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30 Jan 2008 : Column 401W—continued
Leader of the House
Departmental Information Officers
Mr. Jeremy Browne: To ask the Leader of the House (1) how many (a) press and (b) communications officers her Office employed in each of the last 10 years; [182513]
(2) how much her Office paid in bonuses to press and communication officers in each of the last 10 years; and what the (a) highest and (b) lowest such bonus was in each of those years. [182729]
Ms Harman: Press office services are provided by the Cabinet Office Communication Group.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office (Mr. Watson) on 29 January 2008, Official Report, column 248W.
Members: Pay
Mr. Evans: To ask the Leader of the House what the cost was of publishing the report of the Review Body on Senior Salaries on its review of parliamentary pay, pensions and allowances in 2007. [178781]
Ms Harman: The cost of publishing the report of the Review Body on Senior Salaries on its review of parliamentary pay, pensions and allowances 2007 was £14,804.
Treasury
Child Benefit: Easington
John Cummings: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many single mothers were in receipt of child benefit in Easington constituency in the last period for which figures are available. [182917]
Jane Kennedy: The information requested is not available. The child benefit system does not keep up to date information on whether a recipient is a single parent or part of a couple as it does not affect entitlement.
Child Benefit: Personal Records
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse arising from the loss of the two child benefit discs containing confidential personal data. [182796]
Jane Kennedy: At this stage it is still too early to provide an estimate of the costs.
Departmental Records
Jo Swinson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what test of what constitutes reasonably required information under section 8 of the National Audit Act 1983 is carried out on data transferred from his Department to the National Audit Office; [178783]
(2) what safeguards are in place in his Department to prevent more information than is required by the National Audit Office being passed on for auditing purposes; [178784]
(3) which Acts of Parliament permit disclosure of information which is held by HM Revenue and Customs in accordance with section 18(3) of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005. [178785]
Jane Kennedy: Each request is judged on a case by case basis and the National Audit Office should provide a clear explanation of why they want to see particular data and limit requests to that data required to fulfil their audit responsibilities.
For each audit HMRC appoint a senior official who has overall responsibility and a designated contact point to oversee day to day activity, including enquiries and information requests.
Following the child benefit data loss incident, HMRC have introduced more stringent data handling procedures, which require that the bulk transfers of customer data only take place with adequate security protection.
For more detail on the changes made, I refer the hon. Member to Kieran Poynter’s interim report that was published on 17 December 2007 and is available in the Library of the House.
Various Acts of Parliament permit disclosure of HMRC information. I refer the hon. Member to HMRC’s Information Disclosure Guidance manual at:
Excise Duties: Fuels
Mr. Amess: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the answer of 3 December 2007, Official Report, column 1026W, on fuel: excise duties, how much and what percentage of the increase in fuel duty announced in Budget 2007 has been used to fund public services; and if he will make a statement. [182679]
Angela Eagle: All tax revenues, including those accruing from fuel duty, contribute to the overall level of financial resources available to fund the Government's spending priorities including public services.
Inflation
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his Department issues advice to other Government departments on which inflation measure to use to uprate their items of revenue and expenditure. [181005]
Yvette Cooper: In general, it is the responsibility of individual Government Departments to determine the appropriate inflation measure to use in uprating items of revenue and expenditure although specific items will be discussed with Treasury as part of Treasury's role in controlling public expenditure (as set out in the Managing Public Money publication, available on the Treasury website).
In respect of revenues, as stated in Managing Public Money fees, charges and levies should be reviewed regularly to achieve full cost recovery and are therefore based on actual costs rather than indexation.
In respect of some of the more significant items of expenditure, the practices for uprating social security benefits administered by the Department of Work and Pensions can be found in Appendix A of ‘The Abstract of Statistics for Benefits, National Insurance Contributions, and Indices of Prices and Earnings, 2006 Edition’, published by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Motor Vehicles: Excise Duties
Mr. Goodwill: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the annual cost to the Exchequer would be of restoring the exemption from vehicle excise duty for 25 year old vehicles. [178839]
Angela Eagle: Vehicles built before 1 January 1973 are eligible to be licensed as exempt from payment of vehicle excise duty provided they are not in commercial use.
The number of vehicles over 25 years of age that are currently subject to payment of vehicle excise duty is 183,000. The most recently available licensing data do not completely disaggregate this number by applicable vehicle excise duty rate.
An extension of the exemption would potentially affect cars, vans, motorcycles, motorised tricycles, buses and heavy goods vehicles across all vehicle excise rates excepting those for vehicles registered March 2001 onwards. However, it is not therefore possible to determine the cost to the Exchequer of extending the exemption.
Further extension of the exemption for classic vehicles would be inconsistent with the Government's overall policy intent in vehicle excise duty which is to give rates an environmental focus.
Northern Rock: Fixed Costs
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether all the monies lent by the Bank of England to Northern Rock plc and underwritten by HM Treasury are secured by a fixed charge over specific assets. [172326]
Angela Eagle: I refer the hon. Gentlemen to the letters the Chancellor sent to the chairs of the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury Select Committee on 11 October 2007, which are available in the House Library.
