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18 July 2007 : Column 439W—continued
Defence: Expenditure
Dr. Julian Lewis: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of UK GDP was spent on the defence budget, excluding the costs of campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, in each of the last five years for which figures are available. [149879]
Andy Burnham: HM Treasury’s Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2007 details historical and planned defence budget expenditure, excluding the additional costs of military operations. Annual GDP deflators can be found on the Treasury’s website at:
Departments: Legislation
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what legislative provisions introduced by his Department since 1997 have not yet been brought into force. [149695]
Angela Eagle: 60 Acts have received Royal Assent between 1997 and 16 July 2007, all of those have been brought into force in full or in part.
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what legislative provisions introduced by his Department since 1997 have been repealed. [149696]
Angela Eagle: Between 1997 and 16 July 2007 60 Acts have received Royal Assent, of those Acts 28 have been repealed in full. Of the 28 Acts that are no longer in force, 26 were Appropriation or Consolidated Fund Acts and the remaining two were repealed as a result of a consolidation exercise.
Departments: Telephone Services
Mr. Breed: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many call centres were used by his Department in (a) 2005-06 and (b) 2006-07; and what assessment he has made of their efficiency in each year; [149757]
(2) how customer satisfaction with call centres used by his Department is measured; and what the results were of customer surveys carried out in 2005-06 and 2006-07. [149758]
Angela Eagle: There were no call centres used by HM Treasury in (a) 2005-06 and (b) 2006-07.
Government Departments: Buildings
Colin Challen: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the answer of 12 June 2007, Official Report, column 939W, on Government Departments: buildings, what percentage of commercial sector buildings in England and Wales were occupied by the wider Government estate in each of the last five years. [150399]
Angela Eagle: The earlier answer provided figures for central Departments, their agencies and sponsored bodies. Other occupancy details are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Government Departments: ICT
Margaret Moran: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which mission-critical information and communications technology projects in Government are proceeding without having gone through a Gateway review process. [149445]
Angela Eagle: The OGC Gatewayâ"¢ process is mandatory for all projects and programmes within central civil Government. Gateway reviews are carried out at key decision points in the life of a project or programme.
Margaret Moran: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) which mission-critical information and communications technology projects in Government are proceeding despite receiving one or more red lights in the Gateway review process; and, in each case, how many red lights were received and which Department was responsible for the project; [149446]
(2) in what circumstances mission critical information and communications technology projects may proceed despite a red light in the Gateway Review process. [149447]
Angela Eagle: A red Gateway review does not mean that the project or programme must be stopped. A red Gateway means that to achieve success there is at least one issue that requires immediate action.
HM Revenue and Customs: Census
Alistair Burt: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what access (a) HM Revenue and Customs and (b) the Valuation Office Agency have to (i) Census data and (ii) Census test data. [150639]
Angela Eagle: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 18 July 2007:
As National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking what access (a) HM Revenue and Customs and (b) the Valuation Office Agency have to (i) Census data and (ii) Census test data. (150639)
Neither HM Revenue and Customs nor the Valuation Office Agency have any access to personal census data, including Census Test data. Under the provisions of Section 8 of the Census Act 1920 as amended by the Census (Confidentiality) Act 1991, personal census information which relates to an identifiable individual or household, is kept strictly confidential. It would be a criminal offence to disclose personal information from the census without lawful authority. These provisions also apply to Census Test data.
Anonymised and aggregated statistical census data are available free of charge from the National Statistics website—www.statistics.gov.uk.
Immigrants: Employment
Chris Grayling: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people who have entered the UK in the last 10 years are included in the figures for employment. [150245]
Angela Eagle: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 18 July 2007:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about the number of people who entered the UK in the last ten years and who are in employment. (150245)
For the three month period ending March 2007 there were 1.5 million overseas born people in employment who had entered the UK in the last ten years. This figure includes those who were children when they arrived.
When interpreting this figure, it is important to bear in mind that the Labour Force Survey (LFS) is not designed to cover everyone who is present in the UK. The survey may undercount the numbers of people who were born overseas for the following reasons :-
The LFS sample covers people living in private households, those in National Health Service (NHS) accommodation, and students living in halls of residence who have a UK-resident parent. Students living in halls of residence who do not have a UK-resident parent are not covered by the sample.
The LFS does not cover people living in other types of communal establishment (such as hostels, hotels, boarding houses, or mobile home sites).
Individuals living at sampled addresses are generally included in the survey only if they regard the address as their main residence. Those who have been living at the address for less than six months are not eligible to take part in the survey.
The survey results are weighted to estimates of the ‘usually resident’ UK population living in private households, NHS accommodation and student halls of residence. The population figures cover long-term international migrants (people who change their country of usual residence for 12 months or more). They do not include people moving to the UK for less than 12 months, nor do they exclude from the usually resident population people moving out of the UK for less than 12 months.
The LFS estimates at this detailed level are only consistent with the UK population estimates published in February and March 2003 and they do not incorporate the more recent population estimates that are used in the headline labour market series.
Estimates are taken from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). As with any sample survey, estimates from the LFS are subject to a margin of uncertainty.
