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27 Nov 2002 : Column 312W—continued
School Buildings
John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the level of capital investment in school buildings in coalfield areas was in each year since 1997; and how this compares with the national average. [82252]
Mr. Miliband: We do not have this information. The Department currently allocates most capital funding for schools to local education authorities (LEAs), based on needs-related formulae, and it is for the authorities to assess and prioritise the capital needs of their school buildings in line with their local asset management
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plans. Individual LEAs will, therefore, hold information on how much capital investment has been allocated to schools within coalfield areas.
The table shows the level of central Government support for capital investment in school buildings in England for each financial year from 1996–97 to 2003–04.
| Year | Capital allocation |
|---|---|
| 1996–97 | 0.7 |
| 1997–98 | 0.8 |
| 1998–99 | 1.1 |
| 1999–2000 | 1.4 |
| 2000–01 | 2.1 |
| 2001–02 | 2.2 |
| 2002–03 | 3.0 |
| 2003–04 | 3.8 |
| Total | 15.1 |
School Places (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Mr. Wyatt: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many pupils and students in Sittingbourne and Sheppey do not have places in schools; and if he will make a statement; [82111]
- (2) how many schools in Sittingbourne and Sheppey have refused access to children on grounds of the health and safety legislation since the beginning of the school year. [82112]
Mr. Miliband [holding answer 21 November 2002]: The Department does not collect this information. LEAs have a statutory duty to ensure that sufficient school places are available for pupils of compulsory school age and it is for them to monitor local needs and plan provision accordingly. LEAs in general, or boards of governors in foundation schools, have a statutory duty under health and safety legislation to take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure the health and safety of pupils and staff.
School Playing Fields
Mr. Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many school playing fields have been (a) leased and (b) sold under the Private Finance Initiative, broken down by education authority; [82361]
- (2) how many applications (a) to sell and (b) to change the use of school playing fields have fallen under the General Consent Orders of Section 77 (5) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 in (i) 1999–2000, (ii) 2000–01 and (iii) 2001–02; who determines whether an application falls under the Orders, and what checks his Department carries out on such applications; [82362]
(3) how many applications were made to dispose of school playing fields larger than 2,000 metres square in (a) 1999–2000, (b) 2000–01 and (c) 2001–02. [82363]
Mr. Miliband: The information requested has been placed in the Lbraries.
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School Standards Grant
Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to his answer of 18 November, Official Report, column 310, on school standards grant, what adjustments have been made to the amount of standards fund grant payable to each local education authority as a result of changes in the number of pupils in schools within each LEA area. [82719]
Mr. Miliband: The information can be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Schools Funding (Buckinghamshire)
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what (a) the formula grant and (b) the spending per head in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools in Buckinghamshire is in the year 2002–03. [81180]
Mr. Miliband [holding answer 19 November 2002]: Funding for Buckinghamshire in 2002–03 is shown in the following table. We will not know actual spending until the autumn of 2003.
| SSA | Grants | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 2,660 | 460 | 3,120 |
| Secondary | 3,410 | 330 | 3,740 |
Notes:
1. Figures reflect education SSA settlement figures (primary and secondary sub-blocks respectively), plus all revenue grants in DfES's Departmental expenditure limits relevant to primary and secondary pupils (excluding EMA and a handful of others where it is not possible to get figures on a comparable basis over time).
2. The pupil numbers used to convert £ million figures £ to per pupil are the maintained pupils und settlement calculations.
3. Status: 2002–03 grants (and hence total) figures are provisional.
4. Price Base: cash
5. Rounding: figures are rounded to the nearest £10. Totals may not sum due to rounding.
Specialist Schools Programme
Mr. Simon Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the engineering colleges that have been created under the Specialist Schools Programme, stating in each case the date of establishment. [82150]
Mr. Miliband: Four schools have been designated engineering colleges, following the first competition for the new specialism, and became operational in September 2002. They are:
- Devonport High School, Plymouth
Eckington School, Derbyshire
St. Benedict's Catholic High School, Cumbria
Woodchurch High School, Wirral
Teachers' Pay
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what provision is made in his Departmental budget for funding the upper pay scale for teachers. [82957]
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Mr. Miliband [holding answer 25 November 2002]: We are currently funding 185,000 full time equivalent teachers for their threshold money, which this year is 2,148. The threshold is point 1 of the upper pay scale.
We have also allocated an extra 90 million this financial year for the costs of promoting teachers to point two of the upper pay scale. Schools are also able to use their general budgets to fund moving teachers to point two should they wish to do so.
TREASURY
Child Tax Credit
Martin Linton: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the percentage of families in the Battersea constituency who will benefit from the child tax credit from April. [83798]
Dawn Primarolo: Nine out of 10 families with children will be eligible for the child tax credit, to be introduced in April 2003.
Estimates of the number of families with children in the Battersea constituency that will benefit from the child tax credit are not available; however, an estimated 700,000 families with children in London are expected to benefit from the child tax credit.
CR74
Mr. Webb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish the results of the CR74 record management exercise. [83206]
Dawn Primarolo: CR74 was an Inland Revenue exercise in support of its day-to-day record management process. It involved a systematic check, over a six-month period earlier this year, of national insurance numbers held on Inland Revenue records. Updated records have been kept separate and the Department has introduced better processes to help ensure that its records stay up to date.
CR74 identified about 3.5 million records as no longer needed. The exercise also identified around 1.3 million records as requiring further checking, and the Inland Revenue will be working through them over the next few months.
Landfill Tax Credit
Norman Baker: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer how much has been spent on promoting the landfill tax credit scheme in each year since its inception. [82850]
John Healey: It is not possible to give a precise figure for each year, however from the introduction of the landfill tax credit scheme to the year 2000 Entrust, the scheme's regulator, spent £606,000 on information, communication and promotion. Under its Terms of Approval, Entrust no longer promotes the scheme. To date the scheme has received £588 million in contributions.
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National Insurance
Mr. O'Hara: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much was expended from national insurance contributions on (a) contributory benefits and (b) the NHS in each year since 1991–92; and what the forecasted expenditure is for each of the next 10 years. [80825]
Dawn Primarolo: Available estimates and outturn of benefit expenditure, 1991–92 to 2005–06, are published on the DWP website http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd4/Table1.xls
The amount of the NHS allocation from national insurance contributions is published in the accounts of the national insurance fund each year, copies of which are held in the House of Commons Library.
The Government Actuary's Department's estimates for the NHS allocation from NIC receipts for 2001–02 to 2005–06 are shown in the table:
| Great Britain | 2001–02 | 2002–03 | 2003–04 | 2004–05 | 2005–06 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NHS allocation of NIC receipts | 7,240 | 7,560 | 15,570 | 17,840 | 18,780 |
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