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DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Review of Area Based Initiatives

The Minister for Social Exclusion and Deputy Minister for Women (Mrs. Barbara Roche): I am today announcing the publication of the Review of Area Based Initiatives progress report. Significant progress has been made in giving local people more freedom to deliver, following on from the launch of the Review of Area Based Initiatives some six months ago. A number of changes have been made following the Regional Co-ordination Unit's recommendations, which have resulted in a marked reduction in the bureaucracy associated with area based initiatives.

Copies of the progress report are available in the House Library.

Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty): The Leader of the House will announce today at Business Questions our intention to recommit the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill to Standing Committee.

We have taken this decision to enable us to bring forward provisions which will end the Crown's immunity from planning control, subject to certain safeguards. Given the substantive nature of the proposed amendments I think it is important that the House of Commons is given the opportunity to debate these new provisions fully before the Bill resumes its remaining stages.

We will also be seeking to introduce further provisions which will help to implement the Sustainable Communities agenda.

Clearly this will mean that the Bill will not be able to complete its remaining stages in this session. Motions have therefore also been tabled today to allow the Bill to be carried over into the next Parliamentary session. We will be seeking to ensure that the Bill reaches the statute book as soon as possible in the next session to lessen the impact of this slight delay.

We propose that the provisions relating to crown development extend beyond England and Wales, which would involve the Scottish Executive pursuing a Sewel motion in the Scottish Parliament. We are, of course, discussing this with the Scottish Executive, which has been kept informed of our proposals.

The intention to carry over the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill into the next session does not signify any lessening in our commitment to reforming the planning system.

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Copies of a short progress report covering the large number of workstreams being taken forward as part of this commitment are available in the Libraries of both Houses. The note will also be available on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website http://www.odpm.gov.uk/.

LORD CHANCELLOR

Legal Aid

The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Yvette Cooper): My right honourable and noble Friend, the Lord Chancellor, has today announced a package of measures, which will help achieve better value for money in the legal aid system while ensuring that help continues to go to those who need it most.

A consultation paper has been published today on the Criminal Defence Service (CDS). "Delivering Value for Money in the Criminal Defence Service" sets out a range of proposals to ensure that CDS expenditure is targeted on those areas where legal aid can best advance and protect a client's interests. Copies of the consultation paper have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

A further consultation paper on asylum legal aid "Proposed Changes to Publicly Funded Immigration and Asylum Work" has also been published today. This sets out proposals to ensure that we obtain more effective controls of costs and quality in legal advice given to asylum seekers. Copies of this consultation paper have also been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

He announced that we are setting up a project to consider the likely supply of and demand for lawyers over the coming years and to establish what remuneration rates may be necessary. This will provide an evidential basis for decisions to ensure a sufficient supply of lawyers of the right quality prepared to undertake legal aid work in the coming years.

Finally he announced that we are fully implementing the scheme for contracting very high cost criminal cases. These are cases which last (or are estimated to last) over 25 days at trial, or cost more than £150,000. This scheme will ensure better value for money, help the aims of better and earlier case preparation and give the professions greater certainty about payment for work.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Gas Quality

The Minister for Energy and Construction (Mr. Brian Wilson): The recent Energy White Paper noted that, as we move towards greater dependence on imported gas, there may be implications for gas quality. The Government undertook to keep developments closely under review (Cm 5761, para. 6.21).

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The DTI, working with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), has now appointed consultants to advise on whether there is in fact likely to be a significant gas quality issue, particularly (but not exclusively) in relation to Wobbe Index. The Wobbe Number represents a measure of the heat release when a gas is burned at constant gas supply pressure.

The upper and lower limits for the specification of gas in respect of Wobbe Index are set out in the HSE's Gas Safety Management Regulations (SI 1996/550). There is anecdotal evidence that some of the potential sources of gas imports for the UK market may have a Wobbe Index that exceeds the current upper limit. High Wobbe gas requires more oxygen to burn completely; and there is a risk that some of the older gas appliances may not be able to draw in sufficient oxygen to work safely.

There may be further issues affecting the specification of imported gas concerning other effects, and other parameters.

Against this background I am today launching a 3-phase strategy, as follows:

Phase one is a scoping study to look, in particular but not exclusively, at the Wobbe Index of future imported gas. It will explore the UK's capability of importing gas of the expected specification, taking into consideration existing gas terminal facilities as well as known future import projects. This phase should be completed by the end of August. ILEX Energy Consulting Ltd have been appointed to take this work forward.

During this phase my Department will hold a workshop, to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to register their interest, and to brief them.

Phase two will depend on phase one establishing that there is a gas quality issue to be addressed. It would be a tripartite (DTI, HSE, Ofgem) consultation on the appropriate policy response. One option would be to increase the current Wobbe limit with an advantage in terms of lower gas import costs but requiring the identification and removal of non-compliant gas appliances. The alternative option would be to retain the current Wobbe limit—avoiding the need to identify/remove certain gas appliances, but with a penalty in terms of gas import costs, and ease and reliability of access to an increasingly global and liquid international gas market. I should hope to conclude that consultation by spring 2004.

The Government would propose to review the next steps at that time. I would expect that review to take into account the outcome of the consultation process, and also the state of play of the European Commission's work on interoperability of gas grids, which includes work on gas quality. The EU dimension is potentially very helpful in providing a broader context of regulatory stability. But it is important that any policy conclusions reached next spring should be robust against changes at the EU level. That may require delaying decisions here, until the EU aspect clarifies.

Phase three would be the implementation of the policy. There are unavoidable uncertainties about the timing of phase three. However, I would hope that phase three could be initiated during the first half of 2004. If

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the policy decision is to increase the upper Wobbe limit, that would require amendment to the HSE's GSMR, and a major exercise to identify and remove non-compliant gas appliances. Consequently the new Wobbe limit would be unlikely to take effect before the end of 2005.

I shall report to the House in due course on the outcome of phase one, and on the timetable for the remainder of the exercise as it firms up.

This exercise has been developed by the DTI as a member of the Sustainable Energy Policy Network (SEPN) which is working to deliver the Energy White Paper "Our Energy Future—creating a low carbon economy".

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

Rural Delivery Arrangements

The Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life (Alun Michael): Lord Haskins' Rural Delivery Review will help improve the way rural policies are delivered and make a real difference to local people.

The seven guiding principles of the review—the first outcome of Lord Haskins' work—were published today. They are:

Better accountability: policy development should be managed separately from policy delivery, whilst ensuring that proper communication exists at all stages between the two functions. Accountability for success or failure cannot be determined if there is confusion between the two.


Readiness for policy change: the Government must prepare for the delivery of a major new agri-environmental agenda in the coming years.


Devolution: delivery of economic and social policy must be devolved in accordance with the principles of public service reform.


Customer focus: the services available to rural businesses and rural communities, and visitors to the countryside, need to be more accessible and transparent.


Simplicity: the complex range of agencies currently engaged in delivering the government's rural policies should be simplified.


Co-ordination: the environmental, social and economic elements of rural delivery should be better co-ordinated at a regional level.


Value for money: the taxpayer must get better value for money as a result of changes to the current arrangements.

Ministers are very grateful for all the work Lord Haskins has done so far, meeting hundreds of individuals and organisations throughout England, as well as visiting Scotland, Wales, France, Germany and Belgium. The principles he has developed are a very useful first indication of his thinking and are consistent with existing work across Government bringing services closer to local people, for example through devolution and decentralisation.

Ministers want to see real improvements in service delivery to rural people and we expect the Rural Delivery Review to build on these principles to produce imaginative and effective proposals. We now look forward to receiving Lord Haskins' final conclusions in the autumn.

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