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8 Dec 2004 : Column 588W—continued

Consumer Direct (West Midlands)

Ross Cranston: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when she expects to launch Consumer Direct in the West Midlands; and if she will make a statement. [201597]

Mr. Sutcliffe: Under current plans the Consumer Direct service is expected to be launched in the West Midlands region during financial year 2006–07.

Correspondence

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what her target time is in 2004–05 (a) to reply to letters from hon. Members and (b) for the officials in her Department to reply to letters received directly from members of the public. [202379]

Ms Hewitt: My Department has a target of 15 days for responding to correspondence from Members of Parliament and Peers and for responding to members of the public in line with Whitehall Standards.
 
8 Dec 2004 : Column 589W
 

Information on the departmental handling of correspondence from Members of Parliament and Peers is published annually by the Cabinet Office. The 2003 annual report is available in the Library of the House.

Departmental Estate

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what her estimate is of the cost of building refurbishment carried out by her Department in each of the last two years. [202374]

Ms Hewitt: My Department undertakes a wide variety of projects as part of on-going maintenance and improvements of its current stock. The cost of refurbishment projects involving significant works to the building services and fabric of the DTI HQ estate for the last two complete financial years is as follows:
£000

Financial year	Refurbishment
2002/03	1,,680
2003/04	2,300

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the cost has been of criminal damage to her Department's buildings in each of the last two years. [202377]

Ms Hewitt: The Department does not record separately the cost of criminal damage but we are not aware of any significant expenditure over the last two years.

Departmental Expenditure

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate she has made of the cost of (a) new builds, (b) demolition rebuilds and (c) private finance initiative projects in her Department in each of the last two years. [202370]

Ms Hewitt: My Department has incurred no costs relating to the DTI HQ estate for new builds, demolitions or new private finance initiative building projects over the past two years.

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on energy costs incurred by her Department in each of the last two years. [202372]

Ms Hewitt: The Department procures its energy via competitive tender. Expenditure on energy on the DTI HQ estate is £942,144 (2002–03) and £958,719 (2003–04) of which 34 per cent. was from renewable sources (average for the two years).

Mr. Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the cost was of (a) in-house canteen and (b) other catering services provided by her Department in each of the last two years. [202376]

Ms Hewitt: There have been no costs in the last two years associated with the in house canteen. The cost of other catering services for the London Headquarters estate was approximately £l million in 2002–03 and £1.2 million in 2003–04.
 
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Departmental Mobile Phones

Andrew Selous: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many departmental mobile telephones were used by Ministers, special advisers and officials in her Department in each year since 1997; at what cost; how many such telephones were lost or stolen in each year since 1997; and what the replacement costs were in each case. [202170]

Ms Hewitt [holding answer 6 December 2004]: Responsibility for the provision of mobile telephones for official purposes and for payment of associated call charges was devolved to individual directorates, agencies and NDPBs at the end of March 1993. Since August 1997, the DTI has increasingly made use of the central Mobile Telecommunications contract managed by the Office of Government Commerce. This contract allows DTI users access to mobile telephone services and products at advantageous prices ensuring that the Department obtains good value for money. Due to the devolved responsibility for mobile telephone management the only information that can be provided at non-disproportionate cost is the total expenditure with DTI's main suppliers of mobile telephones and the number of handsets supplied through the central OGC contract since 2002.

	£
1998	90,881
1999	263,123
2000	226,695
2001	342,964
2002	(16)342,881
2003	(17)410,372

⁽¹⁶⁾ 549 mobile telephones on the central contract.
⁽¹⁷⁾ 776 mobile telephones on the central contract.

Cost figures are not available for 1997 due to a change in the Department's accounting system over that period.

Electrical Accidents

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many people have been (a) killed and (b) seriously injured due to electrical accidents in their homes; and how many of these took place in (i) bathrooms and (ii) kitchens. [203192]

Mr. Sutcliffe: DTI no longer provides a service on accident statistics. Information on fatalities can be obtained from the Health and Safety Executive: www.hse.gov.uk tel. [phone] and the Office for National Statistics: www.statistics.gov.uk tel. [phone]; or for non-fatalities from The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents: www.rospa.com tel. [phone].

Electricity Generation (Renewables)

Mr. Laurence Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much capital grant aid she is planning to provide to (a) wind, (b) solar, (c) tidal, (d) hydro and (e) thermal generators of electricity in the forthcoming financial year; and if she will make a statement. [203073]

 
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Mr. Mike O'Brien: The total for wind, through the Capital Grants for Round 1 offshore wind farms programme is £117 million.

For solar photovoltaic (PV) via the Major PV Demonstration Programme the total budget is £31 million, this includes additional funding of £6 million announced in September 2004. Along with the PV funding there are also grants for solar thermal projects available through the Clear Skies programme (the programme has £12.5 million in funding though this is not specifically earmarked for solar but for all eligible renewables), which includes an extra £2.5 million also announced in September. Both these schemes ran to March 2006.

With regards to wave and tidal in August the Government announced a £50 million Marine Renewables Development Fund that will provide continued support to wave and tidal stream technologies. The fund will be primarily focused on supporting a number of pre-commercial demonstrations. Options for delivering the fund are currently under consideration and we will undertake an informal consultation on our proposals in the new year.

Some Hydro and Thermal schemes qualify under the Clears Skies programme.

Emissions Trading Scheme

Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the potential effects of electricity power generators buying and selling (a) gas and (b) other fuels on future markets on the emissions trading scheme. [202081]

Mr. Mike O'Brien: We expect the EU Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS) to encourage generators to switch from using high carbon fuels (e.g. coal or oil) to lower or zero carbon fuels (e.g. gas or hydro). Such switching will have an effect on forward markets for the different fuels. The extent of this switching will be determined by the price of carbon, as well as the relative fuel prices and other costs associated with power generation from different types of plant. The price of carbon will be determined across the whole of the EU. The differences in behaviour of individual UK market participants are expected to have only a minimal impact on the price of carbon. The potential effect of differing assumptions about the ETS on the generation fuel mix was assessed in the study (Implications of the EU ETS for the Power Sector—Annex C), for DTI, by ILEX in September 2003: http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sepn/euets.shtml

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