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20 May 2004 : Column 1138W—continued

Sexual Offences

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to repeat the Spiked initiative. [171026]

Caroline Flint: The Spiked campaign is an educational film which raises awareness of drink and drug related sexual assault. It is not a Home Office initiative, and no direct funding has been made available by the Home Office. Funding totalling £9,275 was provided to support the project from the Drugscope Millennium Awards Scheme. It was initiated by an independent film maker based in Hertfordshire and there has been some take up in other local areas, but this has not been organised by the Home Office.

Solvent Abuse

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research his Department has commissioned into the extent of solvent abuse by children. [169063]

Caroline Flint: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, on 29 April 2004, Official Report, column 1273W.

Terrorism

Patrick Mercer: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department who would be responsible for meeting the cost of temporary mortuaries in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack. [170067]

Mr. Blunkett: Section 198 of the Public Health Act 1936 states that local authorities may or shall, if directed to do so by the Minister, provide a public mortuary. Additionally, Section 27 of the Coroners Act 1988 sets out that county councils and lead boroughs in metropolitan areas are responsible for providing support to coroners.

However, we recognise that a large-scale terrorist attack could have the potential to overwhelm existing local or regional mortuary capacity.

We are issuing national guidance shortly on dealing with fatalities in emergencies. Following publication, we will be working with the regions, devolved administrations, local responders and specialists to review existing levels of national capacity and to consider a framework for a national response. The guidance will be updated in light of this work.
 
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Patrick Mercer: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy, in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack that affected several counties, to establish a helpline for concerned family members to gain information about relatives. [170068]

Mr. Blunkett: In the event of a terrorist incident affecting several counties the Metropolitan Police Service would respond to any request from the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Home Office or from other UK Police Forces, to open the Central Casualty Bureau.

Each UK Police Force will have a Casualty Bureau but in the event that several counties were affected by a major terrorist incident, obviously it would be expected that the Central Casualty Bureau would be opened.

The Casualty Bureau provides a central contact point and is set up to deal specifically with missing persons, survivors, evacuees and witnesses involved in the incident. It is designed to receive and collate information relating to the incident.

If approached, the Central Casualty Bureau may also be opened for foreign events involving British subjects, as it has previously.

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

Fine Collection

Mr. Hammond: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what steps his Department is taking to improve collection rates of fines. [174010]

Mr. Leslie: Driving up performance in the collection of fines is a key priority in increasing confidence in the Criminal Justice System. That is why I announced last June my action plan to deliver significant improvements. A wide range of initiatives have been delivered or are planned. These include:

The piloting of new enforcement tools and measures included in the Courts Act 2003

the introduction earlier this year of a policy of no longer writing off fines;

the introduction from April 2004 of a new incentives package for enforcement teams;

direct support for poorer performing magistrates courts committees (MCCs) through targeted intervention;

"Operation Payback", a national blitz on outstanding warrants which raised £630,000 during the week commencing 22 March and will be repeated later in the year; and

improving the information available to MCCs when offenders are difficult to trace.

Mr. Hammond: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs if he will set targets for percentage collection rates of fines imposed by the courts for (a) the current year and (b) each of the next two years. [174011]

Mr. Leslie: As a result of the progress made in 2003–04, with the payment rate in the final quarter at 76 per cent. against the target of 75 per cent., I have set
 
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a new national payment rate target for 2004–05 at 78 per cent. This will sustain the performance improvement achieved to date and build on it.

Performance during 2004–05 will inform decisions to be taken on targets for future years.

SCOTLAND

Scottish Development International

David Burnside: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what the annual running costs of Scottish Development International were over the last three years; and how much inward investment has been attracted and how many new jobs have been created over this period. [174721]

Mrs. McGuire: As this is a devolved matter for the Scottish Executive, the Scotland Office does not hold any information on the financial or operational performance of Scottish Development International.

Information relating to Scottish Development International is also available on their website, at www.scottishdevelopmentinternational.com.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Community Housing Task Force

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many people work in his Community Housing Task Force; what their average salary is; and how many are (a) civil servants and (b) consultants. [174099]

Keith Hill: There are a total of 16 people working in the Community Housing Task Force. The average salaries for the twelve senior advisers who support local authorities, tenants and other stakeholders across the country is £44,032; salaries for the head of the task force is £79,288 pa and the average salaries for three support staff is £26,497. There are 13 civil servants and three advisers on secondments arrangements from local authorities and the National Housing Federation. There are no consultants working in the task force.

