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24 Mar 2009 : Column 276W—continued
Nuclear Weapons
Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the United Kingdom has ever provided tritium for the United States nuclear weapons programme. [258435]
Mr. Hutton: The Government set in hand in their 1998 Strategic Defence Review a process of declassification and historical accounting of defence fissile material production since the start of the United Kingdom’s defence nuclear programme in the 1940s. In 2000 they produced a report dealing with plutonium. In that report an explanation was given of the bartering arrangements provided for in the UK/US Mutual Defence Agreement under which the UK received 6.7 kg of tritium from the US between 1960 and 1979 in exchange for plutonium.
I am withholding further information on the movement of tritium or other fissile material between the United Kingdom and the United States in the interests of national security.
Piracy
Mr. Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent military actions have been undertaken by the Royal Navy against piracy in (a) the Red Sea, (b) the Gulf of Aden and (c) the Indian Ocean; and what the result has been of such actions. [265309]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The Royal Navy has been involved in two incidents involving military action against piracy since December 2008. Both incidents were in the Gulf of Aden.
On 29 January 2009 HMS Portland dispatched her helicopter to offer assistance when the Indian Naval vessel INS Beas responded to a pirate boarding of MV Longchamp. Despite action taken by the helicopter from INS Beas the pirates were successful in their attempt to hijack the MV Longchamp.
On 22 February 2009 HMS Northumberland responded to a distress call from MV Saldanha. Due to the distances involved HMS Northumberland was not able to deter the pirate attack. However, she did later find an abandoned skiff thought to have been used during the attack. The skiff was subsequently destroyed.
I refer the right hon. and learned Member to the answer that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) gave on 20 November 2008, Official Report, column 670W, to the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) which provides details of the number of incidents in late 2008.
Reserve Forces
Dr. Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the (a) inflow, (b) outflow and (c) voluntary outflow rate of each volunteer reserve force was in each year since 2001. [265410]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Data on outflow reasons for any volunteer reserve force are not held. Consequently, data on voluntary outflow are not available.
Royal Naval Reserve figures prior to 2003 are not available. The following table provides the total intake and outflow for the Royal Naval Reserve during the period 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2008.
| Calendar year | Inflow | Outflow |
Royal Marine Reserve figures prior to April 2007 and post 1 March 2008 are not available. The following table provides the total intake and outflow for the Royal Marine Reserve during the period 1 April 2007 to 29 February 2008.
| Inflow | Outflow | |
Territorial Army inflow and outflow figures prior to October 2003 are not available. Following the implementation of the Joint Personnel Administration system in 2007, inflow and outflow figures for the Territorial Army are not available. The following table provides the total intake and outflow for Territorial Army personnel during the period 1 October 2003 to 28 February 2007.
| Inflow and outflow of the Territorial Army( 1) by calendar year | ||
| Calendar year | Inflow( 2) | Outflow( 3) |
| (1) The data exclude Full Time Reserve Service (FTRS), Non-Regular Permanent Staff (NRPS) and Mobilised TA but include the Officer Training Corps (OTC). (2) Inflow figures include all inflow e.g. intake from civil life and intake from other parts of the armed forces, but do not include the inflow of personnel returning from mobilisation. (3) Outflow figures exclude those personnel who became mobilised. (4) Due to ongoing data validation following the introduction of the new joint personnel (JPA) System, there is no TA information available since 1 March 2007. | ||
Royal Auxiliary Air Force figures prior to the financial year 2002-03 are not available. The following table shows total attestations and discharges in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force for the period 1 April 2002 to 28 February 2009.
Trident
Nick Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the percentage of the defence budget which will be spent on running costs of the current Trident nuclear deterrent and the procurement of a successor system in the years immediately following the main gate decision to procure new submarines. [264963]
Mr. Hutton: As the December 2006 White Paper, “The Future of the UK's Nuclear Deterrent” (Cm 6994), made clear, our current estimate is that the total procurement costs of the new submarines and associated equipment and infrastructure will be in the region of £15 to 20 billion (at 2006-07 prices) for a four-boat fleet, mainly spread over the period 2012-27. The Main Gate decision is expected to be taken in 2014.
