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Internet Access

Dan Norris: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what measures her Department is taking to ensure children at school are unable to access inappropriate material on the internet. [54390]

Phil Hope: The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) on behalf of the Department established the Becta Accreditation of Internet Services to Education scheme as part of the wider strategy to address internet safety in education. The scheme enables schools to purchase services from accredited suppliers that meet and maintain specific standards in content filtering and service performance. It is open to commercial internet service providers (ISPs) and many public bodies such as Regional Broadband Consortia (RBCs) and local authorities (LAs).

Schools should have an effective range of technological solutions as part of their strategy when safeguarding children from harmful content on the internet. However, it is also necessary for schools to develop their own individual internet safety polices based on their local requirements. Becta has provided a range of advice and guidance to schools and local authorities to help support this. Specifically, schools can access guidance relating to internet safety issues at http://www.becta.org.uk/schools/esafety

Research and Development

Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what discussions she has had with her European counterparts on the issue of raising research and development spending; and if she will make a statement. [53849]

Barry Gardiner: I have been asked to reply.

The European Union has set itself an ambitious and challenging objective to increase its investment in research and development towards 3 per cent. of GDP by 2010.

In the context of the Competitiveness Council on 28 and 29 November 2005, European Ministers agreed Council conclusions on the subject of More Research and Innovation—Investing for Growth and Employment". These conclusions point to a shared political commitment to increase spending on R and D and detail a range of measures that may be required at the level of the member states and of the European Community to facilitate that increase. These measures may include public spending at the European level (the
 
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seventh R and D framework programme, improved access to finance for private-sector investments, identification of regulatory obstacles to innovation and improvements to the mobility and careers of researchers.

Safeguarding Children

Sir George Young: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when she expects to reply to question 45243 tabled by the hon. Member for North West Hampshire for answer on 23 January, on safeguarding children. [50129]

Ruth Kelly: I responded to the right hon. Member on 13 February 2006, Official Report, column 1570W.

Skills Training

Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many people aged (a) 30 to 39 years, (b) 40 to 49 years and (c) 50 years and over received skills training in (i) Staffordshire and (ii) Tamworth constituency in each year since 1997. [53423]

Phil Hope: The following table shows the numbers of non-academic long courses of more than 24 weeks duration undertaken in Tamworth and in Staffordshire by academic years and for the age bands requested.

	Tamworth			Staffordshire(2)
	30-39	40-49	50+	30-39	40-49	50+
1997/98	813	547	348	11,605	8,465	6,374
1998/99	846	578	368	11,511	8,635	6,862
1999/2000	811	554	405	10,984	8,201	7,458
2000/01	763	626	492	11,416	8,957	8,727
2001/02	827	681	648	11,814	9,489	10,027
2002/03	824	728	808	9,186	7,610	8,157
2003/04	748	602	667	9,098	7,733	8,275
2004/05	782	672	646	8,659	7,493	7,266

⁽²⁾ Figures for Staffordshire include Tamworth. The other Staffordshire constituencies are Burton, Cannock Chase, Lichfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme, South Staffordshire, Stafford, Staffordshire Moorlands, Stoke-on-Trent Central, Stoke-on-Trent North, Stoke-on-Trent South, Stone.
Source:
Individual Student Record 1997/98 to 2001/02 and Individual Learner Record 2002/03 to 2004/05.





 
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Specialised Diplomas

John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which specialised diplomas will be available in 2008 for pupils aged 14 years. [53498]

Phil Hope: The specialised diplomas available for teaching to young people aged 14 years and upwards in September 2008 will be in ICT, Engineering, Health and Social Care, Construction and the Built Environment and Creative and Media.

Student Loans Company

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when the Inland Revenue last updated the Student Loans Company on debt repayments by graduates in the UK. [54902]

Bill Rammell: HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC, formerly Inland Revenue) regularly updates the Student Loans Company (SLC) as annual returns from employers are processed. These updates are on a monthly basis and the SLC last processed information from HMRC on 10 February.

University Pay

Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what recent representations she has received regarding levels of remuneration for university teaching staff. [52653]

Bill Rammell: The Department has received correspondence about university staff pay. However, as universities are autonomous they are responsible for determining their own academic and administrative affairs, including deciding what to pay their own staff. Pay and conditions of service are subject to negotiations between employers, their staff and their representative trade union bodies. The Government plays no part in this.
 
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HEALTH

Fuel for Living"

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 31 January 2006, Official Report, column 481W, on young people (culinary ability), what the (a) actual and (b) planned expenditure is on the free recipe guide Fuel for Living". [51873]

Caroline Flint: The Fuel for Living" recipe booklet is part of the 5 A DAY Campaign, which provides information and practical advice to improve the diet. The booklet targets the young independent group of 16 to 24-year-olds, who have a lower than average intake of fruit and vegetables so there is a need to provide information and help to improve their diet.

The actual cost of developing the booklet was £42,370, which includes design and artwork, research, expert input and agency fees. The printing and production cost for one million copies was £59,555.

Alcohol-related Illness (Thames Valley)

Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many incidences of alcohol-related illness there have been in the Thames Valley health authority in each year since 1997. [53179]

Caroline Flint: The number of people being treated for alcohol-related illnesses in the Thames Valley strategic health authority are shown in the following table.
Counts of finished consultant episodes and patients for selected⁽³⁾ alcohol related diseasesTable 1: F10, K70 or T51 recorded in any of the diagnosis fields (primary or any of the secondary fields)

	All diagnosis count of episodes
	Finished consultant episodes	Patient counts
1997–98	3,376	2,399
1998–99	3,305	2,352
1999–2000	3,578	2,483
2000–01	3,759	2,433
2001–02	3,905	2,528
2002–03	3,661	2,334
2003–04	4,626	2,853
2004–05	5,825	3,429

Table 2: F10, K70 or T51 recorded in the primary diagnosis field.

	Primary diagnosis
	Finished consultant episodes	Patient counts
1997–98	1,198	890
1998–99	1,135	826
1999–2000	1,141	835
2000–01	1,193	818
2001–02	1,244	897
2002–03	1,272	827
2003–04	1,379	950
2004–05	1,704	1,116

⁽³⁾ Alcohol related diseases defined as following ICD-10 codes:
F10: Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of alcohol.
K70: Alcoholic liver disease.
T51: Toxic effect of alcohol.
Strategic health authority of residence=Thames Valley NHS Hospitals, England 1997–98 to 2004–05.
Notes:
1. Finished consultant episode (FCE)
An FCE is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year.
2. Patient counts
Patient counts are based on the unique patient identifier hospital episode statistic identification(HESID). This identifier is derived based on patient's date of birth, postcode, sex, local patient identifier and national health service number, using an agreed algorithm. Where data are incomplete, HESID might erroneously link episodes or fail to recognise episodes for the same patient. Care is therefore needed, especially where duplicate records persist in the data. The patient count cannot be summed across a table where patients may have episodes in more than one cell.
3. All diagnosis count of episodes
These figures represent a count of all FCE's where the diagnosis was mentioned in any of the 14 (seven prior to 2002–03) diagnosis fields in a HES record.
4. Diagnosis (primary diagnosis)
The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (seven prior to 2002–03) diagnosis fields in the hospital episode statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital.
5. Secondary diagnoses
As well as the primary diagnosis, there are up to 13 (six prior to 2002–03) secondary diagnosis fields in HES that show other diagnoses relevant to the episode of care.
6. Ungrossed data
Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data, that is the data are ungrossed.
Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics, Health and Social Care Information Centre




 
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