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DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Arm's Length Management Organisations
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): I am today confirming funding of £473.4 million for 2004–05 and 2005–06 for the eight Arm's Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) set up under Round 1 of the ALMO programme. The ALMOs in Ashfield, Derby, Hounslow, Kirklees, Rochdale, Stockton-on-Tees, Westminster and Wigan have made excellent progress. Tenants are benefiting from improvements to their homes and an enhanced housing management service. All the Round 1 ALMOs have achieved ratings of at least two stars from the Housing Inspectorate, with three (Ashfield, Derby and Westminster) achieving three stars.
Following a detailed assessment of the ALMOs' costs and their other sources of income, and taking account of the need to maximise efficiency, I have approved the allocations for 2004–06 shown in the table below. This will keep the ALMOs on track to achieve the decent homes target.
| Round 1ALMO | Number oftenanted units(2001) | ALMOallocation2002–04 | ALMOallocation2004–06 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashfield | 8,288 | £24.0m | £22.1m |
| Derby | 15,424 | £31.1m | £66.0m |
| Hounslow | 14,801 | £35.0m | £64.7m |
| Kirklees | 28,269 | £62.5m | £87.3m |
| Rochdale | 17,227 | £24.2m | £82.1m |
| Stockton | 14,060 | £44.5m | £18.5m |
| Westminster | 13,500 | £20.3m | £53.7m |
| Wigan | 26,446 | £58.3m | £79.0m |
| TOTAL | 137,619 | £299.9m | £473.4m |
TREASURY
EU Enlargement (Tobacco Products)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey): I am today laying regulations confirming the introduction of quantitative restrictions on travellers bringing tobacco products from those new EU member states taking advantage of a derogation allowing them to delay meeting minimum duty levels on certain tobacco products.
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The restrictions will apply from 1 May to the following:
- cigarettes bought duty-paid in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia;
- manufactured tobacco products 1 bought duty-paid in the Czech Republic; and
- smoking tobacco 2 bought duty-paid in Estonia.
Where new member states take advantage of the derogation, existing member states are entitled to maintain the same restrictions on the import of cigarettes and some other tobacco products bought in those countries for a traveller's own use, as are currently applied to travellers arriving from third countries, including the new member states.
The Excise Duty Points (Etc.)(New Member States) Regulations 2004, the Customs and Excise Duties (Travellers' Allowances and Personal Reliefs) Order 2004 and the Channel Tunnel (Alcoholic Liquor and Tobacco Products)(Amendment) Order 2004 allow the UK to maintain these restrictions.
After Accession on May 1, travellers to the UK bringing in tobacco products from the countries covered by the regulations will be restricted, as they are currently, to a limit of 200 cigarettes, or, in the case of Estonia, to a limit of 200 cigarettes or 250 grams of smoking tobacco; or, in the case of the Czech Republic, to a limit of 200 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 100 cigarillos or 250 grams of smoking tobacco.
While the EU minimum duty rates are not met, uncertainties over the impact of EU Enlargement on excise smuggling and cross-border shopping are also heightened.
The Government will therefore review both the operational and principled justification for retention of quantitive restrictions after 12 months in light of developments in smuggling and shopping patterns, and in light of progress made by the new member states to comply with the minimum duty levels.
Customs and Excise has plans in place to explain the restrictions to the travel industry and general public.
- 1 Manufactured tobacco products includes cigars, cigarillos and smoking tobacco.
- 2 Smoking tobacco is hand rolling tobacco (HRT) and pipe tobacco.
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
Cyprus
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): I would like to inform the House of developments in relation to Cyprus.
Following the breakdown of settlement negotiations in The Hague in March 2003, the UN Secretary-General made a report to the Security Council. In this report Kofi Annan announced that his proposal for a comprehensive Cyprus settlement (the Annan Plan) remained on the table. However, he added that he did not propose to take any further initiatives unless and until such time as he was given solid reason to believe that the Necessary political will existed for a successful outcome.