Office of Government Commerce: Reviews
Margaret Moran: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will hold discussions with ministerial colleagues on ensuring that departmental audit committees act on recommendations of Gateway reviews; [149444]
(2) if he will take steps to ensure that Ministers hold regular reviews of mission critical ICT projects being undertaken by their Department. [149442]
Angela Eagle: The role of departmental audit committees in scrutinising information about a Department's major projects and programmes, including information from Gateway reports, and regular reporting for Ministers on mission critical projects, has been raised by the Public Accounts Committee in their report, ‘Delivering successful IT-enabled business change’ [HC113 5 June 2007]. The Government will be responding to the PAC's recommendation in a Treasury Minute.
Public Expenditure: Wales
Mr. Paul Murphy: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he plans to review the Barnett formula for allocating the block grant for Wales. [150229]
Andy Burnham: The Government have no plans to review the Barnett formula.
Taxation: Environment Protection
Bob Spink: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of (a) central and (b) local government environmental taxes on cutting (i) toxic and (ii) carbon emissions. [149646]
Angela Eagle: The environmental taxes levied by Government are the climate change levy, landfill tax and aggregates levy.
The climate change levy is estimated to have reduced emissions by a cumulative 16.5 million tonnes of carbon up to 2005 and by 2010 it is estimated to deliver savings of over 3.5 million tonnes of carbon per year.
Landfill tax is expected to save up to 0.2 MtC a year by 2010 and, between 1997-98 and 2005-06 the amount of active waste disposed to landfill fell by 14 per cent.
The aggregates levy is also achieving its environmental objectives; there has been an 8 per cent. reduction in sales of primary aggregates between 2001 and 2005.
Bob Spink: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what environmental taxes are levied by central Government. [149686]
Angela Eagle: The environmental taxes levied by Government are the climate change levy, landfill tax and aggregates levy. The Government recognise that other taxes, such as fuel duty and air passenger duty, have a positive environmental impact and can be used to achieve environmental aims and that other measures such as vehicle excise duty have been reformed to build in environmental incentives.
Unemployment: Young People
Mr. Clappison: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many 16 to 18-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, broken down by constituency in ascending order. [150849]
Angela Eagle: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 18 July 2007:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about young people not in employment, education or training.
Table 1 attached, shows the numbers of 16 to 18 year olds not in full-time education, employment or training, resident in Great Britain parliamentary constituencies, in ascending order, for the 12 months ending in December 2006, from the Annual Population Survey. The table shows that for the majority of constituencies the smaple size is too small to provide estimates. For the remaining constituencies the number of persons, aged 16 to 18, not in full-time education, employment or training, is less than 2,500 in all cases.
Estimates for a subset of the population in a small geographical area, are based on very small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty.
As the information is extensive, a copy of this table has been placed in the House of Commons Library.
Visits
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the answer of 20 June 2007, Official Report, column 1879W, on visits, whether he stayed in British Government accommodation in each location. [147098]
Angela Eagle: I have nothing further to add to my hon. Friend’s previous answer.
Health
Accident and Emergency Departments
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health in which accident and emergency departments turnaround teams have been deployed, as stated on page 23 of the Cabinet Office’s Capability Review of his Department, published on 22 June 2007; at what cost to the public purse in each case; and if he will make a statement. [147559]
Mr. Bradshaw: In the past a team consisting of people with clinical and national health service management experience provided support to individual NHS trusts, giving them advice and guidance on delivering and sustaining the accident and emergency (A and E) four hour target.
The level of support to organisations varied at different times, including offering a range of advice and support from one-off or occasional telephone advice through to intensive visits. It is therefore not possible to provide a definitive list of every trust that has had some form of contact with the team, nor to provide the cost in each case.
Such a team no longer exists, as the A and E four hour target has been achieved and is now an operational standard for the NHS.
In addition, the former national health service Modernisation Agency’s Emergency Services Collaborative was a national time limited programme that aimed to improve emergency care across the whole system; improve patient, carer and staff experience and reduce total journey times through A and E departments. The Department allocated £30 million to the national health service Modernisation Agency to fund this national service improvement programme.
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many attendances there have been at accident and emergency departments (a) in total and (b) per 100,000 population in each year since 1997-98 (i) in England and (ii) broken down by strategic health authority area. [149488]
Mr. Bradshaw: Information is not available in the format requested. Available information is provided in the following tables.
| Total attendances at accident and emergency (A and E) departments 1997-98 to 2001-02 for England and by regional health authority | |||||
| Attendances | |||||
| Region | 1997-98 | 1998-99 | 1999-2000 | 2000-01 | 2001-02 |
| Notes: 1. From 2003-04 onwards, attendances at NHS Walk-in Centres are included in the collection for A and E attendances. 2. Mid 1999 population estimates have been used for years 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000. 3. Mid 2000 population estimates have been used for years 2000-01 and 2001-02. 4. Mid 2005 population estimates have been used for years 2005-06 and 2006-07. 5. Strategic health authorities (SHAs) were established from 1 April 2002. Prior to this, the national health service in England had regional health authorities. Source: Department of Health datasets QMAE and KH09, Office for National Statistics Mid year population estimates, 1991 Census Based: Office for National Statistics Mid year population estimates, 2001 Census Based: Office for National Statistics | |||||
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