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Miners' Compensation

John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when the Department agreed that third parties could charge claimants additionally to the sums paid out to them by her Department under the coal claims handling agreement; and if she will place correspondence in the Library. [180289]

Nigel Griffiths: I am advised that at no time has the Department agreed that third parties can charge additional sums.

National Minimum Wage

John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if she will make a statement on what sanctions there are to deal with employers found to be paying below the national minimum wage; [182416]

(2) if she will impose fines on employers found to be paying below the national minimum wage. [182417]

Mr. Sutcliffe: The great majority (around 95 per cent.) of minimum wage cases are solved at present without the need for any formal enforcement action. In tackling the minority (5 per cent.) of more difficult cases, compliance officers may first serve an enforcement notice which requires the employer to start paying the minimum wage and make good any arrears of pay. In most of these cases, the employer then pays the arrears due. But in the small number of cases where an employer ignores the enforcement notice, the officer may then serve a penalty notice. The penalty notice imposes a financial penalty on the employer of twice the adult rate of the minimum wage (currently £9 per hour) for each worker named in the enforcement notice from when it was issued.

Refusal or wilful neglect to pay the minimum wage is a criminal offence, with fines of up to a maximum of £5,000 for each offence.

John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps are being taken to protect home workers from being paid below the national minimum wage. [182431]

Mr. Sutcliffe: In March 2004 the Government introduced the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (Amendment) Regulations 2004. These Regulations come into effect in October 2004 and require employers to pay all output workers, including home workers, the minimum wage for every hour they work, or pay a fair piece rate that allows an average worker to earn the minimum wage. From April 2005 employers will have to increase the fair piece rate by a factor of 1.2, so at that point an average output worker will be able to earn 120 per cent. of the minimum wage.

We believe the new system will be more easily understood—helping employers to be clear what they must pay and home workers to understand and claim their right to the minimum wage.
 
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Small Business Service

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much the Small Business Service has so far spent on its new website. [180723]

Nigel Griffiths: The new Businesslink.gov customer-facing website recently launched by the Small Business Service is an integral part of the cross-departmental Business.gov programme. The total cost in 2003–04 on the full development of this programme including the Businesslink.gov portal was £14.2 million.

State Aid Programme

Mr. Watts: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the future of the State Aid Programme. [179941]

Jacqui Smith: The EU state aid rules are intended to prevent payments that unduly distort competition in the Single Market. The Government support an effective state aid regime and are committed to the conclusions agreed at the Lisbon and Barcelona European Councils for less and better-targeted state aid. An effective state aid regime helps create a level playing field for business across the EU. And greater competition between businesses leads to lower prices for consumers.

At the same time it is important that the Government can pursue their objectives of creating a business-friendly environment, raising skills levels and enhancing our science and technology base, so that we improve prosperity in all regions of the UK. While many business support measures do not constitute state aid at all, it is important that the state aid regime is sufficiently flexible to enable us to support economic development by tackling the causes of economic under-performance.

The Government are therefore pursuing a broad state aid reform agenda. This includes, for example, encouraging the Commission to reform their procedures so that less distorting aids, intended to correct market failures and economic underperformance, can be granted more simply. The Commission's new proposals for a "fast track" approval route for aid which has a limited effect on the market derives directly from pressure applied by the UK for a more modernised and flexible state aid system. Many of the instruments under which State aid may be approved are due to be reassessed and, if necessary, revised by the European Commission over the next three years (e.g. the "horizontal" rules on aid for SMEs, Research and Development, risk and venture capital, environmental protection, training and employment creation) and the Government will be ensuring that the UK's views are taken into account by the Commission.

In particular, the European Commission has recently issued proposals to amend the guidelines governing regional aid (which define assisted areas and aid intensities allowed within them) after 2006. I made a statement to the House on the Commission's proposals for regional aid reform on 14 June 2004, Official Report, columns 19–20WS. As I noted in that statement, investment aid is only one way in which the Government work with business in the regions; most business support schemes do not depend on the Regional Aid Guidelines. In addition, the "horizontal" guidelines will continue to allow aid to be granted anywhere post-2006. Regional
 
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aid nevertheless remains an important tool and the Government therefore want to ensure that under the new Regional Aid Guidelines, regional aid can still be granted in the areas where it is most needed to help address regional disparities and local deprivation. The present proposals from the Commission do not deliver this effectively as they do not adequately allow for disparities within regions, given that poor areas exist side by side with rich areas. I announced that the Government were issuing a consultation document seeking the views of all interested parties on the Commission's proposals. The consultation document is available on the DTI's website at www.dti.gov.uk/ewt/stateaid.pdf or www.dti.gov.uk/consultations/stateaid.pdf.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

Charter Schools Programme

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what evaluation he has made of the charter schools programme in the United States and of whether the model could be applied to England; and if he will make a statement. [181949]

Mr. Charles Clarke: There has been no formal evaluation of the charter school programme carried out by my Department, although two of my Ministers have recently paid visits.

We keep abreast of evaluations carried out by research institutions and have looked at a number of schooling models from other countries, including charter schools in the United States, which has helped to inform our thinking when considering school reform in England.

Carers

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children he estimates act as carers. [181104]

Margaret Hodge: The 2001 Census recorded a total of 149,942 young carers aged 17 and under (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) who have caring responsibilities for another family member who is either unwell (including mental as well as physical illness) or disabled.

Early Intervention Project

Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what assessment his Department has made of the Early Intervention project; [181171]

(2) on what basis his Department has rejected the Early Intervention project as a model for separated parents' access to children. [181172]

Margaret Hodge: During the past year my Department has looked at a number of other jurisdictions' models for resolving conflict in cases of disputed contact between separated or divorced parents and their children. These included the "Florida" or "Early Interventions" approach from the United States. This model provides both parents with a court-approved regulated pattern of contact with their children, following divorce or separation.
 
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The Government are aware there are concerns about effective support for court ordered contact arrangements. We announced the "Family Resolutions Pilot Project" in March this year as one of the steps we are taking to tackle this. The pilot is designed to test a range of measures—parents in group discussion, raising parents' awareness of their own parenting skills and co-operative discussions between ex-partners—in helping parents reach agreement about contact with their children, after divorce or separation. It will run over one year from September in three areas—Brighton, Sunderland and Inner London.

This is a genuine pilot with no in-built assumption about what works. However it will be implemented in the context of the law in England and Wales (Children Act 1989) which has the interests of the child, rather than the rights of parents, as the paramount consideration. Therefore, we could not have adopted the "Florida" or "Early Interventions" model. The project will emphasise the key principle of parents continuing to work together in the best interest of their children, even if the adult relationship has broken down.

We are also providing an additional £3.5 million for child contact centres from 2003–04 to 2005–06, including 14 new supervised contact centres. Through the introduction from January 2005 of new "harm" forms, judges can address domestic violence allegations at the start of contact cases. We will be publishing this summer proposals for consultation about improving compliance with court ordered contact and providing better support for parents in determining appropriate contact arrangements.

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