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Video-recorded Interviews

The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety (Mr John Denham): The Home Office

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has today made available an additional £2 million for police authorities to provide facilities for video recording interviews with vulnerable witnesses. This funding will help to improve the service that the police can provide to some of the most vulnerable witnesses and victims of crime.

Funding will be distributed by competition and grants will be targeted to provide the greatest benefit to witnesses and to complement other justice initiatives. Bidding guidance and a timetable will be issued shortly.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

Israel (UK Defence Equipment)

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Jack Straw): In my written reply to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr Campbell) on 15 April 2002, Official Report, col. 723W, I informed Parliament that we had questions about other possible breaches of the Israeli assurances about the use of UK-supplied equipment in the Occupied Territories (OTs) exported under previous Administrations. The Government has looked into the issue further and I am now able to inform Parliament of the outcome of our inquiries.

The only equipment that has been identified as being used by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in the OTs, and that can justifiably be regarded as constituting a breach of the assurances, is a combination of Puma and Nachpadon armoured personnel carriers (APCs). These are derivative APCs on a Centurion chassis, which therefore have a significant and recognisable UK

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content. Parliament was informed of this in Mr Bradshaw's reply to a parliamentary question from Mr Galloway on 11 March 2002.

In our view the Israeli assurances do not cover equipment consisting of components exported by the UK to a third country, which components were then incorporated in that country into products for onward export. The Foreign Secretary's announcement of 8 July 2002 set out how the Government will approach licence applications for goods where it is understood that the goods are to be incorporated into products for onward export.

We intend to inform the Israelis of the results of our inquiries. We shall re-emphasise our current concerns about exporting arms to Israel that might be used against Palestinian targets, and that our policy on assessing Israeli export applications has not changed: we shall continue to assess export licence applications for the proposed export of controlled goods to Israel on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria.

Our staff will continue to monitor the deployment and the use of equipment by the IDF in the OTs during their regular tours of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem; and will report to me any sightings of British-supplied equipment.

Departmental Expenditure

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): Subject to Parliamentary approval of any necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) will be increased by £5,611,000 from £1,463,838,000 to £1,469,449,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £60,097,000 from £678,042,000 to £738,139,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the table:

Resources				Capital
Change	New DEL	Of which: voted	Non voted	Change	New DEL	Of which: voted	Non voted
82,706,000	1,401,303,000	1,250,326,000	150,977,000	-77,095,000	68,146,000	62,346,000	5,800,000

The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from

i. A Public Expenditure Survey (PES) transfer to the Department of Transport of £50,000 in respect of the setting up of a Register of Shipping by the Maritime and Coastguard agency for certain Caribbean Overseas Territories.

ii. A PES transfer to the Ministry of Defence of £183,000 in respect of business rates applicable to the 'Old Admiralty Building—Citadel' formally paid by the FCO and now the responsibility of the MoD.

iii. Reclassification of £62,410,000 from Capital to Resource (Administration costs of £56,810,000, Grants of £5,600,000) to improve budgetary flexibility.

iv. A decrease of £11,750,000 in respect of an adjustment for Overseas Price Movements.

v. An increase in Admin costs of £1,630,000 in respect of increases to Consular services overseas.

vi. A transfer from BBC World Service Capital to BBC World Service Resource of £30,000,000 to facilitate effective management of BBC World Service budgets.

vii. A PES transfer from the Department of Trade and Industry of £100,000 in respect of Invest UK DTI funded overseas slots at the time of the Winter Supplementary Estimate, details of which were not published at the time.

viii. A PES transfer to the Department for International Development (DflD) and Ministry of Defence of £2,000,000 and £4,884,000 respectively in respect of the remainder required to fund planned Conflict Prevention (CP) programme activity to the end of the FY.

ix. A PES transfer from the CP Global Programme pool to DflD and the Ministry of Defence of £250,000 and £572,000 respectively in respect of baseline repatriation to Departments.

x. A PES transfer from DflD of £1,450,000 to fund payment to a Military Officer in Angola, a project management transfer and the FCO's one-third share of the existing CP Africa Pool Reserve.

xi. Take up of EYF if £11,531,000 from a combination of underspends on the 2001/02 CP DUP and DflD and FCO CP Programme underspends.

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xii. A PES transfer to DflD of £5,000,000 for planned CP programme activities at the time of the Winter Supplementary Estimate, details of which were not published at the time.

xiii. A PES transfer to the Security and Intelligence Agencies of £225,000 for CP activities at the time of the Winter Supplementary Estimates, details of which were not published at the time.

xiv. An increase of £499,000 for additional security at Posts in the Middle East.

The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from

i. A PES transfer from the Home Office of £515,000 and £264,000 to defray the extra costs to the FCO of setting up Visa regimes for Zimbabwe and Jamaica.

ii. Reclassification of £62,410,000 from Capital to Resource to improve budgetary flexibility.

iii. A decrease of £585,000 in respect of an adjustment for Overseas Price Movements.

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iv. A transfer from BBC World Service Capital to BBC World Service Resource of £30,000,000 to facilitate effective management of BBC World Service budgets.

v. An increase of £5,121,000 for additional security at Posts in the Middle East.

vi. An increase of £10,000,000 to cover a shortfall in non-operating appropriation in aid in respect of asset recycling.

DEFENCE

Departmental Expenditure

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimates, the Ministry of Defence Departmental Expenditure Limits will be increased by £1,552,201,000 from £24,984,813,000 to £26,537,014,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the table:

Resources				Capital
Change	New DEL	Of which: voted	Non voted	Change	New DEL	Of which: voted	Non voted
1,034,825	20,177,493	19,787,783	389,710	517,376	6,359,521	6,283,093	76,428

The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

An increase of £500,000,000 as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2002 outcome whereby the MOD was provided with a Sustainability Fund to enhance the Department's capability to sustain military operations.

A net reduction of £102,960,000 due to a transfer of £340,000,000 to capital to reflect compliance with the accounting policy change in FRS15, offset by a transfer from capital of £237,040,000 to reflect in-year Departmental re-allocations.

An addition of £21,233,000 towards the MOD's liability to British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.

An increase of £314,000 towards the purchase of two Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) vessels, offset by the repayment of an advance in 2001–02 of £1,000,000 towards the purchase of two RoRo ferries. This gives a net decrease of £686,000.

A transfer out of Resource DEL of £120,000 to the Single Intelligence Account relating to electricity charges on a shared site.

A transfer in of Resource DEL of £183,000 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the OAB Citadel costs.

An increase of £617,175,000 in the Request for Resource for Conflict Prevention to cover the net additional costs of military operations in Kosovo, Bosnia, the Gulf, Afghanistan and contingency planning for possible operations.

The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from:

A net increase of £102,960,000 due to a transfer of £340,000,000 to capital from resource to reflect compliance with the accounting policy change in FRS15, offset by a transfer from capital to resource of £237,040,000 to reflect in-year Departmental re-allocations.

An increase of £48,909,000 for the purchase of two Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) vessels.

A reduction of £43,300,000 being the repayment of an advance in 2001–02 for the purchase of two RoRo ferries.

An increase of £1,600,000 from the Capital Modernisation Fund for the Drug Stopper Project.

A transfer in of Capital DEL of £475,000 from the Department of Health for the Diagnostic Treatment Centre at the Royal Haslar Hospital.

An increase of £406,732,000 in the Request for Resource for Conflict Prevention to cover the net additional costs of military operations in Kosovo, Bosnia, the Gulf, Afghanistan and contingency planning for possible operations.

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