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Employment Relations Act

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many staff in her Department have taken time off from work in order to attend to domestic incidents as provided for by the Employment Relations Act 1999. [108348]

Mrs. Liddell: The information is not held in the form requested and could be collected only at disproportionate cost.

Exhibitions

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if she will list events at which her Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which her Department is responsible have exhibited in each of the

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last three years, stating for each (a) the purpose of exhibiting, (b) the cost of exhibiting and (c) the number of staff attending for the exhibition. [107625]

Mrs. Liddell: My Department has not exhibited at any events.

NHS Treatment Delays

Mr. Jon Owen Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and the Scottish Parliament concerning a definition for an unreasonable period of delay for treatment within the NHS, as phrased in the European Court of Justice ruling on treatment of patients abroad for patients from Wales. [109879]

Mrs. McGuire: Treatment on the national health service is a devolved matter in Scotland, for the Scottish Executive. The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the Department of Health and the other UK health departments with regard to EU and other international health matters.

Parliament Elections

Mr. Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if she will introduce legislation to allow voters whose principal residence is in England but who own property and businesses in Scotland to vote in elections to the Scottish Parliament. [112596]

Mrs. Liddell: Section 11 of the Scotland Act 1998 provides that persons entitled to vote as electors at an election for membership of the Scottish Parliament are those who on the date of the poll would be entitled to vote as electors at a local government election and are registered in the register of local government electors. I have no plans to change this.

Pensions

Mr. Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if she will list the (a) funded and (b) unfunded public sector pension schemes for which her Department, its agencies and its non-departmental public bodies are responsible; when the last actuarial valuation was of each scheme; what the value was of the assets at the last actuarial valuation of each scheme; what deficit is disclosed by the last actuarial valuation of each scheme; and if she will make a statement. [104922]

Mrs. Liddell: My Department has no responsibility for any public sector pension schemes.

Public Service Agreement

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (a) how many and (b) what grades of officials are responsible for the monitoring of progress towards the public service agreement targets of her Department. [109473]

Mrs. Liddell: My Department has no public service agreements.

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DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Council Tax

Paddy Tipping: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the average council tax is per dwelling this year in (a) England and (b) Newark and Sherwood District Council. [112894]

Mr. Leslie: The average area council tax per dwelling in England in 2003–04 is £908.

The average area council tax per dwelling in Newark and Sherwood in 2003–04 is £1,009.

Departmental Annual Report

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when the 2002 annual report of his Department will be published. [107877]

Mr. Leslie: Departmental Annual Reports for 2003, covering the financial year 2002–03, are due to be published by 16 May 2003. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister expects to meet this deadline.

Fire Brigades Union

Linda Perham: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what discussions he has held with the Women's Action Committee of the Fire Brigades Union about family-friendly modernisation of working hours. [111741]

Mr. Raynsford: None. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will shortly be publishing a white paper setting out our proposals for the future of the Fire Service, and will include measures to make the service more attractive to groups who are currently seriously under represented in the workforce, including women who currently account for 1.7 per cent. of firefighter posts.

Fire Statistics

Chris Ruane: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) how many false alarms per 100,000 population there were in each fire authority in England and Wales in each of the last 10 years; [112984]

(2) how many deaths from accidental fires in dwellings per 100,000 head of population there were in each fire authority area in England and Wales in each of the last 10 years; [112986]

(3) how many accidental fires in dwellings per 10,000 dwellings there were in each fire authority area in England and Wales in each of the last 10 years; [112985]

(4) how many injuries from accidental fires in dwellings per 100,000 population there were in each fire authority in England and Wales in each of the last 10 years. [112987]

Mr. Raynsford: The requested information is available in the Library of the House.

Honours

Mr. Pope: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many officials in his Department have received honours; and how many honours are held by his officials, broken down by category of honour. [111494]

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Mr. Leslie: Due to the recent machinery of government changes, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not hold the information requested centrally and it could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Housing

Margaret Moran: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what measures he plans to take in the next two years to tackle the housing shortage in Luton. [110664]

Mr. McNulty: As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister made clear when he launched the "Sustainable Communities: building for the future"(SCP), some 22 billion is being invested, across England over the next three years. The East of England will share in the £4.7 billion being provided for housing investment in the three South-Eastern regions over the next three years. The recently established Regional Housing Board (RHB) will have a pivotal role in ensuring that the priorities set out in the forthcoming Regional Housing Strategy (RHS) are addressed and are adequately funded through the single housing pot.

Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) for the South East calls for an additional 2,430 new homes per year in Luton and Bedfordshire. Luton and Bedfordshire, also fall into one of the four "Growth Areas" identified in that RPG, which have in total, been earmarked for an additional 200,000 new homes by 2016. The area will benefit from a share of £164 million allocated in the SCP to expedite delivery of housing. All this will help ease the strain on the housing market and enable more people in Luton to have the opportunity to own their own home, and will promote regeneration in the town, higher standards in design and efficient use of land.

Luton has a number of affordable housing schemes already underway, in partnership with the Housing Corporation and Registered Social Landlords, to increase the amount of affordable housing. The development of the former Electrolux site will provide over 50 dwellings of affordable accommodation, the redevelopment of disused elderly homes to create sheltered accommodation for the frail and needy will also provide over 50 homes with care facilities. Other schemes are also in progress increasing the amount of affordable accommodation and other tenures in Luton.

Luton's issues, as detailed in the "Luton Factors 2002–2003" document, are being addressed by a number of Government led incentives, designed to alleviate the housing situation that this country finds itself in. The emergence of RPG 14, the RHS and the developing sub-regional strategies, will enable the Government Office for the East of England to work together with regional and local partners to put policies into practice and deliver the housing so desperately needed.

Local Authority Cabinets

Mr. Michael Foster: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many local authorities have appointed assistants to Cabinet members and given the assistants additional responsibility allowances. [112988]

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Mr. Leslie: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not collect information from councils on the number of councillors serving as assistants to members of local authority executives, or the allowance levels paid to council members.

Local authorities may also appoint political assistants, who are employees of the council. There may be no more than three political assistants in a Local Authority. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not collect information from councils on these appointments, or on how they are remunerated.

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