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10 Oct 2006 : Column 661W—continued
Munitions
Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what UK stockpiles are of (a) Shell 155 mm HE ERBS L20 and M58 submunitions, (b) Rocket POD 298 mm HE M26 and M26 submunitions, (c) Shell 155 mm HE M483 and relevant submunitions, (d) CRV 7 Multi Purpose Sub Munition and (e) B755 Cluster Bombs. [91442]
Mr. Ingram: The Ministry of Defence holds ammunition stockpiles in the UK and overseas. A stockpile of 16,871 Shells 155 mm HE M483 are held, but this ammunition has been withdrawn from service and the residual stocks are being disposed of. Information on quantities of in service ammunition is classified and as such is withheld as disclosure would not be in the national interest.
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the availability of supplies of 30mm ammunition for the chain gun of the Apache helicopter. [91678]
Mr. Ingram: The Apache Attack Helicopter Mkl uses two types of light-weight 30mm ammunition; Target Practise (TP) and High Explosive, Dual Purpose (HEDP). TP is procured on a rolling basis to meet training requirements. HEDP is held as war stock with stock levels based on Defence Planning Assumptions. There are sufficient supplies available of both types of ammunition to meet training and operational requirements.
Weapons Policy
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 24 July 2006, Official Report, column 797W, on weapons policy, under what circumstances weapons are provided to (a) UK and (b) other civilians in (i) Iraq and (ii) Afghanistan who are not employed by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [89931]
Des Browne: We do not, as a matter of routine, provide weapons to civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Education and Skills
Apprenticeships
Mr. Pelling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many and what percentage of 16 to 18-year-olds have taken up full-time apprenticeships. [91620]
Phil Hope: At end 2005, there were 127,200 16 to 18-year-olds participating on Apprenticeships (Apprenticeships and Advanced Apprenticeships) in England. This was 6.4 per cent. of the total 16 to 18 population.
Correspondence
Sir Gerald Kaufman:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when he will reply to the letter
of 13 July 2006 from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard to Mrs. K. Wilson. [92062]
Mr. Dhanda: Andrew Adonis, the Minister with responsibility for special educational needs, replied to the right hon. Member’s letter on 18 July. The Department has checked with the right hon. Member’s office and confirmed that the reply did not arrive. A copy of the reply was faxed to the right hon. Member’s office on 3 October.
Departmental Expenditure
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much was spent by (a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c) its non-departmental public bodies in respect of hotel and other similar privately-provided accommodation (i) in the UK and (ii) abroad for (A) Ministers, (B) staff and (C) other persons in each year since 2001-02. [91923]
Mr. Dhanda: Details of hotel accommodation expenditure incurred by the Department over the last five years are set out in the following table.
| Accommodation expenditure (£) | |
The Department has engaged an agent to arrange hotel accommodation for DfES staff that stay overnight when on official business. The hotel expenditure recorded relates to all hotel accommodation booked via the Agent and billed separately to the Department. The recorded expenditure does not include hotel accommodation booked independently as such expenditure is accounted for under a general heading of subsistence.
Details of official foreign travel expenditure incurred by the Department over the last five years are set out in the following table.
| Travel expenditure (£) | |
Hotel accommodation abroad cannot be extracted from the overall costs of foreign travel. Ministers and DfES staff travelling abroad are entitled to claim an allowance covering each 24 hour period or part thereof. The 24 hour rate covers the cost of accommodation at a good class hotel, three meals a day, service charges and taxes. The expenditure recorded does not include foreign travel costs that may be charged to a programme account, so this cannot be easily extracted within disproportionate cost. The Department does not have any Executive Agencies. The Department currently has 18 NDPBs. They are independent
organisations and records are not held centrally by the Department about their accommodation expenses. To extract those costs would involve disproportionate cost.
Disability Equality
Mr. Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether he has made an assessment of which policy areas will be considered in his report on progress towards disability equality within the education and skills sector. [91997]
Phil Hope: The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 imposes a legal duty upon public authorities to look pro-actively at ways of ensuring that disabled people are treated equally. Furthermore the Act also requires certain Secretaries of State to publish a report by December 2008 which:
“gives an overview of progress made by public authorities operating in the relevant policy sector towards equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people; and
sets out the proposals for the co-ordination of action by public authorities operating in that sector so as to bring about further progress towards equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people.”
Policy Officials are currently in the process of preparing the department’s first Disability Equality Scheme which, in accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, will be published on 4 December 2006. In preparation for the Scheme all policies, functions and services are currently being assessed to establish whether disabled people are being disadvantaged in any way and, where this is the case, steps identified to remedy this. In light of this no formal decision has yet been taken on which policy areas will be considered for inclusion within the 2008 report on progress towards disability equality within the Education and Skills sector. However equality of opportunity for all is paramount throughout the department and all areas will be considered for inclusion.
Mr. Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how disabled people were involved in the production of his Department’s disability equality scheme. [91998]
Phil Hope: The Government are committed to improving the position of disabled people in society and believes that public bodies should take the lead in promoting equality for all. The Department welcomes the new legislative duties under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 2005. The involvement of disabled people has been central to the development of our Disability Equality Scheme (DES), which will be published on 4 December 2006.
Involving disabled people is a requirement of the specific duty to create a DES. Involvement has also had a significant impact on how we look at our programmes, policies and services, and identify priorities for development. The Department has involved disabled people in the development of its DES in several different ways. These include through existing forums of current service users; representation on an overarching Steering Group for the production of the DES; discussions with individual disabled
people, who also lead organisations concerned with disability equality, about their priorities for change; seeking the views of local organisations of disabled people; seeking the views of our Departmental Disability Group (DDG); seeking the views of visually impaired members of staff on formats for publication of the Scheme; and attendance at a conference to listen to the views of disabled people.
