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Higher Education

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether, subject to access requirements, universities will be able to charge top-up fees for Foundation Degrees. [129730]

Alan Johnson: Foundation Degrees are, and will be subject to the same funding arrangements as other Higher Education qualifications.

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether the Office of Fair Access will be empowered to consider the adequacy of (a) financial and (b) pastoral support available to students at higher education institutions. [129763]

Alan Johnson: We said in "Widening Participation in Higher Education" that the role of the Office for Fair Access would be to consider and approve universities' access agreements, where an institution intended to charge variable fees in excess of the standard fee (currently £1,125) for any of their courses. Institutions

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will draw up their own agreements, which must set out the fee levels they wish to charge and the courses to which higher fees will apply; the outreach work they plan to undertake; the bursaries and other financial support they will make available; and the milestones against which they intend to measure progress towards their widening participation ambitions. These are the features which OFFA will consider.

Student Income and Expenditure Survey

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when he plans to publish the latest Student Income and Expenditure Survey. [129702]

Alan Johnson: The Department has received a draft report of the 2002/03 Student Income and Expenditure Survey from the contractor and is currently considering comments from the steering committee; including representation from the NUS and UUK. The Department will announce a date for publication once a finalised report has been received from the contractor.

Tuition Fees

Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what account is taken when assessing levels of tuition fee payments of the number of children within a family intending to go to university that the student's parents will have to support. [129094]

Alan Johnson: Support for dependent students under 25 in higher education is based on a financial assessment of their parents' gross income in the previous financial year. In the academic year 2003/04, parents will not make any contribution to their children's support if their residual income is below £20,970 a year.

Where there is more than one child in higher education, the total parental contribution is limited to the amount that would be assessed if there were only one student child. The parental contribution is then apportioned between the number of children in the family studying a course of higher education. Therefore, where parents have more than one student child, there is no higher assessed parental contribution to make to their student support.

Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what controls are in place on the level of tuition fees for Masters Degree courses; and whether financial assistance is available for those unable to pay. [129095]

Alan Johnson: The Government do not regulate the levels of fee charged for Masters Degree courses: it is for Higher Education Institutions to decide what level of fee they will charge. The Government do not make available assistance in the form of grants for fees for students undertaking Masters Degrees. The research councils and the Arts and Humanities Research Board provide a number of studentships and research grants each year for postgraduate students, including some on Masters courses depending on the field of study. These are allocated on a competitive basis.

University Entry Criteria

Rob Marris: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many United Kingdom

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universities accept (a) vocational and (b) work-based learning qualifications as entry criteria; and if he will make a statement. [129524]

Alan Johnson: Universities are taking into account an increasingly wide range of evidence when making decisions about a candidate's suitability. The extent to which vocational and work-based learning qualifications are taken into account varies from course to course, but they are particularly relevant for more vocationally orientated courses such as foundation degrees. However, this is a matter for universities and we have no figures on the number of courses for which vocational or work-based qualifications are taken into account in assessing a student's suitability.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Micro-finance

Mr. Gardiner: To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what action he is taking to increase support for micro-finance through the World Bank. [129859]

Hilary Benn: The Department for International Development provides extensive financial and technical support for the development of microfinance globally. Much of this work involves collaboration with The World Bank. DFID is an active member of The Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), a 29-member organisation of donors and private foundations committed to the spread of best practice and the expansion of microfinance worldwide.

CGAP is based in Washington DC, and is supervised by the World Bank, its largest shareholder. DFID currently chairs CGAP's Executive Committee, and works with the organisation in many developing countries to help commercialise microfinance institutions, extend their outreach to more clients, and diversify the range of financial services they offer poor clients from credit to savings, insurance, leasing and remittances.

DFID also collaborates with World Bank officials in several of its country programmes including Uganda, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. This involves co-ordinating programmes to develop the financial sector, and to mainstream microfinance into the formal banking system. DFID also supports programmes of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in the World Bank Group in the Balkans, Africa, South Asia, China and the Mekong. These programmes improve the policy and regulatory environment for small enterprise development, and support the expansion of private banks and non-governmental organisations that provide microfinance services.

Afghanistan

Mrs. Liddell: To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development (1) what improvements have been introduced in Afghanistan to ensure improved heath care for women and children in the last year; [129683]

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(2) what assistance the Government have provided towards improved maternity and neonatal care in Afghanistan. [129691]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: The Afghanistan Transitional Administration has asked donors to concentrate on a few key areas of the reconstruction effort where they can have most impact. In response to this the UK is concentrating on building the capacity of the Afghan Government, humanitarian aid and programmes to support the development of income generation.

We also fund Afghanistan's reconstruction effort through multi-lateral channels. The UK is the fourth largest donor to UNICEF and provided £44 million overall funding in 2002. We provide 19 per cent. of the European Union's £282 million package of reconstruction support for Afghanistan for 2003–04, of which £17.5 million is programmed for the health sector to help reduce infant and maternal mortality by providing a basic health care package. We are also contributing towards the World bank's Afghanistan Health Sector Emergency Reconstruction and Development Project, which aims to help expand delivery of basic health services and work to ensure equitable access, particularly for women and children.

Since April 2002 the European Commission has worked with the United States to rebuild 72 hospitals, clinics and women's health care centres, revise the national curriculum for midwives and vaccinate 4.3 million children against measles. Over 2003 and 2004, the EC will channel support through the Government to deliver health services to 3 million people and help to reduce the unacceptably high levels of child and maternal mortality.

UNICEF has supported Emergency Obstetric Care services in 20 districts and refurbished Malalai hospital, the largest maternity hospital in Kabul with 15,000 deliveries every year. UNICEF plans to launch other facilities in Kandahar, Herat and Jalalabad to build up the maternal health infrastructure.

Although health is not a key area of our bilateral support, we have funded consultants to the MoH to assist with policy and planning. One of these consultants played a major role in developing the country's interim health strategy.

Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what recent assessment he has made of the clearing of landmines in Afghanistan. [130298]

Mr. Gareth Thomas: At the end of 2002 an estimated 850 square kilometres of land in Afghanistan were still contaminated with anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines, as well as bombs dropped from aircraft and other explosive devices, such as mortars, which fail to detonate on impact but are still capable of exploding when they are touched or moved. As many as 300 people per month were injured or killed by landmines and unexploded ordnance last year.

The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) is responsible for co-ordinating 15 non-governmental organisations on behalf of the Government of Afghanistan for the clearing of mines and unexploded

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ordnance. We have provided £5.3 million funding to UNMAS over the last three years for their clearance operations in Afghanistan.

Since 1989, 754 square kilometres of minefields and former battle areas have been cleared or declared safe. In addition, the programme has overseen services that taught more than 2.4 million people how to identify and avoid mines and unexploded ordnance. In 2002 alone, the programme cleared mines and unexploded ordnance from about 111 square kilometres of land.

The Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan recently announced Afghanistan could be free from the threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance by 2012 if clearance operations continue at current levels and if international donor support is sustained.

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