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1 Feb 2007 : Column 471W—continued
provides banking and investment services for bankruptcy and liquidation estate funds;
advises DTI Ministers and other Government Departments and agencies on insolvency, redundancy and related issues;
provides information to the public on insolvency and redundancy matters via our website, leaflets, Insolvency Inquiry Line and Redundancy Payments Helpline; and
conducts confidential fact-finding investigations into companies where it is in the public interest to do so. These inquiries are carried out by Companies Investigation Branch.
Budget (2006-07): £163.5 million.
The Patent Office is the Government body responsible for granting Intellectual
Property (IP) rights in the United Kingdom. These rights include: Patents, Designs, Trade marks and Copyright. It has responsibility for:
ensuring that the intellectual property system works to industry’s benefit;
making sure that the property rights issued under its authority carry respected validity in the marketplace, and
promoting awareness of the value of intellectual property and its exploitation.
Budget (2006-07): £49.6 million.
National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWMU)
The National Weights and Measures Laboratory is responsible for ensuring UK measurement is accurate, fair and legal. It has responsibility for:
policy on measuring instruments in use for trade;
the implementation of European directives on measuring instruments and provides the focus for legal metrology in the UK;
the examination and approval of new weighing and measuring equipment to be used for trade; and
to establish compliance with the requirements of the Weights and Measures Act 1985 and relevant European legislation.
Budget (2006-07): £3.9 million.
Mental Illness: Employment
Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures he is taking to promote the employment within (a) his Department and (b) public sector bodies for whom he has responsibility of people with mental illnesses in line with the advice and codes of practice produced by the Disability Rights Commission. [117087]
Jim Fitzpatrick: Under the disability equality duty introduced by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, the Department and the public sector bodies for which I am responsible are required to publish and implement Disability Equality Schemes. These are plans setting out how we will carry out the disability equality duty, monitor, and report on progress. In particular this includes our arrangements for gathering information on the effect of our policies and practices on the recruitment, development and retention of our disabled employees, including those with mental health conditions, and making use of that information.
The Department’s Disability Equality Scheme was launched on 4 December 2006.
The public sector bodies sponsored by the Department that are subject to these requirements are responsible for publishing and implementing their own Disability Equality Schemes.
Parliamentary Questions
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many written parliamentary questions to his Department in the 2005-06 session were not answered wholly or in part on grounds of disproportionate cost. [113287]
Jim Fitzpatrick: This information is not held in the format requested. However, the Library of the House keeps a record of all questions answered and according to its data the DTI cited disproportionate cost in 18 answers out of a total of 5,146 answered during the 2005-06 session.
Post Offices
Mr. Fraser: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many post offices are required under the Government’s proposed access criteria in each parliamentary constituency. [117751]
Jim Fitzpatrick: No such assessment has been made. Post Office Ltd. will be required to implement the necessary transformation of the network in accordance with the Government’s access criteria and with a maximum of 2,500 compensated sub-post office closures.
Mr. Fraser: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether the distances referred to in The Post Office Network Consultation Document are measured as the crow flies. [117752]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The national consultation outlines the broad framework based on measuring the percentage of population within the radius of each post office. However, in implementing the proposals, Post Office Ltd. would take into account local factors affecting ease of access, such as rivers, mountains, valleys and sea crossings.
Mr. Fraser: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to allow diversification of services in Post Office contracts; and if he will make a statement. [117753]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The Government have been working closely with Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. to ensure that it is able to deliver high quality services that customers want. This included £500 million investment in Horizon enabling the Post Office to develop its financial service business by opening up its counters to up to 20 million bank customers and becoming the UK’s leading provider of foreign exchange services.
The vast majority of post offices are private businesses, which are also able to pursue their own commercial interests.
Mr. Fraser: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how his Department defines (a) urban, (b) rural and (c) remote areas in the context of access criteria in the Post Office Network Consultation Document. [117766]
Jim Fitzpatrick: In relation to the Post Office Network Consultation Document, an urban area is defined as a settlement of more than 10,000 inhabitants. A rural area is defined as a settlement of less than 10,000 inhabitants. There is no departmental definition of a remote area as no access criteria proposals relate solely to “remote” areas.