Mr. Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when he plans to publish the disability equality scheme for his Department; and in what formats. [91999]
Phil Hope: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 19 September 2006, PQ number 91185.
Education Maintenance Allowance
Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many people claimed education maintenance allowance in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) England in 2005. [91490]
Mr. Dhanda: This is a matter for the Learning and Skills Council, who operate education maintenance allowances for the DfES and hold the information about take-up of the scheme. Mark Haysom, the Council's Chief Executive, has written to the hon. Member with the information requested and a copy of his reply has been placed in the Library.
Letter from Mark Haysom dated 6 October 2006
I am writing in response to your parliamentary Question that asked “how many people claimed education maintenance allowance in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) England in 2005”
During the 2005-06 academic year 1,641 young people in the Milton Keynes local authority area had applied, enrolled and received one or more Education Maintenance Allowance payments.
During the 2005-06 academic year 428,117 young people in England had applied, enrolled and received one or more Education Maintenance Allowance payments.
Trust this information is helpful.
Foster Care Allowance
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many grandparents receive a foster care allowance. [91471]
Mr. Dhanda: All approved foster carers—including grandparent carers—receive an allowance in respect of each looked-after child in their care. We do not hold information on the number of grandparent foster carers. However, at 31 March 2005, 7,500 looked-after children were placed with a relative or friend. This represents around 18 per cent. of all looked-after children in foster care on that date.
Nursery Schools
Mr. Holloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children are being funded for free nursery school places in (a) Gravesham and (b) Kent. [92433]
Beverley Hughes: Since April 2004, all three and four-year-olds have been entitled to a free, good quality, part-time early education place. The free entitlement consists of 12.5 hours early education per week for 38 weeks of the year and will be extended to 15 hours a week by 2010. By that time, parents who wish to do so will also be able to access the free entitlement flexibly across a minimum of three days.
Figures for January 2006 show that virtually all four-year-old children receive some form of free entitlement. The figure for three-years-olds is 96 per cent. This covers all maintained, private, voluntary and independent providers and represents 541,700 three-year-olds and 559,400 four-year-olds.
In January 2006 there were 970 part time funded places for three-year-olds and 1,100 part time funded places for four-year-olds in the Gravesham parliamentary constituency. There were 12,400 part time funded places for three-year-olds and 14,900 part time funded places for four-year-olds in the Kent local authority. The latest figures on early education places for three and four-year-olds in England were published in Statistical First Release 32/2006 “Provision for children under five years of age in England—January 2006 (final)” in September, which is available on my Department’s website: www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/
Mr. Holloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what the total amount of funding paid from central government to local authorities per child that attends a free nursery school place in (a) Gravesham and (b) Kent was in the last period for which figures are available; [92434]
(2) how much funding is paid to nursery settings by local authorities per child that attends a free place at nursery school in (a) Gravesham and (b) Kent. [92517]
Beverley Hughes: Local authorities receive funding for all pre-16 provision, through the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). This is a ring-fenced DfES grant provided to local authorities to fund educational provision in all types of setting, including private, voluntary and independent settings offering free early education. Funding for under fives is not identified separately within DSG. The DSG guaranteed unit of funding (for each full-time equivalent pupil aged 3 to 15) should not be seen as the level of funding for each pupil but as a mechanism for distributing the total quantum of DSG to local authorities. The total DSG funding provided to Kent county council in 2006-07 is £718 million (a 6.9 per cent. increase per pupil).
Local authorities are responsible for deciding how best to apply the total funding across different age groups and between different types of provider taking account of local needs and circumstances. The “Code of Practice on the Provision of Free Nursery Education places for Three and Four Year Olds” makes clear that local authorities should fund all providers delivering the free early education entitlement equitably, fairly and transparently.
Sexual Exploitation (Children)
Margaret Moran:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which government-funded
projects provide support to children who have experienced sexual exploitation. [90122]
Mr. Dhanda: There is no central record of government funds given specifically to projects that provide support to children who have experienced sexual exploitation. Support services such as these are delivered through many central, local and voluntary funding initiatives, across a wide variety of different organisations in both the voluntary and statutory sectors, including health-related services. This year, through the Victims Fund, the Government are investing £1.25 million into voluntary and community sector specialist services for victims of sexual violence and abuse, including organisations that offer support to child victims. This takes the total investment to £5.25 million since 2004.
The Home Office is supporting the development of a national network of sexual assault referral centres. Five of these SARCs provide medical care, counselling and forensic examination specifically for children. Other SARCs have the capacity to refer children needing help and support. The Department of Health recently distributed £12 million capital funding for 2006-07 to primary care trusts, NHS trusts and networks to spend on capital projects to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Successful projects included establishing a number of sexual assault referral centres within paediatric services.
Special Educational Needs
Mr. Evennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children received special educational needs statements in the London borough of Bexley in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [90025]
Mr. Dhanda: The available information is given in the following table.
| Children for whom the authority maintains statements of Special Education Needs (SEN): Position in January each year: 2001 to 2006 Bexley local authority area | ||
| Total number of children for whom the authority maintains statements of SEN | Number of children for whom statements of SEN were made for the first time | |
| n/a = Information on the number of children for whom statements were made for the first time is collected retrospectively. Source: SEN2 Survey | ||
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