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Sure Start

Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many three and four-year-olds in (a) Staffordshire and (b) Tamworth constituency are receiving (i) 12.5 , (ii) 15 and (iii) 20 hours a week free early-years education. [33734]

Beverley Hughes: Information is not collected in the form requested.

All four-year-olds have been entitled to a free early education place since 1998 and from April 2004 this entitlement was extended to all three-year-olds. The free entitlement consists of a minimum of five two and a half hour sessions per week for 33 weeks of the year for six terms before statutory school age, which is the term following their fifth birthday.

Some local authorities may additionally offer subsidised child care places but this information is not collected centrally.

Figures for January 2005 show that all four-year-old children receive some form of free entitlement. The figure for three-year-olds is 96 per cent. This covers all maintained, private, voluntary and independent providers and represents 535,100 three-year-olds and 568,300 four-year-olds.

In January 2005 in Staffordshire local authority there were 6,700 free nursery places taken up by three-year-old children. The equivalent figure for four year olds was 8,400. Information for private and voluntary providers is not currently available for Tamworth constituency in 2005.

The latest figures on early education places for three and four-year-olds in England were published in Statistical First Release 43/2005 Provision for children under five years of age in England—January 2005 (final)" in September, which is available on my Department's website http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000604/index.shtml.

Youth Matters

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to the answer of 11 October 2005, Official Report, column 457W, on the Youth Matters Green Paper, if she will list the companies that have expressed an interest in working with the Government to develop the entitlement card scheme proposed in the Youth Matters Green Paper since 6 October. [33862]

Maria Eagle: Since 6 October 2005, Axcess, Validate UK and y-gen Ltd. have expressed an interest in working with the Department for Education and Skills to develop the Youth Opportunity Card scheme proposed in Youth Matters.
 
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Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when she plans to publish her response to the consultation on the Youth Matters Green Paper. [34020]

Maria Eagle: We are analysing the tremendous response to the consultation, including over 19,000 questionnaires completed by young people, and expect to publish the Government response and next steps in early 2006.

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when she expects to announce the pilots for the youth opportunity card proposed in the Youth Matters Green Paper. [34021]

Maria Eagle: I expect to announce the pilot areas in February 2006.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

Agricultural Shows

Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will visit the West Midlands agricultural show in Shrewsbury next summer. [33291]

Jim Knight: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and other DEFRA Ministers make every effort to attend public events reflecting the full range of DEFRA's wide ranging responsibilities. Attendance at the West Midland agriculture show will be given every consideration as part of this process.

Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Secretary of State forEnvironment, Food and Rural Affairs how many agricultural shows she has visited in 2005. [33364]

Jim Knight: My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, visited one agricultural show this year.

Berkeley Nuclear Power Station

Colin Challen: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she expects that the site of the Berkeley nuclear power station will be returned to green field status. [32941]

Malcolm Wicks: I have been asked to reply.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) assumed responsibility for the decommissioning and clean up of the UK's civil nuclear legacy on 1 April 2005. The NDA has set out its plans for the decommissioning and clean up of its sites including the proposed closure dates of its fleet of Magnox power stations in its draft strategy. The NDA will seek the views of stakeholders on the site end state and when this should be achieved. The NDA's draft strategy assumes that Berkeley nuclear power station will be returned to green field status by 2083, however, the NDA has been consulting on the possibility of accelerated reactor decommissioning in respect of its Magnox sites. Further details are available in the strategy which can be found at www.nda.gov.uk

Byway Claims

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many
 
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applications for byway claims are pending; and how many of these claims have been made in each month since 1 January. [33537]

Jim Knight [holding answer 1 December 2005]: This information is held by local highway authorities and could be gathered only at a disproportionate cost.

Correspondence

Sir Michael Spicer: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when the Parliamentary Under-Secretary will reply to the letter from the hon. Member for West Worcestershire of 5 October 2005. [34242]

Mr. Bradshaw: I have replied to the hon. Member today.

Departmental Websites

Charles Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will take steps to ensure the Department's websites attain the W3C AAA standard of accessibility for people with visual and other disabilities; and if she will set a target date for this standard to be achieved by. [30960]

Jim Knight: It is our policy that our websites should comply fully with the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative's guidelines as detailed in UK Government guidelines. These currently require websites to meet the W3C A standard. We aim for compliance with the W3C AA standard, and have already incorporated a number of aspects of the W3C AAA standard identified as best practice. We are taking a number of further steps to improve the accessibility of DEFRA's websites. Work is being undertaken to update older content that may not meet current standards in full, and further work on both technical and authoring issues is intended to enable us to meet higher standards.

Discovering Lost Ways Project

Mr. Laxton: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many claims have been lodged with the surveying authorities in England since the inception of the Discovering Lost Ways Project. [33585]

Jim Knight: As yet, no claims have been logged with the surveying authorities in England as a result of the Discovering Lost Ways Project.

We expect work on compiling evidence in the two pilot counties of Cheshire and Wiltshire to be complete by the end of March 2006. Further work will be undertaken to assess and develop this evidence for submission to local surveying authorities later in 2006.

Mr. Laxton: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate was made by the Countryside Agency, at the time of setting up the Discovering Lost Ways Project, of the distance in kilometres of (a) footpath, (b) bridleway and (c) byway open to all traffic which would need (i)correcting and (ii) adding to the definitive map before it could be considered accurate and complete. [33586]

 
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Jim Knight: A study commissioned by the Countryside Agency and the Countryside Council for Wales to identify the size of the potential task of recording lost ways, by reporting on the progress made in bringing the definitive map and statement up to date; and estimate how many unrecorded rights of way are likely to be brought onto the definitive map, reported in March 2002. 70 highway authorities (of 136) responded to the research questionnaire. 20 per cent. of the authorities that responded to the consultation had undertaken structured assessments of the extent of unrecorded rights. Based on these estimates, the report concluded that the number of unrecorded rights in England was likely to be in the region of 20,000. The estimate for the length of additional unrecorded rights was 16,000 km. It was estimated that 58 per cent. of that increase would be in the form of footpaths (9,300 km), 25 per cent. would be bridleways (4,000 km), and the remaining 17 per cent. (2,700 km) would be byways.

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