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20 Apr 2009 : Column 33W—continued
| The Royal Parks | |||
| Kwh | |||
| Electricity | Gas | Other Fuel | |
Data are not available prior to April 2004 and since April 2008 The Royal Parks have not recorded data on kwh consumed.
Departmental Public Expenditure
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what his latest estimate is of his Department’s capital expenditure in (a) 2008-09, (b) 2009-10, (c) 2010-11 and (d) 2011-12; and if he will make a statement. [268116]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The latest estimate of the capital spending by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport excluding the Olympics can be seen in the table.
| Total capital spending excluding the Olympics | |
| £000 | |
Spending plans for 2011-12 are not yet available.
Departmental Training
Mr. Hands: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport pursuant to the answer of 10 February 2009, Official Report, column 1888W, on departmental training, which Ministers have attended the Action Learning Set course; and what the cost of the course was. [268957]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The cost of the course was £500.
Identifying Ministers who undertake training would, or would be likely to, discourage participation in future training sessions, acting as a disincentive for Ministers to undertake formal professional development.
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many training courses were taken by (a) civil servants and (b) Ministers in his Department in each of the last three years; and what the cost of training was in each year. [265306]
Mr. Sutcliffe: DCMS is committed to developing our staff and also ensuring that they have the right skills and expertise to enable them to work effectively.
| Training c ourses | Cost (£) | |
Gambling
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much it cost his Department to maintain its White List of countries permitted to advertise gambling services in the UK in each of the last three years. [267166]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The advertising provisions of the Gambling Act 2005, including the arrangements for whitelisting under section 331, only came into effect in September 2007. Much of the assessment work was carried out by DCMS officials with input from legal advisers, the Gambling Commission, HM Treasury and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As a result it is not possible to give a full and detailed assessment of costs.
Local Press
Ann Coffey: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what recent discussions he has had with representatives of press and broadcasting organisations on the future of weekly and regional newspapers; and if he will make a statement. [268164]
Andy Burnham: I have recently had discussions with the Society of Editors and the Newspaper Society; and the National Union of Journalists Parliamentary Group.
I shall be holding a summit shortly to discuss local media provision.
Swimming: Concessions
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) how many swimming pools offering free swimming to over 60 year olds do so only after 9.00 am.; [268182]
(2) what recent estimate he has made of the number of over 60 year olds who have been provided with free swimming; and if he will make a statement. [268183]
Andy Burnham: Around 10 million people aged 60 or over in England stand to benefit from the Government’s Free Swimming programme. We will be monitoring closely the impact of the scheme on levels of participation.
Nearly 300 local authorities will be offering free swimming to those aged 60 or over. This means that people in that age group who wish to swim, at any time throughout the year, when they would normally be admitted to the pool for public swimming, and in accordance with local programming, should not be charged for doing so. Beyond that condition of grant funding, we have not been prescriptive on how participating local authorities should deliver their offer locally.
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many swimming pools in (a) Lancashire and (b) England are taking part in the free swimming initiatives. [268184]
Mr. Sutcliffe: We estimate that approximately (a) 38 swimming pools in Lancashire and (b) over 1,000 swimming pools in England are taking part in the Government’s Free Swimming programme. We will be collecting information from participating local authorities on free swimming in their pools as part of our monitoring and evaluation of the programme.
Television: Licensing
Mr. Kemp: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many pensioners over the age of 75 years resident in Houghton and Washington East constituency received a free television licence in 2008. [268383]
Andy Burnham: TV Licensing, which administers free television licences for people aged 75 or over as agents for the BBC, advises that it is not able to provide breakdowns by constituency of the number of free licences issued.
