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4 Mar 2004 : Column 1152W—continued
Road Haulage Forum
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the future of the road haulage forum. [158222]
Mr. Jamieson: The road haulage forum will continue to meet as long as all sides think it worthwhile. I expect the next meeting to be in April.
Road Scheme Funding
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what monitoring systems exist to ensure that funds allocated to local authorities for road improvement and maintenance schemes are not used for other purposes. [158233]
Mr. McNulty: Integrated Transport block and maintenance allocations are issued as part of the Single Capital Pot and are unringfenced to give authorities greater flexibility over how they spend their funds. Local authorities may spend the funding as they wish on the services they provide in line with local priorities and in order to deliver the targets in their local transport plans (LTPs). When we are considering future capital allocations for local authorities, one of the factors taken into account is how local authorities have spent their LTP allocations and their performance in delivering their targets.
The Chief Finance Officer of each local authority is required to complete an audit form each year to confirm what LTP resources have been used in the previous financial year. These returns are audited by the Audit Commission.
Road Transport Directive
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what procedures he plans to introduce to facilitate enforcement of the Road Transport Directive in respect of drivers of foreign registered vehicles operating in the United Kingdom. [158226]
Mr. Jamieson: Our approach to enforcing the Road Transport Directive is outlined in our consultation document, which was published on 21 October 2003 and entitled "Consultation on the UK's proposal for implementing the Working Time Directive for mobile workers in the Road Transport Sector". A copy is available in the House Libraries, or can be downloaded from the DfT website at www.dft.gov.uk/freight/rtd.
My officials are presently analysing replies from the consultation exercise and we should be able to announce the results and our approach to enforcement very shortly.
4 Mar 2004 : Column 1153W
Transport Action Clean-up Programme
Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what funding has been (a) budgeted for and (b) spent on the Transport Action Clean-Up programme in each financial year since 2001–02; and what the budget is for 2004–05. [157916]
Mr. Jamieson: The CleanUp programme is one of the Transport Energy programmes administered by the Energy Saving Trust (others include Powershift and the New Vehicle Technology Fund). As such, funding for CleanUp must be balanced against requirements for all the Transport Energy programmes. In total, the DfT allocated £26 million to these three programmes in 2003–4 and has committed the same amount for 2004–5. Grant and budget funding allocated to the CleanUp programme since 2001–2 is shown in the table.
| Clear up grants budget | Clear up grants actual | |
|---|---|---|
| 2001–2 | 8.0 | 7.4 |
| 2002–3 | 10.0 | 8.4 |
| 2003–4 | 9.0 | 13.0 |
| 2004–5 | 7.0 | n/a |
To meet the increase in demand in 2003–4, the Trust has redirected funding from marketing and promotional activities to help meet the additional spend on grants.
Speed Cameras
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what guidelines he issues regarding the positioning of speed cameras, with particular reference to mobile speed cameras. [156502]
4 Mar 2004 : Column 1154W
Mr. Jamieson: The 'Handbook of rules and guidance for the operation of the national road safety camera programme for England and Wales', deals with the positioning of fixed and mobile speed cameras. Copies were placed in the Libraries of the House on 5 December 2003.
Websites
Matthew Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the cost in (a) financial and (b) other terms was in (i) each financial year since 1997 and (ii) 2003–04 until the latest date for which figures are available of (A) developing and (B) maintaining (1) his Department's website and (2) each website for which his Department is responsible; and how many (C) unique hosts and (D) hits there were in each month for each website in (iii) each financial year since 1997 and (iv) 2003–04 until the latest date for which numbers are available. [155852]
Mr. McNulty: The information requested has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The details in this response refer to the Department for Transport web site and associated web sites since late May 2002 when the Department came into existence. Similar details for previous years could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Development costs are provided for all sites. Costs in 'other terms' by which we understand you to mean staff overheads cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.
In respect of (C) Unique hosts—we understand you to mean the number of 'hosting services' (virtual and dedicated) that we are contracted to use. The DfT is contracted to use one dedicated hosting service for all web sites referenced in this response.