Mobile Homes

Jim Knight: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will review the way in which the Valuation Office Agency assesses mobile homes for council tax purposes. [174971]

Mr. Raynsford: Mobile homes are not in themselves subject to council tax, but liability may arise in respect of the land on which the mobile home stands. Most mobile homes pitches which are subject to council tax are rated at band A. The 2001 White Paper "Strong Local Leadership—Quality Public Services" recognised that council tax bands are not fine grained enough to reflect differences in value at the bottom end of the property market and noted the concerns of mobile home owners about this. This issue has been further considered by his Balance of Funding Review. The Government have
 
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announced that work on a council tax revaluation will start in 2005, with council tax bills based on updated property values issuing in 2007.

Ahead of revaluation the Government will listen to the views of taxpayers and local authorities about council tax bands to help inform the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's decisions on future band structure.

Housing (North-east Lincolnshire)

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much public money per council property
 
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has been allocated to (a) Hull and (b) Grimsby in each year since 2000–01; and what the projected total is for 2004–05. [174634]

Keith Hill: The table shows the expenditure allowances within Housing Revenue Account Subsidy for north east Lincolnshire and Kingston upon Hull for 2000–01 to 2004–05.

The allowances include the funding provided to meet the costs of past and new borrowing carried out to finance renovation and improvement work. It is also open to authorities to fund such work from their own resources, for example from capital receipts. Decisions on this are for individual authorities to take in the light of local priorities.

	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03	2003–04	2004–05
North East Lincolnshire
Management and maintenance	8,129,578	8,045,574	8,412,641	8,770,557	10,430,125
Major repairs	—	4,785,687	4,837,178	4,792,778	4,807,644
Charges for capital	4,271,913	3,926,612	3,724,527	3,940,902	2,656,856
Other items of reckonable expenditure	40	43	46	46	42
Tenant Participation Compacts	17,874	18,692	—	—	—
Resource Accounting	43,903	45,887	—	—	—
ALMO allowance	—	—	0	0	0
PFI allowance	—	—	—	—	0
Admissible allowance	—	—	—	—	45,051
Anti-social behaviour allowance	—	—	—	—	1,000
Negative subsidy transitional measures transfer allowance	—	—	—	—	0
Assumed expenditure in HRA subsidy	12,463,308	16,822,495	16,974,392	17,504,283	17,940,718
Stock for subsidy calculations	9,481	9,378	9,278	9,146	8,973
Assumed expenditure per dwelling	1,314.56	1,793.83	1,829.53	1,913.87	1,999.41
Kingston upon Hull
Management and maintenance	29,060,826	29,046,493	27,783,703	29,494,830	38,976,355
Major repairs	—	17,621,940	16,267,665	16,602,040	15,982,654
Charges for capital	20,363,712	19,478,339	17,656,181	16,807,405	12,775,370
Other items of reckonable expenditure	0	0	0	0	0
Tenant Participation Compacts	37,563	40,098	—	—	—
Resource Accounting	124,647	130,254	—	—	—
ALMO allowance	—	—	0	0	0
PFI allowance	—	—	—	—	0
Admissible allowance	—	—	—	—	16,463
Anti-social behaviour allowance	—	—	—	—	1,000
Negative subsidy transitional measures transfer allowance	—	—	—	—	0
Assumed expenditure in HRA subsidy	49,586,748	66,317,124	61,707,549	62,904,275	67,751,842
Stock for subsidy calculations	37,127	36,097	32,595	33,309	31,957
Assumed expenditure per dwelling	1,335.60	1,837.19	1,893.16	1,888.51	2,120.09

Sources:
Claim Forms 0004, 0104, 0204, 0302, 0401

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what common design, lay-out and publicity services were provided by his Department for the literature, the formal consultation document and the videos distributed to tenants in different recent large scale voluntary transfer campaigns were so similar to each other. [174635]

Keith Hill: Annex O of the Housing Transfer Manual 2003 Programme contains good practice guidance on producing consultation material which is based on feedback from tenants who have gone through the transfer process. Authorities should take into account specific local circumstances in their consultation material but as they are all consulting on transferring stock there will inevitably be similarities in presentation.

Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the fact that 44 per cent. of eligible tenants have voted to give away the council housing stock of north-east Lincolnshire is a sufficient mandate for transfer. [174660]

Keith Hill: My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister cannot grant consent to a housing stock transfer if it appears that the majority of tenants are opposed to it. 64.98 per cent. of tenants in north-east Lincolnshire participated in the ballot and 67.3 per cent. of those who voted were in favour of the transfer. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister considers that a simple majority of those voting being in favour is sufficient to indicate tenant support for a transfer.
 
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