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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Barry Gardiner): My hon. Friend Lord Sainsbury of Turville, Minister for Science and Innovation today made the following statement:
"I have tasked the Patent Office with managing and shaping an Intellectual Property System which encourages innovation and creativity, balances the needs of rights holders and the public,
Give good customer service in patent search and examination in 95 per cent. of quality assured cases.
Register 90 per cent. of processed trade mark class applications, to which no substantive objections are raised or oppositions filed, within eight months of application.
To dispose of all trade marks inter partes cases within three years achieving at least 30 per cent. within one year and at least 70 per cent. in two years.
Adoption of our educational resource, THINK Kit version II in UK secondary schoolswith not less than 80 per cent. penetration.
Reduce total current expenditure on the operations of the trading fund compared with the baseline of the Corporate Plan 200405, in line with the DTI's published "Efficiency Technical Note". Cumulative savings target for 200506 and 200607 is £2.3 million.
Meet our customer service standards as reported in the annual report and on our website at: www.patent.gov.uk.
Pay 100 per cent. of bills within 30 days of receipt of goods or services or a valid invoice, whichever is the later.
Reply within 10 working days to all letters from members of Parliament delegated for Chief Executive's reply".
The Minister for Pensions Reform (Mr. Stephen Timms): In the autumn of 2005 we issued the draft Occupational Pensions Schemes (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2006 for consultation.
One of the proposals contained in the draft regulations was a new requirement that an annual benefit statement should be issued automatically to everyone in non money purchase pension schemes, including deferred members and pension credit members.
Representations were made in the consultation that there was no need for the statements to be issued automatically to deferred members and pension credit members, as the information contained therein would not change year on year.
While it is useful to remind people regularly about their pension entitlement, we have been persuaded that the burden of issuing automatic statements to deferred and pension credit members would be disproportionate.
The proposed requirement to provide automatic statements to active scheme members will remain. Additionally, the current provision, which requires that relevant information must be provided to deferred and pension credit members on request, will be carried forward into the new regulations.
Although it will not be mandatory for non money purchase pension schemes to provide deferred and pension credit members with an automatic annual statement, schemes may wish to provide this information on a voluntary basis. Many already provide this helpful facility.
A full response to the consultation will be published with the final regulations. The regulations will come into effect from October 2006, although the annual benefit statement changes are only applicable for scheme years ending on or after 6 April 2007.