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24 Feb 2005 : Column 794W—continued
Nordic Customs Union
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the operation of the Nordic Customs Union in relation to the proposed restrictions on Norwegian imports of salmon into the EU. [216701]
Mr. Alexander: None, the Nordic Customs Union does not exist. The provisions of the European Economic Area apply to the movement of goods between Norway and member states of the European Union.
Parental Leave
Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what changes to paternity and maternity leave have been introduced since 1997. [217464]
Mr. Sutcliffe: In 1999 we extended maternity leave for all employed women from 14 weeks to 18 weeks. The qualifying service for additional maternity leave was reduced to one year. Previously qualifying service was two years for women working at least 16 hours per week or five years for women working between eight and sixteen hours per week.
Leave was further simplified and extended in April 2003. All employed women are now entitled to 26 weeks' ordinary maternity leave. Women with six months qualifying service are able to take a further 26 weeks' additional maternity leave.
The right to paid paternity leave was introduced in April 2003. Eligible fathers can choose to take one or two weeks' paternity leave in the first eight weeks after their child is born.
Regional Development Agencies
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the estimated Government expenditure by regional development agencies is expected to be in 2004–05; and what expenditure is projected for 2005–06. [211137]
Jacqui Smith: I have set out in the following table the planned expenditure by each of England's nine Regional Development Agencies in 2004–05 and their indicative allocations for 2005–06.
(10) The RDA budget for 2005–06 following SR2004 was £2.163 billion. That figure excluded £21 million non-cash cost provision. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has since changed the profile of their contribution to RDAs so that the RDAs overall allocations is reduced by £26 million in 2005–06 and increased by £14 million in 2006–07 and £12 million 2007–08.
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CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
Appointments
Paddy Tipping: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs pursuant to his Answer of 9 February to Question reference 215189, if he will break down the figures provided in tables 1A, 1B and 2 by gender. [216945]
Mr. Lammy: The breakdown of the figures provided in the answer on 9 February 2005, Official Report, column 1609W (and in my pursuant answer yesterday) are detailed in the following tables.
Tables 1A and 1B show full-time appointments for the calendar years 1975–97. The figures include appointments of Judicial officers to full time Tribunal posts for Tribunals administered by DCA (formerly Lord Chancellor's Department) but exclude those administered by other Government Departments (such as the Employment Tribunal and The Appeal Service and its pre 1999 predecessor The Independent Tribunal Service). These tables also include lay magistrates appointments from 1990 onwards.
Figures for the appointment and the gender split of part time judicial officers between 1975 and 1997, and for lay magistrates prior to 1990 is not given, as DCA does not hold complete figures on the appointment and gender of these judicial officers who were appointed during these periods, and those that exist could only be determined at disproportionate cost.
The gender split for full-time and part-time judicial officer appointments for each year between 1998–2004 is set out in tables 2A-D. These figures are obtained from the Judicial Appointments Annual Reports to Parliament for each of the financial years from 1998–2004.
It is also necessary to mention that while every care has been taken, the figures supplied for the years 1975–98 may not be wholly complete as they are drawn
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from very old records. For some of the very early appointments, the DCA have only a surname and initials thus it is not absolutely certain what the gender was, and in these cases, on the basis that there were very few women in the judiciary that long ago, it has been assumed that they are men.
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Parental Contact Orders
Mrs. May: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs pursuant to the answer of 12 January 2005, Official Report, column 568W, on parental contract orders, how many of the 67,184 cases of disputed contact dealt with by the courts in 2003 were related to previous contact orders made in the same year. [217388]
Mr. Lammy: This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
However, I would refer the right hon. Member to the Consultation Paper "Relationship Breakdown: Children's Needs and Parent's Responsibilities" (page14) where it confirms that "in just over half of the 300 cases surveyed as part of my Department Consumer Strategy work, there was at least one repeat application". It should be noted that this figure was, however, based on a limited sample in three courts and was just a snapshot at one point in time (the survey was carried out during February 2004). It is not known how many of the repeat orders related to previous orders in the same year.
It is important to note that not all repeat applications indicate conflict. It is common for orders to be revised to recognise a geographical move, change in working hours, or children getting older and needing different arrangements.
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