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5 Jun 2007 : Column 331W—continued
Culture, Media and Sport
Members: Correspondence
Mr. Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she will reply to the letter of 9 March from the right hon. Member for Warley regarding appointments to the BBC Trust. [138737]
Tessa Jowell: I apologise for not replying sooner to the letter of 9 March from my right hon. Friend regarding appointments to the BBC Trust.
I can confirm that I responded on 4 June.
Defence
Armed Forces: Pay
Mr. Francois: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether payment of the (a) operational allowance and (b) longer separation allowance can lead to a reduction in payment of the other allowance. [140575]
Derek Twigg [holding answer 4 June 2007]: No.
Communities and Local Government
Departments: Public Relations
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much was spent by her Department on public relations in each of the last five years. [139415]
Angela E. Smith: Communities and Local Government was created on 5 May 2006.
In the Financial year, 2006-07, the Department spent £843,000 on external public relations agencies. PR agencies have been used for four campaigns—home
information packs, tenancy deposit, fire kills and the local e-govt take-up campaign.
Figures for the Department's agencies are not held centrally and could be supplied only at disproportionate cost.
Figures for spend on public relations by the Department’s predecessor Department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, could only be disaggregated from the Office’s total spend on publicity and information campaigns at disproportionate costs.
Departments: Publicity
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much was spent on advertising by (a) her Department and (b) its agencies in each of the last five years. [139517]
Angela E. Smith: Communities and Local Government (created on 5 May 2006) and its predecessor Department, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has spent the following on advertising over the last five years (May 2002-May 2007). The increase in spend in the Financial Year 2006-07 was due to the Department running an increased number of campaigns, in addition to the on-going fire safety activity. The additional campaigns included local authority on-line services, home information packs, changes to the fire safety legislation for businesses, the introduction of the tenancy deposit scheme, and the female fire fighters recruitment campaign.
| £ million | |
Figures for the Department’s agencies are not held centrally and could be supplied only at disproportionate cost.
International Development
Fair Trade Initiative
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment his Department has made of the potential long term impact of the fair trade food initiative on living standards in third world nations. [139809]
Mr. Thomas
[holding answer 4 June 2007]: The UK Government are strong supporters of fair-trade products. They help farmers and other producers earn a decent living and get more of the final value of the product. Many Government Departments, including DFID, use fair-trade tea and coffee. And DFID supports initiatives to help producers benefit from fair-trade certification and develop new products. A number of individual impact assessments have been carried out, for example on DFID support to the Kuapa Kokoo cocoa growers’ cooperative in Ghana to achieve fair-trade certification. The findings of this and
other studies of fair-trade suggest the greatest benefits come through improved farmer organisation and improved availability of agricultural supplies. Direct impacts on long-term poverty reduction are less easy to measure. How the poverty impacts of fair trade can be more reliably and clearly monitored is at the centre of our current discussions with fair-trade organisations, including the Fairtrade Foundation, around future DFID support.
Palestinians: Overseas Aid
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of EU mechanisms for the delivery of aid to the Palestinians; and whether any changes to the policy are planned for the 2006-07 financial year. [140379]
Hilary Benn: The European Community and EU member states use a variety of mechanisms to deliver aid to the Palestinian people. Since the suspension of direct budgetary support in March 2006, the EU created the temporary international mechanism (TIM) in order to deliver aid directly to the Palestinians. The European Commission and the World Bank have begun a review of the TIM. A report is expected in June.
The UK Government and other EU member states will wish to consider the review’s recommendations in deciding future policy on the TIM. Decisions will also be based on an assessment of the Palestinian National Unity Government's progress towards Quartet’s three principles of engagement. These are renouncing violence, recognising Israel and signing up to previous peace agreements.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Agriculture: Subsidies
Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what yield to the Exchequer from the abolition of the agricultural buildings allowance is expected in each year to 2010-11. [138375]
Mr. Timms: I have been asked to reply.
Over the course of the 2008-09 and 2009-10 financial years, Exchequer receipts from the staged phasing-out of the agricultural buildings allowance (ABA) from incorporated agricultural businesses are expected to be negligible.
For the 2010-11 financial year, receipts are expected to increase to £5 million.
The corresponding figures for unincorporated agricultural businesses cannot be reliably estimated separately from industrial buildings allowances (IBA).