Spending plans for the years immediately following this decision will need to be set as part of the Government's Spending Review process and as part of the Main Gate approval. It is not therefore possible to be sure what the size of the defence budget will be over the timescales involved, but procurement costs are likely on average to be the equivalent of around three per cent. annually of the current defence budget over the main period of expenditure. This is around the same as for the Trident programme.
Once the new fleet of submarines comes into service, annual in-service capital and running costs of the deterrent, which include the costs of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, are expected to be similar to today (around five to six per cent. of the annual defence budget).
Duchy of Lancaster
Charities: Insolvency
Grant Shapps: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) how many charities were deemed to be insolvent in each of the last five years; [265253]
(2) how many charities have made representations to the Charities Commission on issues related to insolvency in each of the last three years. [265254]
Kevin Brennan: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Charity Commission. I have asked the Commission to reply.
Letter from Andrew Hind, dated March 2009:
As the Chief Executive of the Charity Commission, I have been asked to respond to your written Parliamentary Questions (265253), (265254) regarding charity insolvencies.
With regard to how many charities were deemed to be insolvent in each of the last five years, the Charity Commission does not currently record this information centrally. However, I attach
below tables which set out the number of charities who were removed from the register, in each year, since 2005 and the reasons recorded for their removal.
The table below to those charities which are required to refers register with the Commission by law. Smaller charities are not required to register with us; the threshold for registration was an annual income of £1,000 for the periods shown by the tables.
Of the charities that have been removed from the Register, those that have been removed due to insolvency are likely to have fallen under the categories “Ceased to exist” and “Does not operate”. However the large majority of the charities recorded under these categories will not have been removed due to insolvency but will have wound up for other reasons.
| Reason for removal | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | Total |
|
Ceased to exist or operate due to merger, incorporation or transfer of funds | ||||
|
Voluntary removal of charities below the minimum registration threshold | ||||
With regard to how many charities have made representations to the Charity Commission on issues related to insolvency in each of the last three years, the Charity Commission does not currently collect this information centrally.
I hope this is helpful. If you would be interested in meeting representatives from the Charity Commission to discuss these issues further please do get in touch.
Departmental Electricity Generation
Simon Hughes: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how much has been spent by his Department on (a) capital expenditure and (b) maintenance and running costs for standby diesel generators for backup electricity on the departmental estate in each year since March 1997. [264091]
Kevin Brennan: The information requested is not held centrally and can be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Government Departments: Temporary Employment
John McDonnell: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many temporary agency workers there were in each Government department on (a) 1 November 2008 and (b) the latest date for which information is available. [266164]
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 March 2009:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning how many temporary agency workers there were in each Government department on (a) 1 November 2008 and (b) the latest date for which information is available. (266164)
Estimates of employment for the home civil service departments are available from the Civil Service element of the Quarterly Public Sector Employment Survey (QPSES). Data for the survey is collected on a quarterly basis; the latest date for which information is available is December 2008. Data for the numbers of temporary
‘agency’ workers arc not collected; however estimates of the number of temporary/casual employees are available and have been included at Annex A.
| Annex A: Civil Service employment by Department( 1) —temporary/casual employees | ||
| Headcount | ||
| 2008 Q3( 2) | 2008 Q4( 3) | |
| (1) Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10, and numbers less than five are represented by ‘*’. Data not available are represented by ‘—’. (2) 2008 G3 survey reference date 30 September 2008. (3) 2008 Q4 survey reference date 31 December 2008. (4) On 1 April 2008 employees of the General Register Office were transferred from the UK Statistics Authority to the Identity and Passport Service (Home Office). (5) The UK Statistics Authority was established on 1 April 2008, when the ‘Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007’ came into effect. As such, Office for National Statistics employees are now included within the UK Statistics Authority return and not as ‘Chancellor's other departments’. (6 )As of 1 April 2008, Field Interviewers are now classified as civil servants and are included as UK Statistics Authority employees. (7) The Government Equalities Office (GEO) was created by Parliament in October 2007 and obtained its own payroll for collection in December 2008. | ||
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