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Liberia

Dr. Tonge: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent discussions her Department as had with the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs regarding food shortages in Liberia. [105148]

Clare Short: We have not held recent discussions with the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on the subject. DFID has provided substantial support to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Medicins Sans Frontieres, the UN High Commission for Refugees and UNOCHA in Liberia during the past year for both refugees and displaced people. Some of this assistance may be used to help tackle food security needs.

Private Finance Initiative

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the expected saving to public funds from the private finance initiative schemes due to become operational in 2003. [105720]

Clare Short: DFID has no private finance initiatives.

Somali Peace Process

Mr. Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what support her Department is giving to the Somali peace process taking place in Kenya; and if she will make a statement. [105619]

Clare Short: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has contributed £25,000 to the Somali Reconciliation process. Since January 2003, a new joint DFID/FCO Officer in the High Commission in Nairobi has engaged with the reconciliation talks and has facilitated several policy discussions on behalf of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Special Envoy.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Bank Account Access (Post Office)

Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will seek to ensure that banks allow customers with regular current accounts to access their pensions and benefits at the Post Office; and if she will make a statement. [105577]

Mr. Timms: The Post Office currently provides banking services on behalf of Girobank/Alliance and Leicester, Barclays, Lloyds TSB, the Co-Operative, and the Internet Banks Smile and Cahoot. This (paper-based) service enables customers of these banks to cash cheques at post offices free of charge. The Post Office is in discussion with the banks to modernise these services and to extend commercial arrangements to cover other financial institutions. This is a commercial matter between Post Office Ltd. and the individual financial institutions.

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Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list the (a) banks and (b) building societies that will offer access to (i) standard current accounts and (ii) basic bank accounts through the Post Office. [105578]

Mr. Timms: The Post Office currently provides banking services on behalf of Girobank/Alliance and Leicester, Barclays Lloyds TSB, the Co-Operative, and the Internet Banks Smile and Cahoot. This (paper-based) service enables customers of these banks to cash cheques at post offices free of charge. The Post Office is in discussion with the banks to modernise these services and to extend commercial arrangements to cover other financial institutions.

From April this year the Post Office will provide access to basic bank accounts on behalf of Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland/Nat West, HSBC, Abbey National, HBOS, Alliance and Leicester, NAG, the Co-operative Bank, First Trust, the Bank of Ireland and the Nationwide Building Society.

Broadband

Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what financial assistance her Department is providing to help small businesses in rural Suffolk access broadband services. [104807]

Mr. Timms: DTI has supplied the East of England Development Agency with £3.22 million from the UK Broadband Fund. Part of this funding has been used towards the RABBIT initiative (Remote Area Broadband Inclusion Trial), which has supplied SMEs throughout the East of England with financial grants to help purchase broadband connections other than ADSL or cable modem. EEDA's connecting communities competition, which aims to provide funding for groups of companies or individuals towards obtaining broadband connections for their communities, has seen more applications from Suffolk than any other EEDA county.

Business Development

Mr. Liddell-Grainger: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what help her Department gives to (a) district and (b) borough councils to help local business to (i) expand and (ii) start up. [105514]

Nigel Griffiths: The Department supports small businesses and those thinking of starting a business through the Small Business Service (SBS). SBS works through a network of business link operators across England who provide information, advice, or access to experts on any aspect needed to start and expand a business. The budget totalled £140 million in 2002–03. Business link operators are independent autonomous organisations who work in partnership with local organisations such as their local authorities, district and borough councils.

SBS funds over 90 Phoenix Development Fund projects to promote enterprise in disadvantaged areas amongst disadvantaged groups, a number have active local council involvement and two are run by local councils. Haringey council is being funded to undertake enterprise outreach work with young people in the local African Caribbean community. Stevenage borough

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council is receiving funding for 'Community Enterprise Champions' to work with groups who have found it difficult to access traditional forms of business support e.g. ethnic minorities, women and young people.

Fuel Cell Technology

Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the support given by the Carbon Trust to the development of fuel cell technology in the UK. [105218]

Mr. Wilson [holding answer 27 March 2003]: The department works closely with the Carbon Trust on a range of energy and carbon related matters including fuel cell technology development. The Carbon Trust, an independent, not for profit company, has recently published an assessment of low carbon technologies and fuel cells were identified as one of its priorities for support through its Low Carbon Innovation Programme.

In February, we published a joint study with the Carbon Trust reviewing the commercial potential of fuel cells in the UK. This study will help the department and the Carbon Trust develop a complementary approach to supporting the development and commercialisation of fuel cells for the home and export markets. Within this co-operative framework, individual funding decisions are matters for the respective organisations. In the case of the Carbon Trust, these decisions are taken by the company.

Post Office Card Account

Mr. David Stewart: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action she is taking to promote the use of Post Office card accounts. [105776]

Mr. Timms: The Post Office card account is one of a range of accounts that people can use to receive benefit payments into, and which will enable people who wish

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to do so to be able to collect their benefits in cash at post offices. Our aim is that people should be able to choose the option that suits them best. Information about all the options is being supplied to benefit, pension and tax credit customers by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Inland Revenue. Post Office Ltd is also making its own material available to customers.

Quality Mark

Mr. Gardiner: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimates she has made of the number of builders that will receive reduced insurance premiums as a result of the new health and safety assessments made as part of the Quality Mark scheme. [101348]

Mr. Wilson: Discounts on liability insurance premiums are a commercial proposition, open to all Quality Marked firms. They are part of a package of financial benefits which will help drive take up of the scheme. Likely numbers are difficult to estimate at this early stage. Firms which do not initially pass the required health and safety assessment are given advice on how to meet the standards, to access the discount.

Renewable Energy

Mr. Simon Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what the total amount was of (a) electricity and (b) heat produced by the combustion of biodegradable municipal solid waste (i) including and (ii) excluding tyres in the United Kingdom every year since 1992; and what percentage of the total renewable energy produced these represented; [105669]

(2) what the total amount of (a) electricity and (b) heat produced by the combustion of tyres in the United Kingdom was in each year since 1992; and what percentage of the total renewable energy produced these represented. [105668]

Mr. Wilson [holding answers 28 March 2003]: The available information is as follows:

	Biodegradable municipal solid waste				Waste tyres
	Used to generate heat (thousand tonnes of oil equivalent)	Percentageof total renewables and wastes used to generate heat	Electricity generated (GWh)	Percentage of total electricity generated from renewables and wastes	Used to generate heat (thousand tonnes of oil equivalent)	Percentageof total renewables and wastes used to generate heat	Electricity generated (GWh)	Percentage of total electricity generated from renewables and wastes
1992	49.0	11.2	177	2.7	3.7	0.8	—	—
1993	44.9	6.9	251	4.3	3.9	0.6	18	0.3
1994	46.8	5.2	449	6.1	3.4	0.4	88	1.2
1995	48.5	5.1	471	6.5	2.3	0.2	135	1.9
1996	50.6	5.3	490	8.0	—	—	129	2.1
1997	14.3	1.5	585	7.9	—	—	139	1.9
1998	24.1	2.8	849	9.2	—	—	84	0.9
1999	32.0	4.0	856	8.4	—	—	55	0.5
2000	40.6	5.6	862	8.2	—	—	26	0.2
2001	46.5	6.6	948	9.4	—	—	—	—

Notes:

1. '—' means nil or negligible (less than half the final digit shown).

2. As waste tyres are not a biodegradable waste, the two sets of figures have not been added together.

Source:

Digests of United Kingdom Energy Statistics

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