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The Secretary-General went on to say that he believed it would be a great step Backward if the plan were simply to wither away. He believed that a solution on the basis of the plan could be achieved only if there was an unequivocally stated preparedness on the part of the leaders of both sides, fully and determinedly backed at the highest level in both motherlands, to commit themselves (a) to finalise the plan (without reopening its basic principles or essential trade-offs) by a specific date with United Nations assistance, and (b) to put it to separate simultaneous referendums as provided for in the plan on a date certain soon hereafter.
The United Kingdom shared this approach and continued to work with its EU and US partners in support of UN efforts to keep the plan on the table and to encourage the parties to Remonstrate the necessary political will to re-engage.
The elections in north Cyprus on 14 December 2003 marked a turning point. The Turkish Cypriots voiced their resounding support for the pro-settlement, pro-EU parties and in doing so gave popular expression to a growing desire from the Turkish Cypriot community to work for an early settlement of the Cyprus problem in order to allow a reunited Cyprus to join the EU on 1 May 2004. Encouraged by the attitude of the Turkish Cypriots and aware of the potential positive impact a Cyprus settlement would have on its own EU aspirations, the JVKP government in Ankara led by Prime Minister Erdogan signalled its own willingness to tje-engage and work constructively for a settlement.
The parties (the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Greece and Turkey) were therefore invited to New York by the Secretary-General on 4 February 2004 in order to resume negotiations towards a settlement on the basis of the Annan Plan. On 13 February, following an initial round of discussions, the Secretary-General announced that the parties had agreed to resume talks on the basis of the Annan Plan and had committed themselves to a three phase process leading to a finalised plan being submitted to simultaneous, separate referendums on 24 April
The 13 February agreement was a landmark achievement. The parties had committed themselves to a strict timetable and a negotiation process which led inexorably towards simultaneous referendums on a pre-determined date on the basis of a settlement plan which, absent agreement between the parties (including, in the final stage, Greece and Turkey) would be finalised by the Secretary-General himself. Negotiations between the two sides resumed in Cyprus on 19 February. In parallel to the main political level negotiations between the leaders of the two communities, technical committees started to work through the whole range of laws and administrative texts and practical arrangements necessary to give effect to the new state of affairs.
During this phase of the negotiations, our High Commissioner in Nicosia informed the UN that the UK's earlier offer to the UN of giving up roughly half of the territory of the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus remained valid, subject to some small changes in the map. The land to be ceded to the United Cyprus Republic would not in any way compromise the operational capabilities of the bases themselves. The UN confirmed that the UK's offer would be very
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valuable in taking forward the adjustments to the territory of the two new constituent states. The UK's offer has been incorporated in the UN's map for the new Cyprus.
On 24 March, the negotiations moved to Buergenstock, Switzerland, where the UN and the parties were joined by Greece and Turkey in a final push for a negotiated settlement agreed between the parties themselves. The UK attended in its capacity as a Guarantor Power in order to assist the efforts of the UN Secretary-General's Good Offices Mission. The European Commissioner for Enlargement, Gunter Verheugen, also attended for the final days.
On 29 March the Secretary-General presented the parties with a revised plan. This revision was produced following extensive consultation and aimed to strike a balanced compromise, building on the earlier version of the Annan Plan which had been presented to the parties in February 2003, and taking subsequent developments and both sides' views carefully into account. Following a further final round of meetings between the Secretary-General, the parties and Greece and Turkey, Kofi Annan called the parties together late on 31 March. Announcing that the time for negotiation and
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consultation was over, and that the time for decision and action had arrived, the Secretary-General presented the parties and the Guarantor Powers (Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom) with his finalised plan—Annan IV—for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem.
In his remarks, Kofi Annan said that the Plan was inevitably a compromise. It did not satisfy everyone's demands. But he believed that it met the core interests, and addressed the key concerns, of people on both sides. He added that the choice was not between the Plan and some other mythical solution. In reality, the choice was between the settlement on offer or no settlement at all. The Government shares this view.
No one is under any illusion about what remains to be done. No one is saying that reunification will be easy. But the plan is balanced and fair, and offers all Cypriots the chance of a better future as citizens of a United Cyprus Republic within the European Union. The Government believes strongly that this is a chance that must not be squandered.
The final decision will now be taken by the Cypriots themselves in separate, simultaneous referendums to be held on 24 April.