Written Answers to Questions

Monday 15 January 2007

Leader of the House

Parliamentary Questions

Mrs. May: To ask the Leader of the House how many written parliamentary questions to the Leader of the House in the 2005-06 Session were not answered wholly or in part on grounds of disproportionate cost. [113277]

Mr. Straw: In the 2005-06 Session, three written parliamentary questions were not answered on grounds of disproportionate cost.

Mrs. May: To ask the Leader of the House how many written parliamentary questions to him in the 2005-06 Session were answered with a reply that it had not been possible to reply before Prorogation, or similar wording. [113278]

Mr. Straw: None.

Mr. Francois: To ask the Leader of the House on how many occasions he has circulated round robin guidance to Departments following the tabling of written parliamentary questions in the last 12 months. [113667]

Mr. Straw: None.

Norman Baker: To ask the Leader of the House how many parliamentary questions were tabled to his Office in 2006, broken down by (a) ordinary written and (b) named day; what percentage of ordinary written questions were answered within 10 working days; and what percentage of named day questions were answered by the specified date. [115281]

Mr. Straw: In the 2005-06 Session, the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons answered (a) 188 ordinary written parliamentary questions, 100 per cent. of which were answered within 10 sitting days; and (b) 71 named day questions, 100 per cent. of which were answered on the specified date.

Political Party Finance

Mr. Heald: To ask the Leader of the House what responsibilities he has for political party finance reform. [114078]

Mr. Straw: My responsibilities for political party reform were set out in the Prime Minister’s letter to me of 15 May 2006. They are to lead on the reform of party funding arrangements, taking account of Sir Hayden Phillips’ review, with a view to getting new arrangements in place before the next general election.


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International Development

Advertising

Mr. Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much his Department has spent on advertising with The Guardian newspaper, including online, in the last year for which figures are available. [114086]

Mr. Thomas: DFID's spend on advertising in The Guardian newspaper in the last calendar year was £168,735. This figure includes the cost of inserting the leaflet "Eliminating World Poverty", recruitment advertising and advertorials.

Child Education

Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent estimate he has made of the number of school-aged children in the world who are not in education. [115112]

Mr. Thomas: The primary source of global data on out of school children is the Education for All Global Monitoring Report. The 2007 Global Monitoring Report (GMR), launched on 26 October 2006, estimates that there are around 77 million primary-aged children who are not enrolled in primary or secondary school. The GMR helps track progress on the Universal Primary Education Millennium Development Goal to ensure that by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

Given its emphasis on the enrolment statistics of primary-aged children, the GMR does not make a comparable estimate of secondary-aged children out of school. It does, however, estimate a global net enrolment ratio in secondary education of 58 per cent. Net enrolment ratio is enrolment of the official age group for a given level of education, expressed as a percentage of the population in that age group.

Clean Water Access

Mr. Iain Wright: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what support his Department is providing to facilitate the creation of public partnership bodies in the water industry in developing countries to improve access to clean water. [114584]

Mr. Thomas: In March 2006, the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation announced an action plan which included a call for a global mechanism to promote water operators partnerships. We intend to increase support to various partnership initiatives that support public utilities and we are currently considering how best to do this. We are discussing a number of proposals with potential partners. Previous experience has shown that twinning agreements and capacity-building arrangements in the sector can often be ineffective. Our approach to public partnerships should capitalise on this experience and be based on evidence of what works best. In particular, we want to be sure that any new partnerships are set up
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with the right incentives in place and do not duplicate or undermine the efforts of other established partnership approaches.

In addition, DFID has supported the International Benchmarking Network for water and sanitation utilities (IBNET) since 2002. This is an initiative of the multi-donor Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) to compile and share performance indicators in order to help improve efficiency.

Forestry

Mark Simmonds: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development which countries have signed up to Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Partnership Agreements; and if he will make a statement. [114283]

Mr. Thomas: The European Union has held preliminary discussions about Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade partnership agreements with a number of countries in Asia and Africa. In late 2006 Malaysia and Ghana announced their intentions to proceed with formal negotiations. Indonesia did so on 8 January of this year and it is anticipated that several more countries will confirm their intention to proceed with negotiations by the summer. The length of negotiations will vary from country to country but we expect the first partnership agreement to be signed by the end of 2007.

