Written Ministerial Statements
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
Transport, Telecommuniations and Energy Council (Telecoms Council)
The Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs (Mr. Pat McFadden): My noble Friend the Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, Lord Carter of Barnes, has made the following statement.
I am pleased to confirm the agenda items for which BERR has responsibility at the forthcoming Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council (Telecoms Council) in Brussels on 31 March 2009.
There are only two substantive agenda items, the first of which is the adoption of Council conclusions on the Commission’s Communication for an accessible information society. The UK welcomes and supports the timing of this communication which is in line with recommendations recently made in the cross-Government report “Delivering Digital Inclusion - An Action Plan for Consultation”. Both the cross-Government paper and the Digital Britain report are also looking at what the Government can do to stimulate take-up and access of digital technologies in the UK.
This will be followed by an exchange of views on the impact of the economic downturn on ICT and how ICT can boost the EU’s economy. As the Government’s interim Digital Britain report highlighted, ICT is one of the sectors which we all rely upon to underpin our whole economy, as its effective utilisation can deliver productivity gains to our citizens and enterprises. This discussion will provide an opportunity to introduce our thinking for taking Digital Britain forward, and listen to the plans and proposals other Ministers are considering to enable ICT to accelerate longer term growth.
In addition to these two substantive items, there are four further items for which BERR has responsibility listed under any other business. The first of these will be an update from the Council presidency on negotiations on a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA Programme). The UK supports the proposed programme as its predecessors have proved successful in delivering guidelines, common frameworks, studies on cross-border communication and IT—enabled service platforms for the delivery of community policies and activities.
The presidency will then provide information on the recent 112 Day. To mark 112 Day in the UK, I wrote to other Government Departments who could play a role in raising awareness of the pan-European emergency number. We are currently undertaking follow up work on this with the Foreign Office and Identity and Passport Service (IPS).
The Commission will then present their Communication on mobilising information and communication technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low- carbon economy. The UK agrees with the aims of this Communication which seeks to raise awareness of the potential ICT has to improve efficiency of European enterprises, including public sector, systems and processes.
Lastly, the presidency will provide an update on the review of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services. On the same day as the Council, the European Parliament are voting in Committee stage on this review package, followed by their plenary vote on 22 April. I will shortly be writing to hon. Members with explanatory memoranda on the Commission’s response to the Council common position, and will take the opportunity to update hon. Members on the progress of negotiations.
The Czech presidency are also hosting a ministerial lunch where Estonia is likely to be invited to make a presentation on their forthcoming conference on cyber security in Tallinn. Commissioner Reding will present the forthcoming communication on Communication and Information Infrastructure Protection. I understand the communication will recommend broad standards on the resilience of critical ICT infrastructure and on member states’ national response capacity to ensure the provision of telecoms services.
Treasury
Payments Council (OFT Review)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ian Pearson): On 25 March, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) published a report setting out its findings on the effectiveness of the Payments Council in meeting its objectives. The Payments Council started work in March 2007, following an agreement in November 2006 by the OFT-chaired payment systems taskforce that a new body be created to provide strategic direction for the UK’s payment industry. The taskforce set three key objectives for the Payments Council:
to lead the future development of co-operative payment services in the United Kingdom;
to ensure that the payment system is open and accountable; and
to ensure the operational efficiency, effectiveness and integrity of payment services in the United Kingdom, through a focus on issues which cross schemes.
The taskforce agreed that the OFT would carry out a review of the effectiveness of the new governance body (subsequently named the Payments Council), after two years of its operation. This was to ensure that the objectives of the new body were being met and delivered on in practice. This statement highlights the key findings and recommendations in the OFT review of the operations of the Payments Council.
The OFT report concludes that the Payments Council is a definite improvement on what prevailed before its creation. The Payments Council’s consultation on a national payments plan, setting out the strategic direction it should pursue over the next five to 10 years, was widely welcomed by stakeholders, and contributed to its objective on openness and accountability. The introduction of the faster payments scheme (FPS) in
May 2007 represented a substantial innovation. Users of the system will be able to make telephone and internet payments within a matter of hours, rather than over three working days as under the BACS system.
While the introduction of the faster payment scheme was a real achievement, the rolling out of faster payment services by many banks to their customers has been relatively slow. The report finds that the Payments Council should be more proactive in following up its initiatives with members and should also consider widening its membership and making more effective use of user groups, to ensure that end users get the benefits envisaged.
The OFT report recommends that the Payments Council increases the emphasis on its integrity objective in future. Although the safety and security of payment systems have not been compromised, the Payments Council has not added value quickly enough, and this is an area where it needs to improve. The OFT considers that the Payments Council should commission an accountancy firm to report in two years on how well it has performed against its integrity objective. The report (or the executive summary of it) should be published in the Payments Council’s Annual Review, and the Payments Council should outline how it intends to address any action points identified in it. Following the review from the accountancy firm, the Payments Council should self-assess against its integrity objective using the same procedure described below for its other objectives.
The OFT also recommends that the Payments Council provides a self-assessment against progress every two years on:
its strategic direction and openness and accountability objectives;
recommendations of the taskforce where these have not been met; and
recommendations coming out of this OFT report.
This self-assessment should contain the results of an open consultation with stakeholders on progress against objectives. The OFT may still choose to look into specific aspects of the Payments Council’s performance against objectives, if it considers there to be sufficient reason.
The Government welcome the OFT work to review the effectiveness of the Payments Council, and welcomes the recommendations made. I am writing today to the chair of the Payments Council to note the Government’s continued interest in the future work of the Payments Council.
