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8 Mar 2010 : Column 10W—continued
Aggregate output from the listed mines in each of the last five years was as follows:
| Output (tonnes) | |||||
| 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board: Meetings
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change if he will publish on his Department's website the minutes of each meeting of the Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board to date. [320534]
Mr. Kidney: The Department of Energy and Climate Change will aim to publish the minutes of meetings of the Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board on its website around the time of Easter.
Communities and Local Government
Departmental Travel
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much (a) Ministers and (b) staff of each grade in (i) his Department and (ii) its agencies spent on first-class travel in the last 12 months. [320399]
Barbara Follett: The Department does not hold this information centrally and it can be answered only at disproportionate cost.
Fires Service College could provide this information only at disproportionate cost.
Planning Inspectorate could provide this information only at disproportionate cost.
Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre has had no expenditure on first-class travel.
Essex County Council and Castle Point Borough Council: Pay
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if he will make it his policy to (a) collect information on and (b) publish the value of remuneration packages for (i) the chief executive officer and the five highest paid officers of Castle Point borough council and (ii) the chief executive officer and the 10 highest paid officers of Essex county council in each of the last 10 years. [321180]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The Department does not currently collect or publish information about individual remuneration arrangements for local authority officers. However, the Department has brought forward new regulations to require local authorities to publish detailed salary and remuneration information for senior officers in their Statement of Annual Accounts with effect from 31 March 2010.
Local Government: East of England
Mr. Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the cost to the public purse has been of all legal proceedings relating to the structural review of Norfolk, Suffolk and Devon. [317343]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The Department does not hold information about the costs incurred by local authorities for legal proceedings that they have brought relating to the structural reviews in Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk.
The current costs incurred by the Department are set out in the following table.
| Legal costs to Department (£) | |
|
Challenge against the Boundary Committee where the Secretary of State has been named as an Interested Party brought by: | |
In litigation against the Boundary Committee related to the structural reviews, the Secretary of State appeared as an Interested Party and therefore did not seek costs.
The Boundary Committee has incurred costs of some £358,700, some of which it is seeking to recover from local authorities involved in the litigation.
Local Government: Poole
Mr. Syms: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the borough of Poole council on the effects of trends in Government funding on the level of (a) the provision of services by and (b) employment in the council; and if he will make a statement. [320384]
Ms Rosie Winterton: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no recent discussions with representatives of the borough of Poole council on the effects of trends in Government funding.
Olympics
Government Olympic Executive: Pay
Mr. Scott: To ask the Minister for the Olympics how much has been paid in bonuses to civil servants in the Government Olympic Executive in each year since its inception. [306420]
Tessa Jowell: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) on 18 January 2010, Official Report, column 5W.
Olympic Games 2012: Private Finance Initiative
Angus Robertson: To ask the Minister for the Olympics how many private finance initiative projects relating to the 2012 Olympics have been delayed because of problems obtaining finance; and what the monetary value of each contract is. [320568]
Tessa Jowell: There are no private finance initiative projects being funded from the public sector funding package for the 2012 Olympics. The former private developer projects-the Olympic Village and the International Broadcast Centre/Main Press Centre-which are now public sector projects, are on track to be delivered on time, as set out in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games Annual Report published on 9 February 2010.
Olympic Games 2012: Yorkshire and the Humber
John Battle: To ask the Minister for the Olympics if she will take steps to ensure that sporting venues in (a) Yorkshire and (b) Leeds benefit from expenditure incurred in hosting the London 2012 Olympics. [307441]
Tessa Jowell: Sporting venues in Leeds and Yorkshire are well placed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the London 2012 Olympics.
Sport England has recently made a significant investment in the Aquatics Centre at the John Charles Sports Centre in Leeds. These facilities will play a significant part in developing young swimmers and divers and in hosting visiting Olympic squads. The £5 million investment has helped deliver an international standard 50 metre competition and training pool with moveable boom and floor that meets the needs of both performance swimmers and the local community. It also includes one of the best equipped diving competition and training pools in the UK.
Leeds has also benefited from the Free Swimming capital programme with awards totalling almost £2.5 million. This investment will help modernise several key community swimming pools including those at Aireborough and Kirkstall.