Indonesia

Mark Simmonds: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the outcomes of the Multistakeholder Forestry Programme in Indonesia since 2000; and what plans there are to extend the programme beyond 2006. [114277]

Mr. Thomas: The Multistakeholder Forestry Programme (MFP) has worked with civil society and government organisations to broker new relationships between citizens and the state in relation to forest policy-making. DFID has contributed £25 million to this work since 2000. The programme is transforming forest governance in Indonesia, promoting a citizens' voice and government accountability, and increasing transparency and participation in policy-making, which is having a strong impact on poverty and forest management.

The programme ended in December 2006. DFID commissioned a series of independent reviews of its outcomes. These showed considerable impact in reducing poverty and conflict, in securing access to state forest lands by local communities, in improving small enterprises, in reducing illegal logging, and in rebuilding trust and effective government in a fragile state. A portrait of the programme was also written by a British journalist and published in a book entitled "Aid That Works", highlighting many human interest stories and how lives have changed by the improvements in forest governance in Indonesia.

The programme has built a solid platform for taking forward the new DFID White Paper agenda—engaging in governance reforms in difficult environments, working across Whitehall, and addressing climate
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change. We are now preparing joint work with the FCO in Indonesia to carry forward this agenda, particularly in addressing the international trade in illegal timber, the stabilisation of local land rights to curb deforestation and illegal logging, and to raise the profile of climate change and the huge contribution to greenhouse gas emissions made by deforestation in Indonesia. Initially this will be supported as part of DFID's £24 million global Forest Governance and Trade programme.

Mark Simmonds: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what funding and resources his Department committed to combat illegal logging in Indonesia in each of the last three financial years; how much has been allocated for each of the next three financial years; how much of that funding and resources (a) was channelled and (b) will be channelled (i) bilaterally and (ii) multilaterally; and through which multilateral agencies aid (A) has been and (B) will be channelled. [114279]

Mr. Thomas: DFID has a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Indonesia on combating illegal logging, and a wider forest governance reform programme, the Multistakeholder Forestry Programme (MFP). As part of the £25 million bilateral MFP, DFID has spent approximately £2 million per year, over the past three years, on research, advocacy, coordination, media communications, training and policy development to combat illegal logging. While the MFP has ended, DFID's bilateral commitment to combating illegal logging continues under a £24 million global programme on Forest Governance and Trade. We expect to spend over £1 million each year over the next three years from this global programme in Indonesia.

Through its contributions to the EU, DFID is also contributing to a number of EU-funded projects combating illegal logging in Indonesia. The EU-Illegal Logging Response Centre, the EC Tropical Forest Budget Line, and the EU support to the Asia Regional Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) process, have all contributed over £2 million per year, and the new EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Support Project will spend just under £2 million per year over the next three years.

Through its staff and contributions to the World Bank, DFID has also contributed to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-World Bank partnership against illegal logging in Indonesia, and leveraged US$1 million (2006-07) from a Dutch Trust Fund for a Forest Transparency Initiative. Through its contributions to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), DFID has contributed to the work of the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in supporting the Asia Forest Partnership.

These funds are backed up by the staff whom we have in our Policy Division, the DFID Indonesia country office, and seconded to the European Commission office responsible for global forestry support, as well as the work we do across Whitehall in providing a coherent response to this international problem from DFID, DEFRA and FCO.


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Infrastructure Projects

Mr. Lilley: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what estimate he has made of the amount of UK bilateral aid allocated to infrastructure projects in each year since 1997. [113934]

Hilary Benn: Estimated UK bilateral expenditure on infrastructure since 1997 is set out in the following table. These estimates are based on the expenditure allocated to sectors covering infrastructure which include transport and communication, energy, public- private partnerships/privatisation, construction, urban management, shelter and housing, water supply and water and sanitation. Some support to infrastructure, for example, expenditure on education facilities, will be allocated to an education sector, which means the infrastructure element cannot be identified separately and is therefore not included in the following figures.

