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Road Improvements

Mr. George Osborne: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which bodies were consulted before he decided not to proceed with (a) the A556M and (b) the improvement to Junction 20 of the M6. [107249]

Mr. Jamieson: The Environmental Statutory bodies and the North West Regional Assembly, together with a steering group of local stakeholders consisting of the local highway authority, the freight transport association; CPRE and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities were consulted on the Highways Agency's A556 Area Study, which considered both the A556 and Junction 20 of the M6.

Mr. George Osborne: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department last met (i) the Association of Greater Manchester councils, (ii) the Council for the Protection of Rural England, (iii) the North West Regional Assembly,

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(iv) Cheshire county council and (v) Macclesfield borough council to discuss options for alleviating congestion on the A556. [107253]

Mr. Jamieson: Officers from the North West Regional Assembly (NWRA), Cheshire county council, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities were members of the steering group of local stakeholders on the A556 Area Study. They were kept fully informed of developments throughout the study period from February to September 2002. Macclesfield borough council was informed of the study outcome through a meeting with the NWRAfs Key Priorities Group in September 2002.

Travel Concessions

Dr. Starkey: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the total annual cost of extending a national half-fare travel concession to all young people aged (a) 14 to 16, (b) 14 to 18 and (c) 14 to 21 would be. [107397]

Mr. Jamieson: It is estimated that to cover the cost of extending half-fare travel concessions on local buses at all times to young people aged between 16 and 19 would be in excess of £180 million per year. Further information can be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Dr. Starkey: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the (a) total annual cost and (b) annual cost to central Government is in 2003 of extending the national half-fare travel concession to men aged 60–65. [107398]

Mr. Jamieson: The total annual cost of extending existing concessionary travel schemes to cover men aged 60–64 is put at £50 million, including those schemes which are more generous than the statutory minimum half-fare requirement. That amount has been provided by central Government in the local government finance settlement 2003–04. It is estimated that extending the statutory minimum half-fare travel concession to men aged 60–64 would have cost about £30 million.

Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much is being provided by the Government to (a) the London borough of Redbridge, (b) the London borough of Waltham Forest and (c) all local authorities to help fund the travel concessions for men aged 60 to 65; and if he will make a statement. [107749]

Mr. Jamieson: We have provided an extra £50 million in the local government finance settlement 2003–04 to cover the additional cost of concessionary travel for men aged 60–64 in England. This amount is distributed by Formula Spending Shares in the Environmental, Protective and Cultural Services block, which take into account various factors such as deprivation and population density and sparsity. Because the distribution of this £50 million was considered alongside other costs falling on local authorities in deriving the formulae, it is not possible to provide a meaningful FSS allocation for individual authorities.

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Websites

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the (a) cost of and (b) number of visitors to each website operated by his Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which his Department is responsible in each year since its establishment. [107604]

Mr. Jamieson: For details of the cost of my Department's main web site (www.dft.gov.uk), I refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) on 25 March 2003, Official Report, column 119W.

During the period 1 July (when individual statistics were first available for my Department's web site) to 31 March 2003 the total number of page impressions was 13,881,841.

Calculation of the cost of, and the number of page impressions for, every web site operated by my Department, each agency and non-departmental public body for which my Department is responsible could be done only at disproportionate cost.

Working Hours

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what policy on (a) core hours and (b) flexible working hours is operated by his Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which his Department is responsible. [107650]

Mr. Jamieson: In the Department and most of its agencies and NDPBs staff are required to work a 36 hour week in London and 37 hour week out of London. Core hours vary according to business need, but are usually between 10am and 4pm.

Staff may agree with their line managers to operate flexible working hours. This system normally requires staff to be in the office between 10am and 12 noon and from 2pm to 4pm, although there are regional variations.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Employment Act

Mr. Edwards: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to monitor and review section 47 of the Employment Act 2002 on flexible working arrangements for employees with family responsibilities. [107223]

Alan Johnson: The Government will start to review the impact of the new law relating to flexible working for eligible parents, three years after its introduction on 6 April 2003.

To ensure that we have a sound evidence base for this review, we have recently carried out two extensive baseline surveys of employers and employees. The results are currently being analysed and the detailed findings will be published in the summer of 2003. Provisional executive summaries of the headline results are available on the DTI website www.dti.gov.uk/

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workingparents. We plan to repeat these surveys in 2006 so that we can directly assess the changes in the availability of flexible working provisions.

In addition to this research, we intend to repeat the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS), which was last carried out in 1998. We expect headline findings to be available in 2005 with full publication in 2006. This will provide a comprehensive overview of workplace practices before and after the new working parents legislation. We will also be involving our key stakeholders in the monitoring process, receiving ongoing feedback and building their experiences into our assessment of the new law.

Liberian Timber

Mr. Lloyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to her answer of 24 March 2003, Official Report, column 33W, if she will take steps to prevent Liberian timber being sold in the UK. [106669]

Mr. Rammell: I have been asked to reply.

The UN imposed sanctions on Liberia as a result of the Liberian Government's complicity in fuelling the conflict in Sierra Leone. Liberia remains a serious threat to the stability of the sub-region. We believe sanctions should be maintained until Liberia stops its destabilising efforts in the region and meets in full the demands of the UN Security Council.

We share the concern of the UN Panel of Experts that the revenues from timber sales are being used to fund arms purchases in breach of UN sanctions. In resolution 1408(2002) the UN Security Council called on the Government of Liberia to undertake the audit of shipping and timber revenues and to use the revenues from the timber trade for social, development and humanitarian purposes.

We have played a leading role in trying to restrict the Government of Liberia's sanction-busting activities. We will be calling for the Council to examine all sources of revenue, including timber sales, used to make arms purchases, and to consider ways of addressing the problem in order to prevent the Liberian regime from making illicit arms purchases.

The Government support the Africa Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (AFLEG) process, which calls on all African governments and trading partners to take action to control illegal activities in the logging sector and associated trade. The UK will be represented at an AFLEG conference in April 2003 to push this process forward.

Post Office Card Account

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what safeguards have been put in place to protect Post Office card account PIN numbers when an account holder has nominated a home care worker to collect benefits for them; [105258]

(2) what milestones have been set for the procurement and implementation of the software and systems supporting the Post Office card account. [105259]

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Mr. Timms: This is a matter which falls within the day-to-day responsibility of Post Office Ltd. I have therefore asked the Chief Executive to reply direct to the hon. Member.

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