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PRIME MINISTER

Departmental Expenditure Limit

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): Subject to Parliamentary approval of any necessary Supplementary Estimate, the Security and Intelligence Agencies' DEL will be increased by £39,176,000 from £1,458,270,000 to £1,497,446,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £7,949,000 from £558,375,000 to £566,324,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the following table:

		New DEL
	Change	Voted	Non-voted	Total
Resource	35,161,000	1,105,287,000	11,750,000	1,117,037,000
Capital	4,015,000	516,009,000	5,000,000	521,009,000
	Depreciation*-		-140,600,000	-	140,600,000
Total	39,176,000	1,480,696,000	16,750,000	1,497,446,000

* Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from:

the take up of £10, 875,000 for Serious Crime funding. This was allocated to the Home Office at SR2000;


a claim on the Reserve of £21,300,000 for work in Iraq;

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the take up of End of Year Flexibility of £3,000,000;


a transfer of £154,000 to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise (HMCE) for a building which is solely used by HMCE staff;


a switch from capital to resource of £145,000;


a decrease of £5,000 resource due to a reduction of £5,000 in the forecast loss on sale of an asset. This is a non-cash item;


a transfer from non-voted DEL to voted DEL of £2,000,000;


a further increase in resource of £5,015,000. This is offset by an increase of £5,015,000 Operating Appropriations in Aid.

The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from:

a claim on the reserve of £3,700,000 for work in Iraq;


a transfer of £460,000 from the Cabinet Office;


a switch from capital to resource of £145,000;


a further increase in Capital of £5,000. This is offset by an increase in non-operating appropriations in aid of £5,000.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

Departmental Expenditure Limit

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell): Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimate, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport DEL will be increased by £144,665,000 from £1,401,271,000 to £1,545,936,000 and the administration costs limits will be increased by £3,005,000 from £44,182,000 to £47,187,000.

Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the following table:

		New DEL
	Change	Voted	Non-voted	Total
Resource	24,831,000	195,840,000	1,229,799,000	1,425,639,000
Capital	119,834,000	109,551,000	98,054,000	207,605,000
	Depreciation*0		-3,555,000	-83,753,000	-87,308,000
Total	144,665,000	301,836,000	1,244,100,000	1,545,936,000

* Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

The change in the resource element of the DEL arises from transfers to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of £125,000 toward costs of reimbursing the Ordnance Survey under the Pan Government Agreement; a transfer from the Department for Education and Skills of £1,250,000 toward the costs of strategic commissioning of educational initiatives in museums and galleries and £130,000 for funding of the Club Links sporting programme; transfers to the Department for Education and Skills of £37,000,000 for funding of the School Sports Co-ordinator programme and £300,000 for funding of the schoolteachers' coaching programme; transfers from the Home Office of

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£2,000,000 for match funding of the Step into Sport volunteer initiative and £134,000 for match funding of the Public Library Volunteer Scheme; and £104,794,000 other Resource DEL to fund ongoing programmes.

The increase in the Department's administration costs limit arises from the transfer of £20,000 administration costs from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister toward the costs of local public service agreements and transfer of £762,000 administration costs to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister toward the administration costs of Government Offices; and take up of £3,747,000 of administration costs end year flexibility as set out in the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper (Cm 5884).

The change in the capital element of the DEL arises from take up of end year flexibility as set out in the Public Expenditure Outturn White Paper (Cm 5884) of £5,000,000 for further development of Culture Online; £3,256,000 for the royal parks and £62,521,000 other Capital DEL to fund ongoing programmes.

The increases will be offset by inter-departmental transfers and drawdown of end year flexibility entitlement and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

Tote

The Minister for Sport and Tourism (Mr. Richard Caborn): The Government remains committed to the sale of the Tote, and we plan to bring forward the necessary legislative proposals very shortly.

As part of the preparations for the sale, the Government has had to consider whether the Tote's current exclusive right to offer pool betting on British horseracing should continue once it has been transferred into the private sector. We have concluded that it will be in the public interest to open up the pool betting market to effective competition, but that a reasonable preparatory period is necessary in order to safeguard the policy aims underlying the sale.

The Government has therefore decided that if our plans to sell the Tote to a racing consortium proceed, then the current intention is to issue the Tote's successor company with an exclusive licence to operate horserace pool betting on British racing for seven years.

This licence will not be extended and at the end of that period there will be a new regulatory regime that will allow other operators to provide pool betting as well. We believe that this proposal provides necessary certainty for all concerned.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

Departmental Expenditure Limit

The Solicitor-General (Ms Harriet Harman): Subject to Parliamentary approval of any necessary supplementary estimates, the Attorney General's DEL will be increased by £81,807,000 from £471,797,000 to £553,604,000 and the Administration Costs Limit will

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be increased by £78,607,000 from £350,984,000 to £429,791,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are set out in the following table:

		New DEL
	Change	Voted	Non-voted	Total
Resource	81,807,000	546,604,000	7,000,000	553,604,000
Capital	700,000	15,300,000	0	15,300,000
	Depreciation*-100,000		-4,573,000	0	4,573,000
Total	82,407,000	557,331,000	7,000,000	564,331,000

* Depreciation is included in both the Resource and Capital DEL figures so it must be removed to arrive at the correct figure for total DEL.

The Crown Prosecution Service's element of the Attorney General's DEL will be increased by £76,367,000 from £435,294,000 to £511,661,000 and the Administration Costs Limit will be increased by £76,367,000 from £325,207,000 to £401,574,000.

The increase of £76,143,000 in the resource element of the DEL is from the Criminal Justice Reserve to fund the CPS's core business so that it can continue contributing to meeting criminal justice performance targets.

The increase of £200,000 arises from a transfer from the Home Office to support the six-month extension to the Visual Recording of Suspects' pilots and the increase of £24,000 is from the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) for the Case Preparation Project pilots.

The Capital Modernisation Fund provided £1,800,000 in 2003–04 to enable the CPS to develop a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that would support secure e-mail and data transfer with other CJS organisations; and barristers and solicitors in the private sector. During the planning stage, an alternative simpler solution was identified and tested and it is this initiative that will be taken forward by Criminal Justice Information Technology (CJIT). CJIT have indicated that they do not require the funding to be transferred and consequently the decrease in the capital element of the DEL arises from the CPS returning £1,800,000 capital to the Capital Modernisation Fund.

The Serious Fraud Office's (SFO) DEL will increase by £5,440,000 from £23,410,000 to £28,850,000 and the Administration Costs Limit will increase by £2,240,000 from £16,235,000 to £18,475,000.

The increase in the resource element of the DEL arises from additional costs relating to two blockbuster fraud cases; £2,240,000 relates to increased administration costs and £3,200,000 relates to programme costs—mainly investigation and prosecution costs.

The change in the capital element of the SFO DEL arises from a £450,000 increase in I.T. hardware spending, which relates to one of the blockbuster cases. These changes in DEL are supported by a claim on the DEL Reserve. This was agreed due to these cases being considered different from normal SFO cases in terms of their size and complexity and because of the strong public interest in pursuing them.

There is no change in the resource element of the DEL for the Treasury Solicitors' Department (TSOL). The increase in capital of £2,050,000 from £3,200,000 to £5,250,000 arises from major areas of capital

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expenditure relating to the implementation of new systems and the upgrading of the Department's I.T. infrastructure. The new major systems include a practice and case management system, (which enables the Department to more effectively manage and monitor its casework), a new electronic records and electronic document management system and, also, an upgrade to the Department's financial systems.

There is no increase in the TSOL's administration cost limit.

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