Written Answers to Questions
Thursday 11 December 2008
Church Commissioners
Paid Posts
8. Dr. Evan Harris: To ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, what paid posts in the offices of the Church Commissioners are subject to a test of religious belief in respect of (a) appointment and (b) promotion. [242329]
Sir Stuart Bell: In relation to appointment, the posts of Secretary to the Church Commissioners and Chief Financial Officer both carry requirements that the post-holder be a practising Christian.
Religious belief is not a relevant factor in promotion (except to these two specific roles).
Churches: Closures
Ben Chapman: To ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough,, representing the Church Commissioners, what matters the Church Commissioners expect to be raised at the forthcoming summit on church closures; and if he will make a statement. [242471]
Sir Stuart Bell: Church of England staff have been meeting with officials from the Treasury, the Department for Culture Media and Sport, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Office of the Third Sector and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Both the Government and the Church of England recognise that enabling churches to become community resources is one of the best ways of safeguarding those buildings while helping meet the needs of their local communities. However, the full potential of churches as community resources and as part of schemes for social regeneration is undeveloped and unrealised.
By way of a statement, the main focus of these meetings has been, first, to examine the barriers currently faced by churches—of all denominations and faiths—who want to open up their buildings for the use of the wider communities; second, to look at how these barriers can be overcome; and, third, to identify national, regional and local sources of public funding programmes. A paper is being drawn up for a further meeting of Ministers and the Bishop of London in the near future.
Women and Equality
Departmental Disabled Staff
Mr. Harper: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what conclusions the Government Equalities Office has reached in fulfilment of its duty under section 3.111 of the statutory code of practice of the disability equality duty. [240993]
Maria Eagle: The Government Equalities Office (GEO) is a new Department which was established on 12 October 2007. We have recently finalised our GEO terms and conditions with trade union representatives and are currently consulting our staff and stakeholders on the content of our Equality Scheme which, among other things, sets out our steps to fulfil our obligations under the disability equality duty. The scheme will be published on the GEO website in due course.
Departmental Internet
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality with reference to the Answer of 4 November 2008, Official Report, columns 336- 37W, on Government departments: information and communications technology, which IP addresses are used by (a) her Department and (b) computers in the offices of its (i) Ministers, (ii) communications officials and (iii) special advisers. [241964]
Maria Eagle: The Government Equalities Office relies on IT systems provided by other Government Departments. To help defend against electronic attack, it is standard good information security practice for corporate IT systems, not to publish internal IP addresses. When accessing internet websites, the IP addresses of all of the Government Equalities Office’s computers are hidden behind the following IP addresses which are publicly available—195.92.40.49 and 62.25.106.209. These IP addresses are shared with other Government Departments that use the Government secure intranet.
Departmental Official Hospitality
Pete Wishart: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality how much the Government Equalities Office spent on Ministerial hospitality in each financial year since the Office was established. [241247]
Maria Eagle: No such hospitality costs have been incurred. Since its establishment on 12 October 2007 the Government Equalities Office has funded nine ministerial receptions. Details of these are shown on 19 November 2008, Official Report, column 473W and 10 March 2008, Official Report, column 4W. The cost of the receptions includes room hire and catering charges for refreshments for delegates but in accordance with usual departmental practice these costs are not classified as hospitality, which is taken to be lunch or dinner provided to visitors from outside the Department.
Departmetal ICT
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality with reference to the answer of 28 October 2008, Official Report, column 804W, on departmental ICT, what the (a) expected completion date and (b) expected cost was at the outset of the project. [242155]
Maria Eagle: The new GEO website is expected to be ready in January 2009. The expected cost at the outset of the project was £37,491, excluding VAT.
Rape Crisis Centres
Anne Moffat: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what progress has been made on provision of emergency funding for rape crisis centres. [240281]
Maria Eagle: Nineteen rape crisis centres have been awarded grants from the second and final round of this special fund, to a total of nearly £706,000, ensuring that they have been able to remain open.
The Government continue to step up action to tackle rape and bring offenders to justice. The latest figures show that in 2006 there were nearly 800 convictions for rape, compared to just over 500 in 1997, an increase of over 45 per cent.
Duchy of Lancaster
Death: Children
Tim Loughton: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many children died from each cause of death in each local authority in the last year for which data are available. [240759]
Kevin Brennan: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, December 2008:
As National Statistician. I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many children died from each cause of death in each local authority in the last year for which figures are available. (240759)
The table provides the number of deaths of children aged under 16 years, in total and for the five most common causes of death, for each local authority in England and Wales, for 2005-2007 (the latest year available). A copy has been placed in the House of Commons Library. To allow breakdown by cause of death, figures have been given for the years 2005-2007 aggregated together. Figures of childhood deaths for all specific causes are not available for local authorities, as these data are judged to be too detailed to preserve anonymity in death statistics. A copy of the table has been placed in the Library of the House.