Alongside the Government’s proposed national access criteria, is the criterion that 95 per cent. of the population in postcode districts should be within six miles of a post office service. Implicit in this criterion is a safeguard for people in remote areas who might otherwise not have been assured of reasonable accessibility to services under nationally-applied criteria alone.
Renewable Energy
Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what (a) funding and (b) grant programmes are available for research into the use of tidal power; and if he will make a statement. [111265]
Malcolm Wicks: The Government have in place a number of initiatives that support tidal power.
Since 2000 around £20 million has been committed to support research and development of tidal-stream energy technologies under the DTI Technology Programme, and a further £50 million has been made available under the DTI’s Marine Renewables Deployment Fund to support the first larger-scale pre-commercial grid- connected wave and tidal-stream demonstration projects.
The Research Council's Supergen Marine Energy Research Consortium has, since 2003, conducted a £2.6 million research project into marine renewable energy including tidal energy.
The Government's main mechanism for supporting renewable energy is the renewables obligation (RO). The RO is a market-based mechanism, which requires electricity suppliers to source an increasing percentage of their electricity sales from eligible sources of renewable energy providing a substantial market incentive for renewable energy, including tidal power. The Government recently announced, in the Energy Review Report, their intention to consider “banding” the RO, so as to give more support to emerging energy technologies including tidal power.
It also announced that the DTI, together with the Welsh Assembly Government, are working with the Sustainable Development Commission, the South West Regional Development Agency and other key interested parties to explore the issues arising on the tidal resource in the UK, including the Severn estuary,
including potential costs and benefits of development using a range of tidal technologies and their public acceptability. The study is due to report in June 2007.
The above does not include support for research made available from the devolved administrations, regional development agencies or the European Commission.
Right to Strike
Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in preparing submissions to the European Court of Justice on the Viking case, what view his Department has taken on the question of whether the right to strike is protected in EU law as a fundamental right. [112501]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The Viking case highlights the conflict which may exist between national laws, which in some member states include the right to strike, and the European treaty. The Government intervened in this case to maintain the status quo including, in some circumstances, the right to take collective action.
Smart Metering
Martin Horwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what projection he has made of the effect of smart metering on consumers’ domestic energy usage; [112196]
(2) whether the Government plan to carry out research on the effect of smart metering on consumer domestic energy usage. [112221]
Malcolm Wicks: As part of the Energy Review, the Government are currently consulting on a range of metering and billing issues, including smart metering. Trials of smart meters and other devices, which the Government are co-funding with supplier-led consortiums, will also begin shortly. These trials will test a range of approaches to encourage consumers to reduce energy consumption.
WEEE Directive
Mr. Greg Knight:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the preparedness of companies for the implementation of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
Directive; what advice he has issued to those industries affected; and if he will make a statement. [112204]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 30 January 2007]: Large producers and retailers are aware of their obligations under the WEEE regulations, but there is a perception that awareness among SMEs could be better. This has and continues to be tackled on a number of fronts: through direct dialogue with trade associations and other representative bodies of businesses affected by the regulations; by trade associations themselves taking a proactive approach to disseminating information on the requirements of the regulations; through targeted articles in trade press; and by holding regional seminars to help producers and retailers better understand their obligations.
DTI will issue non-statutory guidance shortly which will add clarity to the regulations and help stakeholders to make informed decisions on how best to discharge their obligations.
Education and Skills
Autism and Special Needs
Mrs. Dean: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils with (a) an autistic spectrum disorder and (b) special educational needs were (i) temporarily excluded and (ii) permanently excluded from a maintained (A) primary and (B) secondary school in each of the last five years, broken down by ethnic group. [110588]
Mr. Dhanda: The available information is given in the following tables.
The information the DfES collects on excluded pupils is broken down to show whether they have special educational needs (SEN) but does not extend to type of SEN. The information provided in this response relates to excluded pupils with SEN (both with and without statements).
The first year for which information on fixed period exclusions is available relates to the 2003-04 academic year. Data on exclusions are collected retrospectively. Exclusions data for 2004-05 academic year were published in June 2006. The available information relating to fixed period exclusions during 2003-04 and 2004-05 has been provided.
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