| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
27 Jan 2010 : Column 866W—continued
Prisons: Mother and Baby Units
Alan Duncan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many women prisoners have given birth since April 2009; [313206]
(2) how many women became pregnant while serving a prison sentence in the last year for which data are available. [313207]
Maria Eagle: Information on the number of women who have given birth in prison or became pregnant while serving a prison sentence is not collected centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost, as in order to provide this information staff would need to look at each individual's record.
In addition, it would not be possible to guarantee the accuracy of the data about when women become pregnant as this would be reliant on information being provided by the prisoners themselves.
Probation
Mr. David Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what steps he plans to take to increase the level of contact time between probation staff and offenders. [312664]
Maria Eagle: The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is taking a number of actions to increase the amount of contact time between probation staff and offenders. These include:
allocating resources to the assessment and management of offenders according to the level of risk;
as part of the Probation Trusts Programme all areas (including locally initiated mergers) have identified efficiencies through for example the reduction in management overheads, and development, of shared services, to the benefit of front line staffing levels;
a national programme of specifying probation work, and benchmarking performance, to support the effective deployment of front line staff;
identifying opportunities for reducing bureaucracy and other demands currently placed on front-line staff; and
expanding the use of video conferencing to reduce the time probation staff spend travelling to interview prisoners.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Agriculture: Subsidies
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans he has to respond to the Parliamentary Ombudsman's report entitled "Cold Comfort: the Administration of the 2005 Single Payment Scheme by the Rural Payments Agency". [311216]
Jim Fitzpatrick [holding answer 19 January 2010]: The Department's views were relayed to the Parliamentary Ombudsman at various stages during the course of her investigations and are referred to in the report itself. A formal response will be made to any subsequent report the Public Administration Select Committee decides to produce on the issue.
Lembit Öpik: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how cross-compliance regulations in respect of single payments and the Integrated Administration and Control System scheme apply to turbines and related infrastructure built on farmland; and if he will make a statement. [312565]
Jim Fitzpatrick: Any area of farm land occupied by a wind turbine, electricity pylon or other item of non-agricultural infrastructure would not form part of the agricultural area eligible to support claims under the single payment scheme. As such the standards of cross-compliance would not apply to these features.
Chemicals: Animal Experiments
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will bring forward proposals to require the chemical industry to minimise the number of animals used in testing covered by the provisions of the EU Regulation on the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals. [312689]
Dan Norris: The Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation contains strong provisions to minimise the amount of animal testing by EU-based companies when compiling their substance registration dossiers. These require that animal tests be the last resort, with the use of non-animal test methods instead wherever possible, and prohibit the repetition and duplication of animal tests. REACH also requires that when preparing registration dossiers, data derived from animal tests must be shared between all members of a Substance Information Exchange Forum (SIEF) in order to achieve this. Where further tests are necessary to complete registrations for substances on the market in quantities of 10 tonnes or more per year, then proposals must be submitted to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) for approval before any such tests are undertaken, so pre-emptive testing would be illegal. Part of this approval process involves a 45-day public consultation on the test proposals, so that third parties have the opportunity to provide information on the substance that would render the proposed animal tests unnecessary.
In order to help companies address the issue of using animal tests when preparing registration dossiers, a short guidance note has been published on the DEFRA website:
which draws attention to these legal requirements, and suggests a number of possible non-animal alternative test methods including chemical grouping and read-across approaches, use of (Quantitative) Structural Activity Relationships (QSARs), and in vitro tests. Information can also be provided by way of a weight of evidence
assessment, and certain tests specified in REACH may also be waived where it can be shown that exposure of humans or the environment to a substance is insignificant or absent.
It is important that companies remember that they should not be undertaking animal testing for REACH registration before their test proposals are approved by ECHA as being necessary. Companies should actively look for alternatives to animal testing wherever possible, and refer to the REACH Test Methods Regulation for what is available for use. Other internationally-valid non-animal test methods that do not appear in the Test Methods Regulation may also be used. However, where animal tests are the last resort, then companies should use the most refined method possible to reduce the numbers of animals involved.
ECHA has published detailed guidance on data-sharing and information requirements for the REACH registration process on its website, and the UK REACH Competent Authority (provided by the Health and Safety Executive) is also shortly to publish a guidance leaflet for industry on animal testing and use of alternatives on its website. This will explain the REACH testing obligations, help with identifying the most appropriate test method, with information on the various available non-animal test methods.
Departmental Assets
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what departmental assets are planned to be sold in (a) 2009-10 and (b) 2010-11; what the (i) description and (ii) book value is of each such asset; what the expected revenue is from each such sale; and by what date each asset is expected to have been sold. [310243]
Dan Norris: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on 11 January 2010, Official Report, column 676W.
