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2 May 2006 : Column 1526W—continued
Pathways to Work
Danny Alexander:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of the £360 million over two years allocated to the roll out of Pathways toWork is intended to cover (a) the cost of condition
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management programmes, (b) the £40 per week back towork credit, (c) staff training and (d) in-work support. [67259]
Margaret Hodge: The information is not available. We are still working on plans for the national roll-out of Pathways to Work and will announce these in due course.
Mr. Ruffley:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people have been subject under the Pathways to Work pilots to a mandatory work-focused interview; and in how many cases such an interview has been waived in the case of those with (a) certain infectious and parasitic diseases, (b) neoplasms, (c) diseases of the blood and blood forming organs and certain diseases involving the immune mechanism, (d) endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases, (e) mental and behavioural disorders, (f) diseases of the nervous system, (g) diseases of the eye and adnexa, (h) diseases of the ear and mastoid
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process, (i) diseases of the circulatory system, (j) diseases of the respiratory system, (k) factors influencing health status and contact with health services, (l) diseases of the digestive system, (m) diseases of the skin and subcutaneous system, (n) diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue, (o) diseases of the genitourinary system, (p) pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium, (q) certain conditions originating in the perinatal period, (r) congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities, (s) symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified and (t) injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes. [64496]
Margaret Hodge: There have been a total of 148,290 Pathways to Work starts by new customers who are subject to a mandatory initial work-focused interview. 5,750 of these have been waived. The available information, by medical condition, of those who have had their initial work-focused interview waived is in the table.
(66) The data on medical condition for Pathways to Work participants is incomplete. It is drawn from incapacity benefit data that appears in the National Benefits Database, and this database lags behind other Pathways Evaluation Database sources by some three to four months.
Notes:
1. The statistics are taken from the Pathways to Work Evaluation Database.
2. Data is to the end of October 2005.
3. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
Pension Protection Fund
Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the amount that would be needed to be raised by the Pension Protection Fund levy if it was set without regard to affordability, and at a level which was expected to remain constant, as a proportion of deficit, in future years. [65496]
Mr. Timms: No such estimate has been made.
Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the answer of 21 March 2006, Official Report, column 235W, on pensions, what (a) interest rates and (b) mortality assumptions were used in arriving at the estimates for the amount of the increase in the Pension Protection Fund levy between 2003 and 2005 attributable to these two sources. [65500]
Mr. Timms: In their 2003 and 2005 levy estimates GAD adjusted a set of Minimum Funding Requirement valuations. The factors GAD used in making those adjustments reflected buy-out costs used by insurers. Interest rates and mortality assumptions are implicit in those costs and cannot be separated out.
In the PPF's £575 million estimate no unique interest rate assumption was used. The PPF set the levy by reference to a significant number of scenarios each of which was based on a range of factors including interest rates.
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The mortality assumptions the PPF used were based on standard actuarial tables published by the Continuous Mortality Investigation Bureau, specifically the PA92 tables with the medium cohort mortality improvement rates.
Post Office Card Account
Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many Post Office card account holders there are in each constituency in Wales. [67396]
Mr. Plaskitt: Information showing the number of DWP benefit and pension payment accounts paid by direct payment into a Post Office card account for each parliamentary constituency has been placed in the Library.
Teleclaiming
Mr. Rooney: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what guidance he has issued to his staff on making reasonable adjustments to the teleclaiming system for people with disabilities. [66069]
Margaret Hodge [holding answer 26 April 2006]: As part of the new Jobcentre Plus process, we encourage all new claims to be made over the telephone. We do however recognise that this is not suitable for some of our customers and alternative arrangements are in place, including:
arranging a face-to-face interview at the customers local Jobcentre Plus office, or if more appropriate, a home visit;
the use of our Textphone/Minicom service which is available for customers who are deaf or hard of hearing.
This advice and guidance has been communicated to Jobcentre Plus staff and is part of their learning and development.
HEALTH
Adverse Drug Reactions
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many suspected unexpected serious adverse reactions have been reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and its predecessor organisations, in each year since 1997. [66006]
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Jane Kennedy: Clinical trials are designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of new drugs and new indications for approved drugs. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) receives applications for over 1,000 new trials each year involving a planned number of new trial participants of approximately 90,000 to 95,000. Serious unexpected suspected adverse reactions (SUSARs) occur during clinical trials and are reported to the MHRA.
The number of SUSARs received between 1997 and 2005 is shown in the table.
| Number of reports | |
|---|---|
| 1997 | 250 |
| 1998 | 564 |
| 1999 | 431 |
| 2000 | 439 |
| 2001 | 606 |
| 2002 | 452 |
| 2003 | 336 |
| 2004 | 335 |
| 2005 | 359 |
In 2005, it would appear that the total number of SUSARs received involved an estimate of less than 0.4 per cent. of the total planned number of patients participating in clinical trials for that year. These occurred with a wide range of drugs being investigated in a wide range of medical conditions, many of which were serious, such as cancers, etc.
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