Death: MRSA
David Simpson: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many death certificates on which (a) MRSA and (b) clostridium difficile were mentioned were issued in England and Wales in each of the last three years. [240568]
Kevin Brennan: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated December 2008:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many death certificates were issued in England and Wales on which (a) MRSA and (b) Clostridium difficile were mentioned in each of the last three years. (24G568)
The table attached provides the number of deaths where (a) MRSA or (b) Clostridium difficile was mentioned on the death certificate, in 2005 to 2007 (the latest year available).
| Table 1: Number of deaths where Meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)( 1) or Clostridium difficile( 2) was mentioned on the death certificate, England and Wales, 2005 to 2607( 3) | ||
| Persons | ||
| MRSA | Clostridium difficile | |
| (1) Identified using the methodology described in Griffiths C, Lamagni TL, Crowcroft NS, Duckworth G and Rooney C (2004). Trends in MRSA in England and Wales: analysis of morbidity and mortality data for 1993-2002. Health Statistics Quarterly 21, 15-22. (2) Identified using the methodology described in Office for National Statistics: Report: Deaths involving Clostridium difficile: England and Wales, 2001-2005. Health Statistics Quarterly 33, 71-75. (3) Figures are for deaths registered in each calendar year. | ||
Employment
Jenny Willott: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many and what proportion of working age adults were in employment in each local authority area in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [240515]
Kevin Brennan: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, December 2008:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many and what proportion of working age adults were in employment in each local authority in each year since 1997. [240515]
The Office for National Statistics compiles employment statistics for local areas from the Annual Population Survey (APS) and its predecessor the annual Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation definitions.
Table 1 shows the number of working age persons in employment (Males aged 16-64. Females Aged 16-59) in each local authority for the 12 month periods ending in February, for 1998-2004, from the annual LFS, and for the 12 month periods ending December, for 2004-2007, from the APS. Estimates for April 2007 to March 2008 from the APS have also been included as being the latest available. Table 2 shows the percentage of persons of working age ill employment for the same periods and geographies as Table 1. A copy of the tables has been placed in the Library of the House.
As these estimates are for a subset of the population in small geographical areas, they are based on small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty.
Mr. Maude: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what estimate the Office for National Statistics has made of the number of new additional jobs created since 1997 in the (a) public sector and (b) private sector. [241590]
Kevin Brennan: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated December 2008:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning the number of new additional jobs created since 1997 in the (a) public sector and (b) private sector. (241590)
The Office for National Statistics collects employment statistics for the public sector as part of the Quarterly Public Sector Survey and for the private sector as part of the Labour Force Survey. However, statistics related to job creation are not collected.
However we can provide the growth in employment within both sectors. The data are attached at Annex A.
Annex A
| Public and private sector employment headcount( 1) | ||
| Public sector( 2) | Private sector( 3) | |
| (1 )Headcount figures are in thousands. (2) Source: Quarterly Public Sector Employment Survey. (3) Source: Labour Force Survey. | ||
Government Procurement Card
Mr. Maude: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster which departments and agencies utilise the Government Procurement Card. [241760]
Angela Eagle: I have been asked to reply.
There are currently 1,153 UK public sector organisations utilising the Government Procurement Card Service. A full list has been deposited in the Library of the House.
Suicide: Coproxamol
Miss Begg: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many suicides have been caused by the drug coproxamol in each of the last three years. [240754]
Kevin Brennan: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated December 2008:
As National Statistician. I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many suicides have been caused by the drug Co-proxamol in each of the last three years. (240754)
The table attached provides the numbers of deaths for which the underlying cause was suicide by drug poisoning and a paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene compound (co-proxamol) was mentioned on the death certificate either alone or together with other substances, from 2003 to 2007 (the latest year available).
Where more than one drug is mentioned on the death certificate, it is not always possible to tell which of them was primarily responsible for the death.
| Table 1. Number of deaths where suicide by drug poisoning was the underlying cause of death( 1) with a paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene compound mentioned on the death certificate, England and Wales, 2005 to 2007( 2,3,4) | |||
| Deaths | |||
| Paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene compound only | Paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene compound and other substances | Total mentions of paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene | |
| (1) Cause of death was defined using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (3CD-10) codes X60-X64, Y10-Y34 and a paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene compound was mentioned on the death certificate. (2) Figures for England and Wales included deaths of non-residents. (3) Figures are for deaths registered in each calendar year. (4) Where paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene were the only drugs mentioned on the death certificate, and where paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene were mentioned with other substances. Figures include deaths where dextropropoxyphene was mentioned without paracetamol, since in England and Wales dextropropoxyphene is very rarely ingested except in combination with paracetamol. | |||
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