Taxation: Married People
Mr. Kidney: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what benchmarking he has undertaken in relation to UK tax policy on one earner married couples with children amongst OECD member states; [182554]
(2) what account he took of the Government's objectives on child poverty in determining the tax regime for married couples; and if he will make a statement. [182631]
Jane Kennedy: The principle of independent taxation means each individual has his or her own allowances and income tax rate bands. Levels of financial support in the tax credit system are determined by the level of need, and do not favour any particular household composition.
As a result of the Government's changes to taxes and benefits, 600,000 children have been lifted out of relative poverty and 1.8 million children lifted out of absolute poverty in the UK between 1998-99 and 2005-06.
Work and Pensions
Age: Discrimination
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department spent on providing information to businesses on age discrimination in each of the last 10 years; and by what means this information was provided. [177968]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The expenditure in years prior to 2002-03 was by the former Department for Education and Employment (DFEE) and records are not available. The available expenditure information is in the table.
| Financial year | Expenditure (£000) |
An Age Positive Week was delivered on three occasions between 2002 and 2005. This employer-focused burst of activity and information comprised ministerial activities, employer events and business awards designed to focus media and employer attention on age and workplace issues and resulted in much increased awareness of the issues via extensive media coverage.
Between 2005 and 2006 we worked with a number of leading business-focused organisations to create the Age Partnership Group, which promoted the Be Ready campaign, launched with a newsletter mailed to
1.4 million employers with information to help them prepare for age legislation. A full evaluation of this initiative confirmed that 95 per cent. of those businesses that ordered the detailed guidance were pleased with the helpful content of the material. To supplement this, tailored publications in employer-favoured top-tips, bulleted or tick-box format have been circulated to businesses to better facilitate their understanding of how best to tackle age discrimination in the workplace and enjoy the resultant business benefits.
Children: Poverty
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what meetings of the cross-departmental ministerial group on child poverty have taken place since 1 January 2006; and who attended each meeting. [180627]
Mrs. McGuire: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) on 26 February 2007, Official Report, column 1046W.
A new Cabinet sub-committee, Domestic Affairs (Families, Children and Young People), to be chaired by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, will have oversight of child poverty targets such as the Child Poverty Public Service Agreement.
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when the Office for National Statistics plans to release the next set of statistics on child poverty in the UK. [180628]
Mrs. McGuire: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 10 January 2008, Official Report, column 726W.
The Office for National Statistics does not release statistics on child poverty in the UK.
Departmental Conditions of Employment
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what guidance his Department issues on recruitment, diversity and employee rights when awarding contracts to external providers for work for his Department. [182931]
Mrs. McGuire [holding answer 28 January 2008]: It is a mandatory requirement for all external providers of services to the Department to comply with the full range of social legislation, including that covering recruitment, diversity and employee rights. These requirements are set out in the tendering instructions issued to organisations wishing to bid for contracts, and again in the Department’s contractual terms and conditions.
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what monitoring systems are in place on diversity, equality and employee rights standards for departmental work awarded by contract to external providers. [182932]
Mrs. McGuire
[holding answer 28 January 2008]: The compliance of external providers with standards of diversity, equality and employee rights is regularly
monitored by my Department’s contract management staff. Contracts can be terminated in the event of a serious breach of these standards.
The Department has a separate contract with an independent external organisation to check that providers have appropriate diversity and equality policies in place; these checks are made before contracts are awarded, and repeated annually thereafter.
Departmental Manpower
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people work in his Department’s customer insight team; and what the (a) remit and (b) objectives of the team are. [177971]
Mrs. McGuire: The remit of the newly created customer insight function is to act as a centre of excellence, providing professional support and challenge and building organisational capability to ensure the customer is placed at the heart of the Department’s service transformation programme.
The team operates a flexible resource model, consisting of a small core team (currently 11 people) with technical customer insight knowledge and expertise. The core team is supplemented by project resource with the necessary business knowledge to deliver against the following objectives:
to generate a deep knowledge and understanding of our customers—to inform the design, development and delivery of policies and services;
to build organisational capability across the Department to generate and apply customer insight; and
to challenge and influence attitudes and behaviours—to promote a culture that puts our customers at the heart of everything we do.
Departmental Recycling
Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what weight of paper his Department recycled in each of the last five years. [179451]
Mr. Plaskitt: The information requested is provided in the following table. DWP paper recycling figures are reported in Sustainable Development in Government reports. The figures shown for 2006-07 will be reported by the Sustainable Development Commission early in 2008.
| Paper recycled (Tonnes) | |
| (1) Figures for 2002-03 include information on waste generated from buildings on the former DSS estate only. Information on waste generated from buildings on the former Employment Service estate are not available. (2) Figures for 2003-04 include information for the whole year on waste generated from buildings on the former DSS estate, and for one quarter only, for waste generated from buildings on the former Employment Service Estate. | |
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