The Government have stated their intention to realise £16 billion from asset and property sales over the period by 2013-14. On 7 December the Government published the "Operational Efficiency Programme: Asset Portfolio", setting out the next steps for the delivery of the £16 billion by 2013-14.
DEFRA has approximately £6.9 million (book value £10.2 million) of surplus properties for disposal in 2009-10, arising from the sale of land, residential and office premises. Anticipated disposals from land and laboratory premises are expected to realise £9 million in 2010-11 (book value £8 million).
Not all future asset disposals have been finalised, and for reasons of commercial sensitivity it is not possible to identify publicly each asset to be disposed of, or to set out deadlines for sales as this can have a negative impact on values.
DEFRA's latest published asset management strategy is available on its website at:
The strategy is currently being updated following the creation of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the transfer of certain functions from DEFRA to DECC, and it is planned that the new version of the strategy will be published in the spring.
Departmental Carbon Emissions
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether (a) his Department and (b) its agencies plan to sign up to the 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in 2010. [313044]
Dan Norris: DEFRA has a long-term commitment to reduce its carbon emissions. Performance in 2008-09 shows that DEFRA's carbon emissions from offices has reduced by 18 per cent. on the 1999-2000 baseline, exceeding the 2010 Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) target by 6 per cent. Since 2006-07 the Department has delivered a reduction of 4 per cent. carbon emissions (year on year) from its estate through its Carbon Reduction Programme.
DEFRA's achievements have been recognised through the award of the Carbon Trust Standard in May 2008, where the Department was one of the first 12 pathfinder organisations to receive the award. This built upon the earlier success of the Department achieving Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme (EEAS) status in July 2007. Both of these awards clearly demonstrate that DEFRA has an ongoing commitment to long-term, year on year carbon emissions reductions.
The Department is expecting to continue to deliver significant year on year savings, anticipated at as much as 6 per cent. year on year.
A strategic long-term investment plan allows the delivery of projects which provide long-term benefits through reducing energy demand and minimising the need to reinvest in the short to medium term. To disrupt these long-term plans in order to achieve 10:10 would impact negatively on DEFRA's ability to achieve its long-term goals and would not deliver value for money. However, the combination of DEFRA's long-term plans, a minimum 6 per cent. reduction in 2010 and a short- term call to action all constitute a credible contribution to tackling climate change.
In light of the above, achieving a 10 per cent. saving across the DEFRA Estate in a single year would require my Department to divert significant funds from its long-term delivery plan; therefore The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and its Executive Agencies have not signed up to the 10:10 campaign.
Departmental Information and Communications Technology
Adam Afriyie: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on what pay band his Department's Chief Information Officer (CIO) is employed; whether the CIO is employed on a fixed-term or permanent contract; and what the size is of the budget for which the CIO is responsible in the period 2009-10. [307566]
Dan Norris: DEFRA's chief information officer is employed as a senior civil servant (SCS-Contractor) on a fixed term contract basis. The size of the budget the CIO is responsible for is £76 million for 2009-10.
Departmental Internet
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which websites his Department's staff are blocked from accessing on departmental networked computers. [310054]
Dan Norris: The Department has blocked access to:
There are also a number of other websites that the Department blocks for reasons of IT security. The security policies informing these IT security decisions are in line with HMG Security Policy Framework (SPF)
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much has been spent on (a) strategy and planning, (b) design and build, (c) hosting and infrastructure, (d) content provision and (e) testing and evaluation for his Department's websites in each of the last three years; and what budget has been allocated for each such activity in 2009-10. [310212]
Dan Norris: DEFRA website costs are as follows:
| £ | ||||
| 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10 | |
The costs shown for "Content Provision" are essentially the staff cost for the central team with responsibility for updating and maintaining DEFRA's websites. An element of their work is "Strategy and Planning", but the costs of such work cannot be easily separated.
This central team is also responsible for the DEFRA intranet, and the staff costs for the external DEFRA website alone cannot be readily disaggregated.
The costs shown in 2008-09 and 2009-10 under "Design and Build" and "Testing and Evaluation" are the costs for the project to redevelop the DEFRA website. The website was relaunched in September 2009, the first major website redesign since DEFRA came into being in 2001. The total cost of this work, spread over two years, was £181,378.
"Hosting and Infrastructure" of the DEFRA website-as well as a range of IT applications-are provided as part of DEFRA's overall IT service provision, and the costs of this aspect of website maintenance cannot be readily disaggregated.
Departmental Pay
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many (a) year-end and (b) in-year bonuses were paid to officials in his Department in each of the last three years; and how much was paid in such bonuses in each such year. [307099]
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |