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Video-on-Demand Services
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell): I am pleased to announce that the video-on-demand industry has made excellent progress with the development of a binding code of practice to apply when video-on-demand services are de-regulated, and have written to me with details of that Code. I am satisfied that the Code represents a system that will provide adequate protection for children, and to subscribers to video-on-demand services. I have asked the industry to keep me informed of its progress in establishing the self-regulatory system set out in the Code, so that it can come fully into effect on enactment of the relevant provisions of the Communications Bill.
I have placed copies of the Code of Practice in the libraries of both Houses and the text is also available on the DCMS Departmental website at www.culture.gov.uk.
TRANSPORT
Motorcyclists' Visors
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): I have decided to retain the current limit of tint for visors at 50 per cent. following a three month consultation on possible options.
The large majority of motorcyclists were in favour of dark visors which they regard as the best way to reduce glare. Road safety organisations expressed concerns about the safety of other vulnerable road users, given the potential for misuse of dark visors at dusk or at night.
My decision has not been taken lightly and I considered the views and contributions from everyone who responded to the consultation. However, I remain unconvinced that the wearing of dark visors would not present dangers to road safety.
A technological solution may provide the best way forward. I would urge standards bodies to encourage the development of such solutions so that in the longer-term visor designs lend themselves equally to both day and night time use.
In-Flight Security
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling): The UK aviation security regime is one of the most developed in the world. It was further tightened in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks in the United States, and is kept under permanent review.
Earlier this year that process of review led the Government to decide that the existing package of measures for in-flight security should be reinforced, and deterrence increased, by the development of a capability to place covert, specially trained armed police officers aboard UK civil aircraft, should that be warranted. That capability now exists, and is a sensible and measured addition to the range of security measures we
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have available for addressing the threat to UK interests and to UK aviation. That threat remains a real one, but this new capability has not been developed and is not being announced now in response to any new or specific intelligence.
This further security measure joins others the Government has taken to increase security both on the ground at airports and in flight since the attacks in the USA. We have stepped up the search regimes for staff, passengers and their hand and hold baggage, vehicles, cargo and catering, with a particular emphasis on flights going to key destinations such as the USA; added to the range of articles not able to be taken aboard aircraft; and extended the National Aviation Security Programme to smaller aircraft and aerodromes. Additional funding has been made available for airport policing. We have also accepted in principle all of the recommendations of Sir John Wheeler's recent review of airport security, which will in particular enhance the co-ordination of the security effort across different departments and agencies. On in-flight security, we are moving faster than the international community at large to ensure UK aircraft are fitted with intrusion-resistant flight deck doors, and last month we acted to ensure that flight deck doors on foreign aircraft are kept locked, as they have been on UK aircraft since very soon after the US attacks. We have also placed strict limits on those able to be on the flight deck of UK aircraft.
The Government will continue to work with the UK airline industry on sustainable measures for responding to the terrorist threat.
Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): The sixth report to Parliament on the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme (PPRS) was published today.
The report, entitled XPPRS: Sixth Report to Parliament", covers the management and operation of the 1999 scheme, which was introduced in October 1999 including the delivery of the 4.5 per cent, price cut. It explains the Government's objectives for the scheme and gives consolidated information on company annual financial returns. The report sets out the contribution made to the economy by the UK based pharmaceutical industry and sets out the conclusions of the joint Department of Health and Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) study into the extent of competition in the supply of branded medicines to the National Health Service.
Copies of the report have been placed in the Library.
The joint Department of Health and Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) study into the extent of competition in the supply of branded medicines to the NHS was published today.
An integral part of the current pharmaceutical price regulation scheme (PPRS) agreement that took effect on 1 October 1999 is a joint assessment by the Department and the ABPI of the scope, pace and change and practical impact of competition in the supply and use of branded medicines for the NHS. The results of this
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study will be available to both the Government and the pharmaceutical industry in considering the future direction of policy on the PPRS.
The study comprised seven components and work on each of the components was undertaken jointly by the Department and the ABPI with some elements of the analysis contracted out to third parties. The study allowed an unprecedented level of shared data collection and analysis between the Department and the branded pharmaceutical industry in the UK.
Copies of the study, entitled "PPRS: The Study into the Extent of Competition in the Supply of Branded Medicines to the NHS", have been placed in the Library.
HEALTH
NHS Franchising
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): National Health Service franchising is a new approach being taken by the Department to find the best available managers to take over the functions of the chief executive and, where necessary, other senior management positions in, and to identify organisations which might be called upon to exercise the functions of, some of the most poorly performing NHS trusts in England. The prime goal under new franchised management arrangements will be to address the particular areas where a trust has performed poorly and to demonstrate its capacity to sustain improved performance.
Franchising will bring in new management skills to trusts that have been under-performing, as part of the Government's wider drive to raise standards in all parts of the NHS.
Until now, NHS franchises have only been awarded to suitably qualified people within the NHS. The Department has now widened these opportunities to other areas of the public sector, the voluntary sector and the private sector, as well as to suitably qualified individuals, by inviting formal applications from both within and outside the NHS for inclusion on the NHS franchising register of expertise.
The names of the organisations on the National Health Service franchising register of expertise have been published today and a copy has been placed in the Library. It is also available on the Department of Health's website at www.doh.qov.uk/nhsfranchisinq. The register includes 62 NHS trusts whose three star status gives them automatic inclusion on the register, Trent Strategic Health Authority, and eight private sector organisations—five of which are based in Britain, one in Germany, one in Canada and one has its parent company based in Sweden.
The NHS Appointments Commission set up an independent panel, under the chairmanship of Sir William Wells, to assess the applications received from organisations and individuals who expressed an interest following national advertisements in May 2002. The criteria for entry to the register were designed to assess interested parties' expertise and commitment to the
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public service ethos necessary to turn round failing NHS organisations and services in the future. The criteria included:
- a commitment to the ethos of public service;
expertise in managing and improving performance in large and complex service delivery organisations;
an excellent track record in both financial and human resource management.
The Good Hope Hospital NHS Trust, Birmingham, will also be franchised following an investigation around the mismanagement of waiting list figures. As a result the Trust has been reclassified to zero star. The Trust held a disciplinary hearing at which the chief executive was found guilty of gross misconduct and summarily dismissed. The data underlying the Trust's star rating has been reviewed and the performance rating recalculated.
The Department will shortly be inviting those on the NHS franchising register of expertise to tender for the franchises in these trusts early in the new year, along with the interim management team at Bath.
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