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8 Mar 2010 : Column 65W—continued
Departmental Pay
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much was paid in reimbursable expenses to special advisers in his Department in each of the last five years. [320482]
Mr. Michael Foster: This information cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate costs.
Fairtrade Initiative
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what contribution his Department is making to Fairtrade Fortnight. [320286]
Mr. Thomas: I refer the hon. Lady to the oral answer provided by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander on 3 March 2010, Official Report, column 930.
Anne Main: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what contribution his Department has made to Fairtrade Fortnight. [320951]
Mr. Thomas: I refer the hon. Lady to the oral answer provided by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander on 3 March 2010, Official Report, column 930.
Haiti: Earthquakes
Mr. Touhig: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent steps his Department has taken together with British charities to co-ordinate the provision of assistance to Haiti. [320288]
Mr. Michael Foster:
The Department for International Development (DFID) maintains a close relationship with British non-governmental organisations. Since the earthquake in Haiti I have had four meetings with civil society groups to discuss how the UK can best provide assistance. One of the meetings was also attended by
Sir John Holmes, United Nations Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, who is leading the co-ordination of the international relief effort in Haiti.
Illegal Immigrants
Mr. Syms: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many staff his Department and its agencies have appointed who were later discovered to be illegal immigrants since 2005. [320446]
Mr. Michael Foster: The Department for International Development (DFID) has not appointed any staff members who were later discovered to be illegal immigrants.
Languages
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many (a) Ministers and (b) civil servants in his Department received coaching in a foreign language in the last 12 months; what expenditure his Department incurred in providing such coaching; and in what languages such coaching was provided. [320542]
Mr. Michael Foster: The Department for International Development (DFID) has not funded foreign language coaching for a Minister in the last 12 months.
DFID does not hold a central record of the number of staff who have received coaching in a foreign language. Requirements for language training are assessed by individual Departments and overseas offices and are funded by departmental training budgets. It is not possible to provide this information without incurring disproportionate costs.
Overseas Aid: HIV Infection
Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development with reference to his Department's announcement of 4 November 2009 on funding for HIV prevention, whether the £220 million for HIV and neglected diseases health research was part of the £6 billion allocation for health systems announced as part of its HIV/AIDS strategy. [320295]
Mr. Michael Foster: The £220 million for HIV and neglected diseases health research announcement on 4 November 2009 is part of the £6 billion allocation for health systems announced in the Department for International Development's (DFID's) HIV/AIDS strategy.
Mr. Lancaster: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development with reference to his Department's announcement of 4 November 2009 on funding for health research into HIV and neglected diseases, how much of the sum committed has been spent to date; and on which projects. [320296]
Mr. Michael Foster: To date, the Department for International Development (DFID) has committed a total of £115 million to the following projects for the period 2008-13:
£40 million to the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI);
£20 million to the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM);
£18 million to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi);
£18 million to the TB Alliance (TBA);
£19 million to Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV).
Of this total committed, £35.5 million has been spent so far.
Somalia: Overseas Aid
Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what estimate he has made of the extent of starvation in refugee camps at Afgooye, Somalia; and what steps his Department is taking to provide humanitarian assistance. [320519]
Mr. Thomas: The United Nations estimates that 366,000 internally displaced people (IDP) are living in refugee camps at Afgooye and that one in four children in these camps are affected by high rates of chronic malnutrition.
The Department for International Development (DFID) will spend at least £11.5 million on humanitarian assistance in Somalia in the current financial year. DFID is a major contributor to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund which disbursed £16.9 million to Somalia in 2009, and to the European Community Humanitarian Office which disbursed £19.6 million in 2009.
Trade Unions
Mr. Syms: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how many days staff of his Department spent on trade union activity in the latest year for which figures are available; and what recent estimate he has made of the annual cost to the public purse of such activity. [320617]
Mr. Michael Foster: The Department for International Development (DFID) has one member of full-time staff allocated to undertake trade union activities. The salary of that staff member is in the range from £30,000 to £35,000 a year.
In addition, all trade union members are allowed a reasonable amount of time to attend official union meetings. DFID does not hold a central record of the total time spent on such activity.
Trades Union Congress
Mr. Syms: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much funding his Department and its agencies have given to the Trades Union Congress since 1997-98; and for what purposes. [320490]
Mr. Michael Foster: The Department for International Development (DFID) has provided £2.58 million to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the period from 2002-03 to date. This support was made available on the basis that it would be used solely for development assistance purposes as defined in the International Development Act (2002) and has enabled the TUC to work with unions abroad in support of basic political freedoms in countries such as Iraq and Zimbabwe.
Information prior to this is not held on current financial systems and cannot be retrieved without incurring disproportionate costs.
Work and Pensions
Baptist Union of Great Britain
Mr. Vaizey: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) if she will meet representatives of the Baptist Union of Great Britain to discuss the effects of section 75 of the Pension Act 2004 on their organisation; [320872]
(2) when she intends to reply to the letters dated 15 January and 9 February 2010 from the hon. Member for Wantage about the effect of section 75 of the Pension Act 2004 on the Baptist Union of Great Britain; [320873]
(3) if she will make an assessment of the effects of section 75 of the Pension Act 2004 on the Baptist Union of Great Britain; and if she will make a statement. [321172]
Angela Eagle: I replied to the hon. Member on 6 March 2010.