Over the next year, HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs will produce a regulatory impact assessment of the withdrawal of IBAs and ABAs, in time for the first phase of their withdrawal in April 2008.
Animal Welfare: Transport
Gwyn Prosser: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in how many cases since 5 January 2007 transporters have not returned journey logs within one month of the completion of the journey as required by paragraph 8 of Annex II to Council Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport and related operations. [139945]
Mr. Bradshaw: Between 5 January 2007 and 30 April 2007, 217 journey logs were not returned within one calendar month of the completion of the journey.
Domestic Wastes: Waste Management
Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans he has to monitor the effectiveness of twice monthly waste disposal collections; and if he will make a statement. [139725]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Government have set each ‘best value’ authority in England statutory performance standards for recycling and composting of household waste for 2003-04, 2005-06 and 2007-08. In addition, the Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 requires waste collection authorities—subject to certain exemptions—to provide a kerbside collection service of at least two recyclable materials by 2010. Each authority is free to choose its own method of collection and the priority, degree of effort and resources required to meet its target and the requirements of the Act.
The Waste and Resources Action Programme has carried out regular public attitude surveys since 2004, which have included ratings of how convenient the public find different waste collection systems to use. Only a minority of alternate weekly collection systems received poor convenience ratings and these related to systems where insufficient capacity was provided to householders in the week alternating with residual waste collection.
Best value authorities also have a statutory duty to put in place arrangements to secure continuous improvement in their functions and their performance is subject to annual inspection by the Audit Commission. Authorities are audited against a number of indicators, and their annual performance plans assessed, to ensure waste management services are good quality, value for money and likely to improve.
Offshore Industry: Licensing
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the “Planning For A Sustainable Future” White Paper, under what circumstances he envisages a marine management organisation not acting as the consenting body for developments in the marine area. [140045]
Mr. Bradshaw: The proposed Marine Management Organisation would, in principle, be responsible for marine developments except for those that fall within the scope of oil and gas consenting provisions and a small number of major offshore renewable energy and port developments.
The Government propose that an infrastructure planning commission should determine applications for development consent for offshore renewable energy projects capable of generating more than 100 megawatts of power. We are consulting on the threshold above which the commission will determine port projects. The White Paper “Planning for a Sustainable Future” (Cm 7120) has an illustrative threshold for ports of container facilities with:
(i) an annual capacity of 0.5 million or more twenty-foot containers
(ii) roll-on/roll-off facilities for 250,000 units or more per year
(iii) or any bulk or general cargo facility with a capacity for five million tonnes or more each year.
It will be for devolved Administrations to determine which bodies will determine consent for marine developments for which they are responsible.
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) whether he plans to transfer his authority to issue consent for the licensing of offshore oil and gas infrastructure to the proposed Marine Management Organisation; and if he will make a statement; [140046]
(2) whether a decision has been made to transfer the licensing of offshore oil and gas infrastructure from the Department for Trade and Industry to the proposed Marine Management Organisation; and if he will make a statement; [140047]
(3) what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on the future licensing of offshore oil and gas infrastructure; and if he will make a statement. [140048]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry meet regularly to discuss matters of mutual interest, including the delivery of the Government’s energy policy.
As we set out in the recent Marine Bill White Paper, the current system of licensing oil and gas infrastructure and activity works well, and there is no compelling evidence that integrating it with others would achieve any benefits. The Government therefore intend the Department for Trade and Industry to remain responsible for delivering this service.
The circumstances in which authority is required from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for activities associated with oil and gas exploration and exploitation are very limited: essentially the sub sea injection of produced waters and drilling muds. We are considering whether this function would in future best lie with the Department for Trade and Industry or the proposed Marine Management Organisation.
Trade and Industry
Companies: Bankruptcy
Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many companies filed for bankruptcy in each year since 1997. [140232]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The term bankruptcy applies only to individuals; companies go into liquidation. The statistics published by the Insolvency Service relate to those companies and individuals who actually become insolvent, not to numbers of applications/filings made for insolvency. Company winding up and bankruptcy petition court statistics in England and Wales are published by the Ministry of Justice and are available online at:
The following table shows the number of company liquidations since 1997 in the UK.
| England and Wales | Scotland | Northern Ireland | |
| n/a = Not available. | |||
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