---

1 Jul 2003 : Column 260W—continued

Staff Numbers

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many staff the Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which the Department is responsible had in each year since 1997; and what the cost of those staff was in each of those years. [122258]

Peter Hain: The Wales Office was created in July 1999, it has no agencies or NDPBs.

Staffing level and running cost information is provided at pages 23 and 27 of the Wales Office Departmental Report 2003, published in May 2003 as Cm 5928.

Terrorism

Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales pursuant to his answer of 20 May 2003, Official Report, column 722W, on terrorism, how many mobile radiation detection units are available for deployment at Welsh ports and airports; and what counter terrorism coverage is available at Welsh ports in advance of a decision on the location of new equipment. [116799]

Mr. Touhig: For security reasons Customs do not provide specific details of the equipment they have available or how it is deployed.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Administration Costs

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much has been spent by his Ministers on administration in each year since 1997. [104186]

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the running costs in 2002 were of (a) his Ministers' private offices, separately identifying expenditure on staff, and (b) his Department. [105995]

Yvette Cooper: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was established following the Machinery of Government changes on 29 May 2002.

1 Jul 2003 : Column 261W

(a) The following table shows the total administration resource and pay expenditure on Ministers' private offices.

Administration resource and pay expenditure£000

Administration resource expenditure	2002–03
Private office total	2,346
of which Pay total	1,489

(b) The gross administration resource expenditure for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (including Government offices but excluding its executive agencies) for 2002–03 is £264 million. This figure is provisional and subject to the final accounts being signed off.

Commission for the Built Environment

Dr. Murrison: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what funding the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment receives from the Department. [121339]

Mr. Caborn: I have been asked to reply.

This year (2003–04) the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) will receive £3.53 million grant-in-aid from DCMS. CABE will also receive up to £7.35 million from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, primarily to reflect the commitment to urban parks and green spaces made in the Government's policy document "Living Places: Cleaner, Safer, Greener" and the priorities set out in the Communities Plan published in February 2003: "Sustainable Communities; Building for the Future".

Green Belt

Mr. Brady: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he plans to issue new planning policy guidance relating to the removal of green belt designation. [123022]

Keith Hill: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has indicated that it intends to review all planning policy guidance (PPG) notes to provide clearer expressions of national planning policy. The review of PPG2 on green belts will commence later this year but the Government have no current plans to make fundamental changes to green belt policy.

Housing

Mr. Pickles: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many special needs houses there are in England, broken down by (a) Parliamentary constituency, (b) local authority area and (c) region. [121816]

Keith Hill: Information on the number of accommodation-based services and associated household units for the people with physical or sensory disability and people with learning disabilities, at December 2002, funded through the Supporting People programme by County and unitary authority area and region is available on the Supporting People Web at http:www.spkweb.org.uk under General Documents and DiscussionV General Documents· December 2002 Supply data· December Supply Reporting Spreadsheet-Table 4.

1 Jul 2003 : Column 262W

Information at the parliamentary constituency level and the non-unitary local authority level is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister pursuant to his Answer of 20 June, Official Report, column 525W, on housing, what the timescale is for the consultation process; and if he will make a statement. [122031]

Keith Hill: The aim is as soon as possible.

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister pursuant to his Answer of 20th June, Official Report, columns 524–25W, on housing, if he will commission research to (a) determine the current and future demand for social housing in the South-East and (b) devise a strategy that will ensure the demand is met; and if he will make a statement. [122032]

Keith Hill: Assessing the level of housing demand in the South East is the responsibility of the Regional Planning Body, in conjunction with the Regional Housing Board and other interested parties, and will be undertaken as part of the drafting of the next round of Regional Planning Guidance for the South East (RPG9). Wholescale reviews of RPG9 will commence later this year to produce a new Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS).

The Regional Assembly, together with the Government Office for the South East has commissioned work to provide a regional level methodology for assessing the level of households in need in anticipation of this review. The work is ongoing, and will provide one of the factors that will feed into the assessment of housing supply and demand in the South East to support the eventual Regional Spatial Strategy. Following public consultation and independent testing draft RSS9 will then be submitted to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Sustainable Communities Plan, which was published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in February, sets out a programme of action which includes measures to address the imbalance between supply and demand in the South East and elsewhere, through increasing housing supply and making better use of existing housing stock.

Ms Oona King: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister pursuant to his Answer of 17 June 2003, Official Report, column 167W, if he will place in the Library a copy of the research into the health impacts of overcrowding on which policy decisions on tackling overcrowding are being based. [122325]

Keith Hill: The relevant research is reported in "Statistical Evidence to Support the Housing Health and Safety Rating System", published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in May. Two volumes of the document Volume 1: Project Report and Volume 2: Summary of Results—have been placed in the House of Commons Library and are available, together with previous research in support of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, at www.housing.odpm.Rov.uk/research/hhsrs/index.htm . Volume 2 provides an outline of the issues associated with all the hazards to be assessed under the system, including hazards related to

1 Jul 2003 : Column 263W

crowding and space, and lists the key references on which estimates of health outcomes have been made for the purposes of the system. A third volume, the technical appendix, will be published shortly.

David Davis: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what data he has collected on abuses of right to buy. [122899]

Keith Hill: In 2002, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister commissioned Heriot-Watt University to examine the scale, nature and impact of the misuse of the Right to Buy policy by companies. The results were published in March 2003. The full report is available on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website at http://www.housing.odpm.gov.uk/information/rtb/index.htm; a summary is at http://www.housing.odpm.gov.uk/hrs/hrs177/index.htm.

The research found that some properties sold under the Right to Buy scheme had been acquired by companies offering tenants financial help to buy their homes on condition that they resold them to the company after the three-year discount repayment period had ended ('deferred resale' arrangements). Both tenant and company thereby evade the statutory requirement, in place since 1980, to repay discount where a property is resold within three years of being sold under the Right to Buy scheme, and the companies acquire former social homes at substantially less than their market value in order to rent them out. This means that homes formerly available at subsidised social rents then command substantially higher market rents, reducing the availability of affordable housing.

Such exploitation is prevalent in Inner London, where the report estimated that at least 2,000 properties had been acquired in this way by companies since 1998. It also noted that at least one such company was advertising nationally.

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether arms length management organisations are treated in the same way as housing associations for the puposes of (a) housing benefit and (b) borrowing; and what plans he has to allow ALMOs to raise loans in their stock. [123000]

Keith Hill: Tenants of dwellings managed by Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) remain tenants of the local authority and are treated in the same way as other local authority tenants for housing benefit purposes. As announced in the Sustainable Communities Plan in February, we intend to consult further on the financial regime that should be available to the highest performing ALMOs.

---