Where an employer ceases to participate actively in a multi-employer defined benefit pension scheme, section 75 of the Pensions Act 1995 provides that it may be required to pay an "employer debt". This is a sum of money payable to the pension scheme. The policy behind the employer debt requirements is to provide protection for pension scheme members after a sponsoring employer ceases to participate.
The Baptist Union of Great Britain has particular concerns about the way that section 75 applies to their pension scheme. I have therefore asked my officials to meet representatives of the Baptist Union to discuss their concerns. They will report to me about the outcome of the meeting.
Cold Weather Payments: Highlands of Scotland
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many cold weather payments have been made and how much has been paid out to households in the Highlands in winter 2009-10. [320191]
Helen Goodman [holding answer 4 March 2010]: The information requested is not available for the Highlands. Cold weather payment information is available only by weather station. There are a number of weather stations that cover the Highlands area and some of these also cover areas that are not part of the Highlands.
For winter 2009-10, for Great Britain, to 1 March an estimated 11.8 million cold weather payments worth an estimated £295 million have been authorised. Payments authorised have not necessarily already been paid.
Source: DWP records of triggers to weather stations up to and including 1 March 2010 and estimates of potential qualifiers by weather station.
Departmental Advertising
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much her Department has spent on (a) print, (b) online, (c) television and (d) radio advertising in each of the last five years; how much has been spent on advertising in 2009-10 to date; and what percentage of advertising expenditure in each year was managed by the Central Office of Information. [309899]
Jim Knight: Government policies and programmes affect the lives of millions of people and in order for them to work they must be communicated effectively. However, this has also to be done with cost efficiency in mind and there are strict rules to ensure value for money on Government advertising. The Department for Work and Pensions provides services for over 20 million people, from helping the most vulnerable pensioners to getting people back to work, and communications activity is designed to raise awareness of these vital services.
Advertising spend within the DWP covers both campaign advertising and recruitment advertising. For 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 data are only available to confirm overall media spend by the Department via COI. For 2008-09 data are only available to confirm media spend via COI and by direct advertising. Fully audited figures for spending on advertising for 2009-10 are not available at this time.
| £million | ||
| COI | Direct | |
| (1 )Data unavailable or not held centrally for these specific years and it would incur disproportionate cost in the gathering of these data. Note: All costs are exclusive of VAT, COI fees, advertising rebates and audit adjustments and are for media spend only. They also exclude the cost of creative work, research, production of supporting materials or launch events. | ||
Departmental Contracts
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many bids have been made for work choice programmes; and in how many of those bids sub-contractors have been streamlined. [320077]
Jonathan Shaw [holding answer 2 March 2010]: A total of 120 invitation to tender bids for the work choice programme have been submitted by 23 organisations. The supply chain associated with these submissions comprises of 91 organisations from the public sector, 46 organisations from the private sector and 92 organisations from the third sector.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether her Department holds for benchmarking purposes information on the operation of the Prime Contractor model in (a) Australia and (b) the Netherlands. [320103]
Jim Knight [holding answer 2 March 2010]: The Department does not use information on the prime contractor models in Australia or the Netherlands to carry out systematic benchmarking exercises. Information on these and other models is referred to on an ongoing basis to inform the implementation and evaluation of the DWP Commissioning Strategy.
Departmental Drinking Water
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much her Department spent on bottled drinking water in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [313030]
Jim Knight: Because bottled water for meetings was previously sourced from a variety of contracts, and not accounted for separately, the amount spent in earlier years could be provided only at a disproportionate cost. The Department stopped the provision of brought in bottled water for meetings in July 2008. Since then the Department has been using an on-site system in three large sites, which bottles tap water and uses re-usable bottles. The cost of this system from July 2008 to March 2009 was approximately £18,000.
Departmental Energy
Andrew Stunell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the estimated (a) amount and (b) cost was of energy used in her Department and its agencies in each year since 1997; what proportion of the energy used was generated from renewable sources in each of those years; and if she will make a statement. [317233]
Jonathan Shaw: The following table gives the amount of total energy consumed (electricity, fossil fuels and gas), the cost of that energy for each of the years 1999-2009 and the total electricity consumed (standard and renewable), for the Department for Work and Pensions and its Executive agencies, as reported in the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) annual reports, and their predecessors.
Figures are only available from 1999-2000-the baseline year for the current carbon reduction targets. The first full year of DWP operations was 2002-03, following its creation in June 2001. Figures for earlier years are not available.
The term renewable energy refers only to electricity, which is shown as a percentage of the total electricity used in the following table. During the last year the proportion of renewable energy procured decreased due to increasing demand across the energy sector.
| Total energy (kWh) | Cost (£ million) | Total electricity (kWh) | Renewable electricity (percentage) | |
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