There are 49 pre-games training camps in Yorkshire that are available to Olympics teams, and the Serbian and Dutch swimming teams have already committed to holding their pre-games training camps in Leeds.
Sheffield also hosts the GB squads for boxing, volleyball and table tennis, and one of the GB centres for diving. These four sports have received their funding allocation from UK Sport based on their plans for London 2012 and have used some of their Cabinet Office programme's funding to enhance squad facilities. For example, boxing has invested in improving and expanding training areas in the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield into one of the best amateur boxing centres in the world.
Also, Dalby Forest in North Yorkshire has won the right to host the UCI Cross Country Mountain Bike World Cup based on its initial Olympic bid to be a games-time venue.
Transport
Aviation: Exhaust Emissions
John McDonnell: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport when he last reviewed the processes used to (a) collect and (b) publish the annual emissions of carbon dioxide from domestic aviation; and if he will make a statement. [319816]
Joan Ruddock: I have been asked to reply.
(a) We estimate the annual emissions of carbon dioxide from domestic aviation in accordance with the IPCC 1996 revised guidelines, as we are required to do under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
These guidelines were reviewed and revised in 2006; however, the 2006 guidelines will not be implemented until after the 2008-12 Kyoto protocol commitment period.
Full details of both the 1996 revised guidelines and the 2006 guidelines can be found on the IPCC website at the following link:
(b) Estimates of UK carbon dioxide emissions from all sectors, including domestic aviation, covering the period 1990 to 2008 were published by DECC as National Statistics on 2 February 2010.
These form part of the UK's greenhouse gas inventory submission for 2008, and represent the latest available estimates.
The statistics can be found at the following link:
Aviation: Safety
Mark Pritchard: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport if he will hold discussions with aircraft manufacturers on the relative safety merits of aircraft black boxes and real time data transmitters. [320230]
Paul Clark: The responsibility for determining what equipment should be installed on aircraft registered in the EU now rests with the European Aviation Safety Agency.
Departmental Contracts
Mr. Touhig: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what criteria his Department uses in determining the award of contracts; and how much his Department and its predecessors spent on the advertisement of tenders for Government contracts since 1997. [303097]
Chris Mole: The Department for Transport is required to comply with the Public Contract Regulations 2006 which require contracts above the EU threshold to be awarded based on the "most economically advantageous tender" or "the lowest priced tender". However, it is Government policy to award contracts on the basis of the most advantageous tender and the Department follows this policy in respect of its tender evaluations.
The Department does not hold centrally information relating to the costs of advertising tenders and it could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, from the information that is available, the Department has spent £51,560 on advertisement of tenders since the Department was formed in May 2002.
Departmental Plants
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how much (a) his Department and (b) its agencies spent on pot plants in 2009-10 to date. [319209]
Chris Mole: The requested information is as follows:
(a) £13,724
(b) £57,514
The above expenditure typically relates to interior displays in the public reception areas of Department for Transport offices and in some cases includes maintenance costs.
All expenditure was incurred in accordance with the principles of Managing Public Money and the Treasury handbook on Regularity and Propriety. We need to provide an environment where people work well and the provision of plants contributes to this, but we recognise the figure is high. These costs will therefore be significantly reduced over the next year along with other efficiency savings.
The data above exclude the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA). VOSA does not record the information requested and this can be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Temporary Staff
Grant Shapps: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport from which companies his Department sourced temporary staff in each of the last three years; how many temporary staff his Department employed in each year; and what the monetary value of the contracts with each such company was in each such year. [320013]
Chris Mole: The Department for Transport and its executive agencies operate separate finance and human resource systems and there are no centralised records relating to the numbers of temporary staff employed or the value of contracts with suppliers used to source temporary staff. To search across the Department's disparate finance and human resource systems to obtain this information would incur disproportionate cost.
Information relating to spend on temporary staff is published in the Department's annual report. In the past three years these figures are:
| £ million | |
Where records are available, the numbers of temporary staff employed by the Department in the past three years are:
| Number | |
A table has been placed in the Libraries of the House showing the suppliers that the Department has used to source temporary staff between April 2007 and March 2009 and spend during this period.
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