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CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT
Departmental Staff
Kate Hoey: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans her Department has to change the London allowance of its staff; and if she will make a statement. [50013]
Mr. Lammy: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport does not pay a London allowance and has no plans to introduce one. All of the Department's staff are based in central London.
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many of her Department's staff are paid on a performance-related basis. [50081]
Mr. Lammy: All permanent staff employed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are paid on a performance-related basis.
Engagements
Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will visit Shrewsbury to open the new caravan centre there. [51270]
James Purnell: Neither my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State nor I have any plans to visit Shrewsbury to open the new caravan centre. I will be pleased to consider an invitation to do so in the future, should circumstances permit.
Football Foundation
Mr. Andy Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what schemes have been financed by the Football Foundation in (a) Leicestershire and (b) Loughborough constituency area since it was established. [51127]
Mr. Caborn: The Loughborough constituency has received 13 junior kit vouchers worth £5,200 as well as a Barclays Spaces for Sport Coaching pack worth £750. Further applications to the foundation's capital projects, small grants scheme, junior kit and stand up speak up scheme are currently under consideration with a total project cost of £333,930.
Leicestershire itself has received £3,119,834 of foundation funds towards 96 projects with a total value of £9,026,748. A further £1,311,944 worth of projects are now under consideration.
Licensing
Mr. Moss: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many appeals under the Licensing Act 2003 (a) have been lodged with local authorities since 24 November 2005, (b) have been determined and (c) are outstanding; and what the estimated cost is to the courts system of determining such appeals. [50469]
James Purnell:
The Government are monitoring the pattern of appeals, in particular with the 10 Scrutiny Councils, but we do not currently hold information on the number and cost of appeals across all licensing authorities.
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Mr. Moss: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what discussions she has had with (a) the Department of Health on the possible effects of the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003 on requirements for (i) staffing and (ii) funding for accident and emergency departments and (b) the Home Office regarding the implications of that Act for the cost of policing late night drinking in town and city centres. [50470]
James Purnell: The Licensing Act 2003 was subject to consultation and agreement across Government, including the Department of Health and the Home Office. Licensing reform is part of the Government's Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy which considered the cost of alcohol harm to public services, including health and the police.
On the specific impact of the implementation of Licensing Act 2003, the Government believes that the removal of artificially fixed closing times will encourage a more orderly and gradual dispersal of customers which, together with the tough new powers for the police, should help reduce the level of violent crime which the police and accident and emergency departments are required to deal with.
Local Authority Leisure Facilities
Andrew Gwynne: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what assessment she has made of the effect of the transfer of leisure facilities from local authority control to sports trusts on their ability to access capital for the improvement of their facilities. [51547]
Mr. Caborn: Specific information on the transfer of ownership of leisure centres from local authorities to newly-formed charitable trusts is not centrally collated. However, information from the Leisure Data Base Company suggests that approximately one-fifth of public leisure facilities in England are provided through trusts.
My Department recognises the importance of this issue in ensuring the continued sustainability of publicly provided sports facilities. The Audit Commission is currently undertaking a study into the different types of management arrangements available to local authorities for running these services and how they approach the task of choosing the option best suited to local needs. This is expected to include a consideration of the potential implications of each of these options, including for charitable trusts.
I will ensure a copy of the study is placed in the House Libraries once it is published.
National Sports Foundation
Mr. Andy Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport where the National Sports Foundation will be based. [51128]
Mr. Caborn:
The National Sports Foundation (NSF) will be based at Sport England's offices and will use their existing administrative systems for the processing of applications. The NSF will however have a distinct identity and its own website.
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Sport (Drug Testing)
Kate Hoey: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many drug tests have been carried out by UK Sport on members of the British 2006 Winter Olympics team in the 12 months prior to the Turin games. [51786]
Mr. Caborn: There were 52 tests carried out on the 40 members of the British Winter Olympic squad in the 12 months leading up to the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games.
Kate Hoey: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many drug tests were undertaken by UK Sport in 2004–05; how many prime facie adverse findings there were for (a) male and (b) female sports people in 2004–05; and how many findings were of performance-enhancing drugs. [51812]
Mr. Caborn:
The UK's national anti-doping organisation, UK Sport, undertook a total of 6,520 anti-doping tests in 2004–05. Of these, 60 male athletes and
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one female athlete were found to have committed anti-doping infringements. In the same period there were a total of 57 findings for performance-enhancing drugs and four infringements for missed tests.
Television Licences
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many people over 75 are in receipt of free television licences in each Northern Ireland constituency; and what percentage of viewing households in each constituency the figure represents. [51324]
James Purnell: TV Licensing, who administer free television licences for people aged 75 or over as agents for the BBC, are not able to provide geographical breakdowns of the number of free licences issued. However, the estimated number of benefit units claiming the retirement pension in each parliamentary constituency in Northern Ireland, where at least one person is aged 75 years or over, and the percentage this represents of all households in the constituency, is:
* In producing this analysis, individual records were attributed to parliamentary constituencies (PC's) on the basis of their postcode. Not all records can be correctly allocated to a PC using this method, and some cannot be allocated at all. Past investigation has demonstrated that mis-allocations and non-allocations do not necessarily occur randomly between areas, and at ward level the proportion of records mis-allocated or unallocated can be substantial. At present, it seems likely that a higher than average proportion of the records that cannot be attributed to a ward are in the following areas: Fermanagh district council, Deny district council and parts of Belfast city council.
Sources:
(20) Department for Social Development. Figures taken from Retirement Pension scan dated 5 November 2005.
(21) Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency Census 2001 Output Key Statistics.
Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many pensioners over 75 years of age in Tamworth constituency are in receipt of a free television licence. [51411]
James Purnell: TV Licensing, who administer free television licences for people aged 75 or over as agents for the BBC, are not able to provide geographical breakdowns of the number of free licences issued. However, the number of households with at least one person aged 75 or over claiming the winter fuel payment in the Tamworth constituency in 2004–05 was 4,005, according to Department for Work and Pensions records.
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