: There is no post of Chief Financial Officer at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). However, a number of complaints about the former Director-General—the Chief Executive Officer of the OPCW—were published by the United States. These mainly related to the failure to monitor expenditure in 2000, leading to a deficit; failure to explain financial problems arising in 2001; and presentation of unrealistically high budgetary bids.

Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what occasions Dame Rosemary Spencer made representations to José Bustani on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that were critical of his stewardship, or the direction, of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons during her period as ambassador. [58308]

Mr. Bradshaw: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer below (UIN 58306).

Andrew Mackinlay: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what occasions the UK ambassador to the Hague made representations to José Bustani that were critical of (a) his stewardship and (b) the direction of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons prior to the latter's dismissal. [58306]

Mr. Bradshaw: The then British ambassador (Dame Rosemary Spencer) joined other major financial contributors in a call on Mr. Bustani, on 23 February 2001, to express our concern at his decision to apply major cuts to the verification programme. On 6 April 2001, the UK representative to the OPCW Executive Council took part in a similar call, urging a more co-operative approach, pressing for assurances that financial controls had been put in place to correct evident shortcomings, and requesting revision of Mr. Bustani's 2002 budget proposals. The UK representative on the Executive Council had made similar points in a private meeting with Mr. Bustani on 5 April 2001. The current British ambassador (Colin Budd) met with Mr. Bustani on 15 March 2002 to inform him that the UK believed that it would be in the best interests of the OPCW and the chemical weapons convention if he were to resign.

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