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13 Dec 2006 : Column 1084W—continued
Renewable Energy
Charles Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much energy consumed by his Department is acquired from renewable sources. [106152]
David Cairns: The Scotland Office subscribes to the sustainable development policies adopted by the Department for Constitutional Affairs.
I refer the hon. Member to the reply given bythe Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice) on 7 December 2006, Official Report, column 657W.
Leader of the House
Compensation Payments
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Leader of the House how much in compensation payments was paid by the Privy Council Office in 2005-06; and what the reason was for each payment. [108197]
Furniture
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Leader of the House how much was spent by the Privy Council Office on furniture made by British firms in each year since 2000. [105071]
Mr. Straw: Detailed information on the country of manufacture of furniture purchased is not held by the Privy Council Office.
Queen's Speech
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Leader of the House which items in the Queen’s Speech programme are (a) in part and (b) wholly consequent on proposals made at European Union level. [108091]
Mr. Straw: The written ministerial statement giving further details of the legislative programme outlinedin the Queen’s Speech, 16 November 2006, Official Report, column 7WS, listed 27 possible Bills. Of these, 19 have been introduced (some with an amended name), namely:
Concessionary Bus Travel
Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress
Further Education and Training
Fraud (Trial without a Jury)
Greater London Authority
Justice and Security (Northern Ireland)
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health
Mental Health
Northern Ireland (St. Andrews Agreement)
Offender Management
Pensions
Statistics and Registration Service
Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement
Welfare Reform
Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide
Crossrail
Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information)
Legal Services
Investment Exchanges and Clearing Houses.
The Government have also introduced the Planning Gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill. None of these Bills is in part or wholly consequent on proposals made at European Union level, though all Bills are prepared having regard generally to the extent to which EU and other international obligations are relevant to the provisions made by the Bill.
Preparation of the remaining planned Bills is ongoing. It is not possible to state how far, if at all, such Bills will be consequent on European Union proposals.
House of Commons Commission
Light Bulbs
Mrs. Hodgson: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission if the Commission will take steps to replace standard light bulbs throughout the House of Commons estate with energy saving light bulbs; and if he will commission an estimate of the likely savings in (a) energy cost and (b) energy usage which would result from such a policy. [108235]
Nick Harvey: Steps are already being taken to replace standard light bulbs where possible throughout the Parliamentary Estate.
Guidelines issued to consultants designing new lighting schemes for large projects require the use of low energy lamps. Smaller projects to replace standard lamps with low energy lamps are completed as new lamp designs become available. For example, low energy lamps have been used on the Christmas trees in New Palace Yard and Westminster Hall.
The likely savings on this project and in general are as follows:
| Project | (a) Saving in energy cost | (b) Saving in energy usage (%) |
|
Changing a standard 75 watt lamp with a 15 watt compact fluorescent lamp having the same light output. |
International Development
Conflict Areas
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of providing development aid to states affected by conflict. [105030]
Mr. Thomas: DFID does not maintain an agreed list of ‘states affected by conflict’. We do have a list of fragile states which we are currently reviewing as countries frequently move in and out of fragility and conflict, and political circumstances in a country can rapidly change. This list will include countries that are generally recognised to be conflict-affected. Detail on DFID’s definition and the list of fragile states can be found in DFID’s policy paper, “Why We Need to Work More Effectively in Fragile States”, page 7 and annex 1, which is available in the House of Commons Library. As part of the Government’s 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR07), DFID is reviewing how to maximise value for money from our spending on fragile states.
Our regular cycle of DFID Country Programme Evaluations (CPEs) includes states affected by conflict. In 2005, we teamed up with four other donors to do a joint evaluation of our work in Afghanistan. For 2007, we are planning CPEs for Nepal and Indonesia. We also do specialist reviews of our work on particular themes related to states affected by conflict: for example a review is currently under way of our support to security and justice sector reform in Africa. We are also planning an evaluation of our work in ‘fragile states’ for 2007-08. Finally, we intend to pilot a ‘conflict audit’ in a number of countries, which will help us review how well we integrate conflict into all our development work.
To maximise the effectiveness of development assistance to states affected by conflict, DFID—with other Government Departments, donor agencies, country partners and civil society—conducts conflict assessments. These help us to better understand the conflict dynamics within a region/country and ensure that at a minimum development assistance does not inadvertently fuel conflict, through, for example, being blind to the distributional impacts of aid. More than this, the assessments feed into our broader country planning processes, helping us to identify where our development assistance can be most effective. In Yemen, for example, our conflict assessment highlighted how poor access to justice and security was a significant conflict risk factor and led us to support the development of an integrated justice sector development programme.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent representations he has received about aid provision in states affected by conflict. [105031]
Mr. Thomas: I receive numerous representations in relation to aid provision. Given that DFID does not maintain an agreed list of ‘states affected by conflict’, the only way in which this question could be answered would incur disproportionate costs.
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the proportion of children in states affected by conflict who are able to access primary education. [105063]
Mr. Thomas: The primary source of global data on out-of-school children is the Education for All Global Monitoring Report. The 2007 report was launched on 26 October.
DFID does not maintain an agreed list of ‘states affected by conflict’. We do have a list of ‘fragile states’ which we are currently reviewing, as countries frequently move in and out of fragility and conflict, and political circumstances in a country can rapidly change. This list will include countries that are generally recognised to be conflict-affected. Detail on DFID’s current definition and list of fragile states can be found in DFID’s policy paper, “Why We Need to Work More Effectively in Fragile States”, page 7 and annex 1, which is available in the House of Commons Library.
