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5 Feb 2009 : Column 1416W—continued
Broadband
Mr. Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when he plans to respond to the Review of Barriers to Investment in Next Generation Broadband. [242071]
Mr. McFadden: I have been asked to reply.
The Government have been considering the recommendations from the Caio Review into the barriers to investment in Next Generation Access carefully, particularly in relation to the recently announced Digital Britain Report, which will provide a strategy for a fully digital Britain. The Government will fully respond to these recommendations in due course.
Digital Broadcasting: Publicity
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of campaigns to inform people about the switchover from analogue to digital television. [253802]
Andy Burnham [holding answer 4 February 2009]: DigitalUK is responsible for informing the public about switchover. The DigitalUK tracker survey Q3 2008 shows that public awareness now stands at almost 90 per cent. and Digital Television take-up at 87 per cent.
Public Service Broadcasting: Standards
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure quality of service from public service broadcasters. [253799]
Andy Burnham [holding answer 4 February 2009]: Within the framework of the Communication Act 2003 and the BBC's Charter and Agreement, day-to-day responsibility for ensuring quality of Public Service Broadcasting rests with the broadcasters and the broadcasting authorities.
The Government are looking at how the quality of Public Service Broadcasting can be sustained in the future, as part of the current Digital Britain review, due to published in the summer of 2009.
Television: Licensing
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much TV Licensing spent on public relations in each of the last three years. [249805]
Andy Burnham: The BBC has a statutory responsibility for the administration of the television licensing system. Under contract to the corporation, TV Licensing carries out the day to day administration of these duties.
“TV Licensing” is a trading name used by companies contracted by the BBC to administer the collection of television licence fees and enforcement of the television licensing system. TV Licensing's marketing and public relations activities are carried out by the AMV consortium, which is made up of the following four companies: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO Ltd, Fishburn Hedges Boys Williams Limited (who are responsible for TV
Licensing's public relations activities), PHD Media Limited and Proximity London Ltd.
The BBC considers that release of the information requested would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of parties within, and connected to, this arrangement, as well as the BBC itself, as it would reveal valuable information on pricing structures, business structures and operations to these companies' competitors.
Television: Standards
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether he received any representations from viewers regarding the use of language in Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare programme broadcast on Channel 4. [254555]
Andy Burnham: My Department has not currently received any representations from viewers referring to the use of language in Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare programme.
Tourism
Joan Ryan: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans his Department has to encourage foreign visitors to the United Kingdom over the next 18 months; and if he will make a statement. [247213]
Barbara Follett: VisitBritain (VB) is currently formulating a new three-year strategy on the back of the many recommendations of the recent British Tourism Framework Review. The strategy will set out the steps that VB will take between 2009 and 2012 to increase the visitor economy to £133 billion by 2018. The strategy is due to be launched on 11 February.
Overseas visitors demand the highest levels of customer service and we believe that despite the global economic downturn, they are willing to spend on good quality products. VisitBritain therefore announced a new marketing campaign ‘Value for Money’ at the Liverpool Tourism Summit on 8 January 2009 costing £6.5 million. This will include the promotion of London as a more affordable destination at the present time. In addition, the Government will continue to invest in skills and in tourism product itself. This will include the quality of accommodation; the Olympics and Paralympic Games; the Cultural Olympiad; free museums and galleries; heritage and seaside resorts, which are all critical to meeting visitor expectations and their demand for an exceptional experience.
Tourism: EU Grants and Loans
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans his Department has to bid for EU funding schemes for tourism in England during the current financial year. [253233]
Barbara Follett [holding answer 2 February 2009]: The Department has no current plans to bid for EU funding schemes for tourism in the current financial year. Bids for funds from the European Regional Development Fund Objective 2 and the European Social Fund for Tourism are usually submitted by the Regional Development Agencies.
Work and Pensions
Carer’s Allowance
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse of an annual increase in carer’s allowance of (a) £3, (b) £4, (c) £5, (d) £6, (e) £7, (f) £8, (g) £9 and (h) £10 a week in each of the next six years. [246725]
Jonathan Shaw: The estimated additional annual cost of increasing carer’s allowance by the specified amounts is shown in the following table. The increase in carer’s allowance is represented as a cash amount in the given years. The costs are given in nominal terms.
| Estimated additi onal annual cost of increasing c a rer's a llowance | ||||||
| £ million | ||||||
| Increase in carer’s a llowance amount | 2009-1 0 | 2010- 11 | 2011- 12 | 2012- 13 | 2013- 14 | 2014- 15 |
These figures represent the best estimate we can provide given the limitations of the data. However, they are likely to under estimate the total costs. This is because they do not include any costs for carer’s allowance recipients who are in a household where a member receives an income-related benefit, as we are unable to estimate the costs of increasing carer’s allowance for this group.
Children: Maintenance
Ms Keeble: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what enforcement action his Department and its agencies have taken to recover debts in respect of which they have obtained liability orders in each region of England in each of the last three years. [250962]
Kitty Ussher: The Department does not use liability orders to recover benefit overpayment debts.
Council Tax and Housing Benefits
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many outstanding unprocessed council tax benefit claims there were in each local authority area in each (a) quarter of each year from 1999 to 2008 and (b) of the last 12 months; [249428]
(2) what the average number of days taken to process council tax benefit applications was in (a) each quarter of each year from 1999 to 2008 and (b) each of the last 12 months; [249429]
(3) what the average number of days taken to process housing benefit applications was in (a) each quarter of each year from 1999 to 2008 and (b) each of the last 12 months; [249430]
(4) how many outstanding unprocessed housing benefit claims there were in each local authority area in (a) each quarter of each year from 1999 to 2008 and (b) each of the last 12 months. [249433]
Kitty Ussher: The available information has been placed in the Library.
Departmental Internet
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions which websites are operated by his Department in addition to its main website; and what the operating budget for those websites is. [251212]
Jonathan Shaw: The following tables detail the websites currently operated by the Department for Work and Pensions, and the costs associated with them.
DWP websites are mostly operated by the Department’s own in-house Digital Media team.
DWP is currently working with the COI to develop a standardised method for quantifying website costs across Government. We will be implementing this standard from March 2009 in line with the current timetable.
However, for the financial year 2007-08, the latest available figures, it was not possible for us to quantify internal staff costs, because in most cases, staff were engaged in more than one role. In addition, we were unable to establish accurately our infrastructure costs because they formed part of a wider departmental IT contract. We have therefore detailed only quantifiable costs for each site—these include payments to suppliers for services such as research, testing and site builds. Figures for the jobcentre plus website include the costs of maintaining some online services, since these figures are quantifiable.
Table A lists those websites operated by Department for Work and Pensions where the Department is responsible for the content:
| W ebsite name and a ddress | Quantifiable costs financial year 2007-08 (£) | |
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