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Residential Rehabilitation

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his Department's targets are for the number of residential rehabilitation places over the next three years. [212337]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The Department has not set targets for the numbers of residential rehabilitation places in each of the next three years.

The National Treatment Agency have conducted a needs assessment for Tier 4 Services, which includes residential rehabilitation, and this will be reporting this year. The findings of this assessment will be used to inform future service development.

Sickness Absence

Mr. Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to reduce the numbers of sick days taken by staff in the Department. [216532]

Ms Rosie Winterton: About two-thirds of the Department's staff have no recorded sickness absence,
 
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but, as part of the work we are currently undertaking on maximising attendance and managing absence the Department is considering the findings of the report on "Implementing the recommendations of Managing Attendance in the Public Sector" alongside other leading research to ensure best practice.

Smoking

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the percentage of adults aged 16 and over who have smoked in each year since 1975, broken down by gender. [218124]

Miss Melanie Johnson: The prevalence of cigarette smoking is shown in the table.
Prevalence of cigarette smoking among people aged 16 and over, by gender in England: 1976 to 2003

	Men	Women	All persons
Unweighted data
1976	45	37	41
1978	44	36	40
1980	42	36	39
1982	37	32	35
1984	35	32	33
1986	34	31	32
1988	32	30	31
1990	31	28	29
1992	29	27	28
1994	28	25	26
1996	28	27	28
1998	28	26	27
Weighted data
1998	29	26	28
2000	29	25	27
2001	28	25	27
2002	27	25	26
2003	27	24	25

Note:
Until 2000, questions on smoking were asked biannually in the General Household Survey.
Source:
Office for National Statistics—"Living in Britain: Results from the 1993 and 2003 General Household Surveys". Available at www.statistics.gov.uk/ghs.

Mrs. Ellman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the impact of smoking on health in Liverpool. [217122]

Miss Melanie Johnson [holding answer 21 February 2005]: The estimated percentages of deaths attributable to smoking in primary care trusts (PCTs) in Liverpool are shown in the table. The total figures for England are given for comparison.
Estimated percentages of all deaths attributable to smoking in Liverpool PCTs Percentage

PCT	Male	Female	All persons
Central Liverpool	27	18	22
North Liverpool	28	21	24
South Liverpool	24	15	19
England	22	72	77

Note:
The percentage is based on the annual average estimate of smoking-attributable mortality across 1998–2002 and the observed number of deaths from all causes, all ages for 2002.
Source:
Information in the table is from the data underlying the publication of "The Smoking Epidemic in England, November 2004"—The Health Development Agency (HDA). Available on the HDA website at www.hda.nhs.uk/html/improving/smoking_epidemic.html.




 
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Staff Identity Passes

Mr. George Osborne: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost of producing a staff identity pass was in the Department on the latest date for which figures are available; and how many staff identity passes have been reported lost or stolen in each year since 1997. [215084]

Ms Rosie Winterton: The cost of materials in replacing a departmental staff identity pass is approximately £2.15 plus value added tax.

Records of the number of staff identity cards reported lost or stolen are not available for the period requested.

HOME DEPARTMENT

Animal Experimentation

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the impact of the Human Genome Project on (a) the total number of animals, (b) the number of genetically modified mice and (c) the number of genetically modified primates, that will be used in the next few years. [218611]

Caroline Flint: It is assumed that the question refers to animals used in scientific procedures. It is not possible to estimate the total number of genetically modified animals that will be used in that way over the next few years as a result of the Human Genome Project. That will be largely dependent on strategic research and funding decisions by the funding councils and the private sector, and the nature and quality of the resulting scientific proposals. Any impact the Human Genome Project does have may be offset by a reduction in the use of non-genetically modified animals.

During 2003—the latest year for which figures are available—genetically modified animals were used in 764,000 regulated scientific procedures representing 27 per cent. of all procedures for 2003 compared with 26 per cent. in 2002 and 8 per cent. in 1995. Rodents—nearly all mice—were used in 98 per cent. of these procedures. It is likely that this trend of a gradually increasing use of such animals over the last decade will continue as advances in genetic science open up new avenues of research, and this may well include work arising from the Human Genome Project.

At present there is no use of genetically modified non-human primates licensed under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, and we do not expect that to change in the foreseeable future. Any applications for licences to conduct such work would be referred for advice to the Animal Procedures Committee.

Whatever the impact of the Human Genome Project, we will continue, in administering the 1986 Act, to license use of animals only when we consider there is no
 
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alternative, and then only when both the number of animals to be used and any resulting suffering are minimised.

Child Poverty

Vera Baird: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps his Department is taking to achieve the Government's targets of (a) ending child poverty by 2020 and (b) halving it by 2010; and if he will make a statement. [219345]

Paul Goggins [holding answer 2 March 2005]: The Home Office is supporting the Treasury in meeting the ambitious targets this Government have set on child poverty. Children born into poverty are more likely to be victims of crime and more likely to offend. The Child Poverty Review highlighted the strong associations between youth crime, parental crime and child poverty.

In order to tackle the poor outcomes associated with child poverty, and to improve the life chances of poor children, the Home Office has invested in a number of prevention programmes for children at risk of involvement in crime or substance misuse.

To break the cycle of youth offending and deprivation, the Home Office Strategic Plan includes a commitment to increase youth crime prevention programmes. This includes multi-agency Youth Inclusion and Support Panels, targeting high-risk, children and their families, providing them with support and improving their access to mainstream services. It also includes the Youth Inclusion Programme, which targets the 13 to 16-year-olds most at risk of crime in 72 of the most deprived neighbourhoods. The numbers of both will be increased by 50 per cent. by 2008. We have also increased the coverage of the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSPs).

Children living in poverty are a key risk group for substance misuse. We are targeting young people in the most deprived neighbourhoods at risk of substance misuse through "Positive Futures", a national sports-based social inclusion programme aimed at marginalised 10 to 19-year-olds. Positive Futures aims to "have a positive influence on participants' substance misuse, physical activity and offending behaviour". The Positive Futures projects have proved successful in building relationships, engaging and providing developmental opportunities for young people living in deprived areas.

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