Using the DFID list of ‘fragile states’, data fromthe 2007 Global Monitoring Report and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates for countries without published data, the percentages of primary-aged children enrolled in primary school in these states is calculated as 69 per cent.
Departmental Staff
Mr. Roger Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many (a) marketing officers, (b) communications officers and (c) press officers are employed in his Department; and whatthe total expenditure on communications for his Department was on (i) Government Information and Communication Service staff and (ii) other (A) press officers, (B) special advisers and (C) staff in the last year for which figures are available. [104355]
Mr. Thomas: The requested staff figures are in the following table.
| Number | |
Communication is integral to DFID’s work and many staff in different teams are involved in communication work. It is therefore not possible to break down communications expenditure by types of staff, including special advisers. To disaggregate this information would incur disproportionate costs.
Efavirenz
John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the decision by the government of Thailand to issue a compulsory licence for Efavirenz. [105317]
Mr. Thomas: DFID welcomes countries’ efforts to use the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) flexibilities and compulsory licensing in order to improve access to medicines.
In this particular case, Efavirenz patent-holder Merck says that it has not been consulted over licensing and that the Royal Thai Government have not followed the correct procedure. Merck has requested a meeting with the Royal Thai Government in an attempt to resolve the issue.
Ethical Trading Initiative
Mark Simmonds: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Ethical Trading Initiative; and if he will make a statement. [104961]
Mr. Thomas: DFID helped establish the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) in 1998 and since that time has provided over £2 million to support its development. The overall goal of our support to ETI is to improve the lives of workers and their families through the application of internationally recognised labour standards throughout global supply chains.
DFID regularly reviews the work we support. An independent review of ETI was undertaken by Ashridge Centre for Business and Society for DFID in 2005. DFID also supported the recently published Impact Assessment commissioned by ETI, which was undertaken independently by the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex.
The Impact Assessment found that ETI member companies’ codes of conduct covered at least 20,000 suppliers, of which nearly all had been informed of the need to comply with the codes, and almost half (9,000) had been assessed for code compliance. The assessment found that many workers had benefited from the implementation of the ETI Base Code. In most of the supply sites in case studies used in the assessment, there were improvements in relation to health and safety, working hours, wages and child labour. For instance, it was more common for the minimum wage to be paid and for there to be greater provision for state insurance and payments, and there was less employment of children and young workers. The assessment foundless positive impact in relation to freedom of association, discrimination, regular employment and harsh treatment.
DFID is confident that the ETI takes the Impact Assessment seriously and is acting on its recommendations. We recently agreed a five-year Partnership Programme Agreement with ETI in which we have placed specific emphasis on: the need for more poor workers to know about their rights and to be supported by civil society initiatives; increasing the number of businesses taking action to ensure labour laws and standards are implemented; increasing civil society engagement with government to improve legal protection for poor workers; increasing the number of retailers in developed and developing countries that are aware of ethical trade and its benefits; and supporting the private sector to participate with trade unions and NGOs in support of DFID’s objectives.
We believe that in its relatively short life-span the ETI has done much to establish best practice in the credible implementation, monitoring and independent verification of corporate codes of conduct and we look forward to continuing to work with them to this end.
Haiti
Mr. Clifton-Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of (a) the humanitarian effects and (b) the likely effects on agricultural production of the recent floods in Haiti; and whether the British Government plans to provide assistance. [108093]
Mr. Thomas: The late November floods in Haiti are reported by the Haitian Red Cross Society to have killed seven people and affected approximately 3,740 families. At least 335 of these families have been evacuated to temporary shelters.
The International Federation of the Red Cross has provided 80,000 Swiss francs for immediate relief and has launched an appeal for US $522,000. The needs are mostly for clean water, basic health care and kitchen, hygiene and sleeping items.
Several non-government organisations (NGOs) and UN agencies are also providing emergency assistance, concentrating on these needs.
The UN considers that the humanitarian needs are being met by existing or pledged assistance.
Agriculture has been damaged, with losses to fruit and vegetable crops and livestock and disruption of transport to markets. According to agencies present in the flooded areas, it is too early to measure the total damage. Some agencies have started distributing seeds and tools and to plan longer-term recovery assistance.
In view of the fact that the Red Cross, UN and NGOs are meeting immediate humanitarian needs, DFID will not be providing emergency assistance. We will continue to monitor the post-flooding needs in Haiti and will keep the possibility of support for longer-term agricultural recovery under review.
HIV and AIDS
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how the $1.5 million pledged to the global fund to fight HIV and AIDS has been spent; and which countries have received financial support from the fund. [104958]
Mr. Thomas: The UK’s commitment to tackle AIDS is set out in ‘Taking Action: The UK’s strategy for tackling HIV and AIDS in the developing world’. This commits the UK to spend £1.5 billion to tackle AIDS between 2005 and 2008. It outlines how the UK will act to strengthen political leadership on AIDS; to improve the global response to AIDS, ensuring international initiatives and multilateral organisations complement national approaches in developing countries; to support better national programmes, including through our bilateral assistance to country responses; and to improve the long-term response, including through support for research into new medicines, preventative technologies and AIDS programmes. An independent, interim evaluation of Taking Action is currently under way, and we look forward to its findings in early 2007.
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