Communities and Local Government
Rural Economy and Affordable Housing
The Minister for Housing (Margaret Beckett): The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I are today publishing the Government’s response to the report from the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Matthew Taylor) “Living, Working Countryside”.
In September 2007, the Prime Minister asked the hon. Member to undertake a review on how land use and planning can better support rural businesses and deliver affordable housing and to report to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Minister of State for Housing and Planning. The
final report of the review, with detailed recommendations, was published in July 2008. The review identified the specific challenges facing rural areas but recognises that, “contrary to an often outdated view of the countryside, the economies of rural and urban England are much more alike than many people might imagine”. The Government will therefore give local authorities more flexibility to tackle the issues their communities face.
Our response sets out our proposals to take forward most of the review’s 48 recommendations to continue to encourage a prosperous rural economy and improve the delivery of affordable rural homes. This will help businesses, councils and the wider community, particularly in the current challenging economic conditions, and will assist rural communities in becoming more sustainable.
We welcome the review as giving important emphasis to what it takes to develop and sustain a strong rural economy, and improve access to a range of housing. In response to the review’s recommendations, we are announcing new approaches which local planning authorities and rural communities should adopt to improve the rural economy and encourage more affordable housing to be built in the countryside in appropriate places.
ensuring that master planning is properly understood, and widely used, and running a competition to encourage good practice. In this context, “master planning” primarily means spatial master planning, as an approach to achieve the sustainable expansion of small or medium-sized settlements in particular.
setting up a practitioners’ working group to explore ways to incentivise landowners to use the existing rural exception sites policy, where local planning authorities can grant permission for small scale housing development as an “exception” to their normal policies of countryside protection.
bringing together a number of existing planning policy statements covering economic development topics into a single new planning policy statement on planning for prosperity. This will be published for consultation shortly.
publishing proposals for taking forward the use of community land trusts which can enable local communities to work together to meet their own housing needs, alongside details to create protected areas where shared ownership homes need to be retained for future purchasers. These proposals too will be published for consultation shortly.
A copy of the Government’s response is available in the Library of the House.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Resource Efficiency Support
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Hilary Benn): Following a review of the Department’s delivery bodies which support business, consumers and the public sector in resource efficiency, DEFRA has decided that from April 2010, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) will lead in the provision of such advice and support. This will provide a streamlined, more efficient service and better value for money to the taxpayer.
The review covered the following organisations:
Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)
National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP)
Envirowise
Construction Resources and Waste Platform (CRWP)
Centre for Reuse and Remanufacture (CRR)
Action Sustainability (AS)
BREW Centre for Local Authorities
All were involved and consulted throughout the entire review process.
The review also considered the role of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in supporting business resource efficiency, including through Business Link as the primary access for business support.
Over the last three years, DEFRA has invested £650 million in a range of programmes that help organisations and the public use resources more efficiently. With this funding our delivery partners have delivered environmental benefits and cost savings for business. They should be rightly proud of their achievements.
The review identified that a single delivery body was the most efficient way of providing resource efficiency services to businesses, the public sector and households; and that such a single point of contact would also ensure greater ease of access for customers. WRAP was identified as the natural focus for this effort, providing the widest range of relevant services, and having the necessary management capability.
This change will support the “Improving your Resource Efficiency” product provided by RDAs through Business Link under Government’s Business Support Simplification Programme (BSSP).
Over the coming year, WRAP will work with DEFRA and the other delivery bodies to determine how best to implement this fully integrated service from April 2010.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Conflict Resources 2009-10
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David Miliband): My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Defence, the Secretary of State for International Development and I would like to inform the House about our plans for conflict funding for the next financial year.
In October 2007 the Government announced a new Public Service Agreement for Preventing and Resolving Conflict (PSA 30). The 2007 comprehensive spending review (CSR) settlement set out the programme resources available for supporting implementation of PSA 30— £109 million through the Conflict Prevention Pool (CPP), £73 million through the Stabilisation Aid Fund (SAF) and an additional call on the Treasury reserve for peacekeeping costs, currently capped at £374 million. The peacekeeping budget currently covers both the UK’s assessed contributions to UN, OSCE and EU international peacekeeping missions, as well as certain discretionary peacekeeping activity. In the CSR settlement it was agreed that the new CPP would continue to be the first port of call if assessed (obligatory) peacekeeping costs rose above forecast.
The UK’s total available conflict resource for FY 2009-10, leaving aside the cost of UK military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, was therefore set at £556 million —£109 million CPP, £73 million SAF, £374 million peacekeeping budget.
A year into the CSR settlement we face a large projected increase in the UK’s assessed peacekeeping contributions caused by:
an increase in peacekeeping activity through the UN and the European Union. This reflects a positive trend; for example, the UN mission in Darfur moving towards full strength. And it also reflects some new commitments. These include the decision by the Security Council in Resolution 1863 to provide a package of logistical support to the African Union mission in Somalia and its decision to reinforce MONUC, the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), following the renewed hostilities in eastern DRC.
exchange rate changes. The Government are billed by the UN, EU and OSCE in US dollars and euros. While the impact of this in financial year 2008-09 has been partly offset by the effects of forward purchasing our foreign currency requirement, the fall in the value of sterling means that our costs will be significantly larger in 2009-10 than in the past.
In this context we have agreed the following:
We will earmark £456 million from the £556 million available for 2009-10 to cover the projected rise in assessed peacekeeping contributions allowing us to meet our legal obligations. This is significantly higher than the current £374 million peacekeeping allocation from the Treasury reserve and would leave only £100 million from the CSR settlement to fund all other conflict activity, including discretionary peacekeeping previously funded from the reserve (estimated at some £70 million in 2008-09).
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