UK bilateral expenditure on infrastructure (£ million)

1996-97

131.1

1997-98

125.6

1998-99

134.7

1999-2000

122.2

2000-01

113.7

2001-02

142.1

2002-03

121.5

2003-04

182.7

2004-05

148.8

2005-06

169.1


Outstanding Debt

Ann McKechin: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) how much debt is owed by (a) low and (b) lower-middle-income country
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governments to the UK through (i) the CDC group and (ii) his Department, broken down by country; [114483]

(2) how much debt relief and cancellation in terms of (a) flow relief and (b) stock cancellation has been granted by the Government since 2004 on debts of (i) low and (ii) lower middle income countries owed to (A) the CDC group and (B) his Department, broken down by country. [114486]

Hilary Benn: The following table shows the debts currently owed by Low Income and Lower Middle Income Countries to the UK through DFID, as well as debt relief and cancellation in terms of flow relief and stock cancellation for these countries. No debt is owed directly by any government to CDC Group plc, which only lends to commercial organisations. However, some loans by CDC to parastatal and quasi-governmental organisations were guaranteed by their governments. Income to CDC and debt relief on these loans are therefore included in the table.

Debts owed by countries to the World Bank on loans financed by the UK and other then-EEC donors in the 1970s are listed separately. DFID receives payments on these loans from the World Bank. The loans reverted to bilateral status in 2005 and those to Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) are being treated in accordance with the UK’s 100 per cent. debt relief policies. All payments by HIPCs to the UK since 2000 on these loans will be returned to them when they complete the HIPC Initiative. The balance of the loans will also be cancelled. Payments returned to HIPCs so far are listed as flow relief since 2004, with loans cancelled recorded as stock cancellation. DFID is in the process of returning payments and cancelling our share of these loans to Malawi and Sierra Leone, which recently completed the HIPC Initiative. We are also in the process of returning payments received from Mauritania.


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Debts owed and debt relief given to Low Income and Lower Middle Income Countries
£000
Debt owed Debt relief
World Bank Loans with DFID as a creditor Flow relief 2003-04 to 2005-06 Stock cancellation 2003-04 to 2005-06 Reimbursements since 2004 on World Bank loans with DFID as a creditor Stock cancellation since 2004 on World Bank loans with DFID as a creditor
Country CDC( 3) DFID CDC( 3) DFID CDC( 3) DFID

Low Income Countries( 1)

Bangladesh

4,701

Benin(1)

64

304

Burkina Faso(1)

168

813

Burundi(2)

121

Cameroon(1)

2,574

Central Africa N. Rep.(2)

49

Comoros(2)

71

Congo, Dem. Rep.(2)

1,568

Congo, Rep.(2)

489

Cote D’Ivoire(2)

12,976

(1)567

663

Ethiopia(1)

204

1,062

Gambia(2)

167

Ghana(1)

4506

1,632

9,050

1,104

121

630

Guinea(2)

381

Guinea-Bissau(2)

96

Haiti(2)

592

India

4,913

Kenya

292

1,450

Laos

274

Lesotho

217

Liberia(2)

134

Madagascar(1)

203

1,057

Malawi(1)

2,886

754

Mali(1)

211

1,019

Mauritania(1)

152

Mozambique(1)

68

Myanmar

1,062

Nepal(2)

1,105

Nicaragua(1)

3

Niger(1)

38

205

Nigeria

5,000

Pakistan

5,672

23,139

Rwanda(1)

34

175

Senegal(1)

49

87

413

Sierra Leone(2)

293

Somalia(2)

151

Sudan(2)

1,093

Tanzania(1)

524

2,302

Togo(2)

665

Uganda(1)

455

2017

Yemen

1,102

Zambia(1)

1,154

2,154

99

526

Zimbabwe

10,144

8,544

Total for low income countries

23,412

9,111

26,276

9,966

2,786

32,189

4,041

2,208

11,429

Lower middle income countries

Colombia

6

Ecuador

8,067

Egypt

(3)112

3,542

1,218

Guyana(1)

12,106

59

306

Honduras(1)

2,519

186

15,371

93

Indonesia

16,622

553

Jamaica

5,906

(3)13,472

5,864

9,257

Jordon

(3)7,072

5,716

Peru

(3)2,958

1,550

Philippines

483

Samoa

29

Solomon Islands

734

Sri Lanka

873

Total for Lower Middle Income countries

22,528

32,170

4,997

2,519

186

21,235

30,674

59

306

(1 )Countries completed the HIPC Initiative and received 100 per cent. debt cancellation from the UK.
(2) Countries progressing through HIPC and will receive 100 per cent. debt cancellation when they reach HIPC Completion Point. Those that have passed Decision Point of the HIPC Initiative receive 100 per cent. flow relief (they make no debt service payments).
(3) Debt relief has been given on these debts under Retrospective Term Adjustment (RTA) and the Commonwealth Development Initiative (GDI)-payments are cancelled each year as they become due and the countries are not billed.

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