Tourism: South West
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Torbay of 11 March 2009, Official Report, columns 461-2W, on tourism: South West, how much of the £3.5 million will have been provided to each regional development agency between 2008 and 2011; [264426]
(2) pursuant to the answer of 20 March 2009, Official Report, columns 1340-1W, on tourism: South West, how much of the £3.5 million funding was allocated to each regional development agency. [267360]
Barbara Follett [holding answers 18 and 23 March 2009]: Funding for regional development agencies (RDAs) is not ring-fenced for particular economic sectors, such as tourism. However, in each year since 2003-04, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has contributed £3.6 million to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform’s (DBERR’s) Single Programme budget (the “Single Pot”) in respect of the tourism responsibilities of the eight RDAs outside London.
The Single Pot, which will total approximately £2.2 billion, £2.2 billion and £2.1 billion in 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively, is allocated among the RDAs by DBERR. DCMS’s contribution will be £3.5 million, £3.4 million and £3.3 million in these years.
Tourism: Summertime
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what recent representations he has received from the tourism industry on daylight saving. [268212]
Barbara Follett [holding answer 1 April 2009]: My Department has received representations on the merits of daylight saving from the Tourism Alliance, the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions and other members of the attractions sector. I discussed this issue at a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs (Mr. McFadden) at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and industry representatives on 8 November 2008.
Women and Equality
Age: Discrimination
Graham Stringer: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what assessment she has made of (a) levels of public support for and (b) potential harmful consequences of the marketing of (i) products and (ii) holidays directly to specific age groups. [269474]
Maria Eagle:
The consultation paper “A Framework for Fairness: Proposals for a Single Equality Bill for Great Britain” (June 2007), called for evidence of unfair age discrimination in the supply of goods, facilities and services. The majority of the nearly 750 responses on
this issue (around 80 per cent.) were in favour of legislation to tackle harmful age discrimination outside the workplace, but only a small number of respondents felt that the marketing of products and holidays to specific age groups was discriminatory and very few felt that such marketing was harmful.
We have been taking forward discussions with relevant representatives of industry and stakeholders with an interest in age discrimination to better understand the benefits and consequences of the ban on age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services we are including in the Equality Bill. These discussions have helped us develop an approach which takes account of the need to ensure that the legislation does not prevent service providers offering age-specific goods and services where this is beneficial or can be justified. We will consult on our detailed proposals for the exceptions from the ban on age discrimination in the summer.
Graham Stringer: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what recent assessment she has made of her policy on (a) age-based concessions in the insurance industry and (b) age limits on group holidays. [269512]
Maria Eagle: We have always been clear that the legislation banning age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services—to be included in the Equality Bill—will bite on harmful age discrimination and allow justifiable and beneficial age-based practices to continue.
The legislation will not prevent different treatment on grounds of age in the provision of insurance, where this is based on actuarial evidence. Nor will it prevent holidays for particular age groups.
Consideration of how to frame the legislation is continuing, taking account of relevant evidence such as the October 2008 report of the Financial Services Expert Working Group established by Government to provide and analyse evidence of the implications and impacts of outlawing age discrimination, and recent research published by the Association of British Insurers in March 2009. In addition, the Government Equalities Office has recently commissioned additional independent research to explore this area further.
We will consult on our detailed proposals for the exceptions from the ban on age discrimination in the summer.
Departmental Bank Services
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality with which banks the Government Equalities Office has or has had contracts for the provision of financial advice, for the financial year 2008-09. [262752]
Maria Eagle: The Government Equalities Office has not held any contracts with banks for the provision of financial advice.
Equality and Human Rights Commission: Manpower
Mr. Paul Goodman:
To ask the Minister for Women and Equality pursuant to the answer of 10 March 2009, Official Report, columns 335-6W, on manpower: Equality and Human Rights Commission, how many staff who were paid (a) between £50,000 and £100,000 and (b)
over £100,000 a year were employed by the (i) Disability Rights Commission, (ii) Equal Opportunities Commission and (iii) Commission for Racial Equality in their last full year of existence. [269477]
Maria Eagle: The total number of staff employed by each of the legacy commissions in their last full year of existence (2006-07) and who were (a) paid between £50,000 and £100,00 and (b) paid over £100,000 is shown in the following table.
| (a) paid between £50,000 and £100,000 | (b) paid over £100,000 | |
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