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9 Oct 2006 : Column WS1
Written Statements
Monday 9 October 2006
The first group of 31 Written Statements were received between 26 July and 5 October 2006.
Afghanistan: Drugs
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): My honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Dr Kim Howells) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
Further to my Written Ministerial Statement of 13 July, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced on 2 September its estimate that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan had risen to a record high of 165,000 hectares, up 59 per cent from 104,000 hectares in 2005. On 12 September in Brussels, UNODC released a summary report with a breakdown of cultivation levels by province. UNODC will publish its full annual opium survey for Afghanistan at the end of October. Although anticipated, the scale of the increase in opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is very disappointing. Ninety-two per cent of the 61,000 hectare increase is due to a substantial rise in cultivation in Helmand and three other southern provinces; 70 per cent of the increase is in Helmand alone. This reflects the very difficult security situation and limited law enforcement capability there.
Cultivation varies considerably across the country—both between and within provinces. Three of the four highest poppy cultivating provinces in 2005 are down this year. In Nangarhar cultivation remains at negligible levels across most of the province, which in 2004 was second only to Helmand. Where access to governance, security and development have improved, reductions achieved last year have been sustained, and in some cases, cultivation has fallen further.
Having just returned from Afghanistan, I am convinced that the Afghan Government's national drug control strategy is the right one. Only by tackling the traffickers who profit from the trade, building strong and effective institutions, strengthening and diversifying legal rural livelihoods and dealing with the drug addiction that is taking hold within Afghanistan itself, can we hope to address the problem. President Karzai and his Government are committed to tackling the trade and will take action against the corruption that threatens to undermine these efforts. At the secondNational Counter-Narcotics Conference on 22 August, President Karzai noted that poppy cultivation and the drugs trade was Afghanistan's greatest enemy and that Afghanistan had no option but to eliminate poppy. As partner nation for counter-narcotics, the UK remains determined to work with President Karzai's Government to bring about a sustained reduction in the production of opium and heroin and rid Afghanistan of the scourge of the drugs trade.
Afghanistan: Harrier Deployment
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Drayson): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Des Browne) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
Both the International Security Assistance Force, and coalition forces in Afghanistan, are experiencing a surge in their requirement for air support. To help meet that need, I have decided temporarily to deploy a seventh Harrier GR7a aircraft and a small number of additional personnel to Kandahar airfield. As with any operational commitment, the duration of this deployment will be kept under constant review.
Africa: Humanitarian Update for East Africa and the Horn
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development has made the following Statement.
At the beginning of this year the UN judged that 8.2 million people in East Africa and the Horn were in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, mainly food aid, following the worst drought for a decade. Since then approximately 490,000 million tonnes of food aid has been delivered to respond to these needs. Additional assistance has been provided in the form of emergency medical, nutritional, water and sanitation, shelter and other forms of relief. The UK has provided approximately £55 million or $103.9 million towards this. Overall the international donor community has provided over $660 million towards the relief effort.
The long rains in the early and mid part of 2006 have led to improvements in most areas. Unfortunately, most notably in Ethiopia, flooding has brought its own tragedy as over 600 people have died and more than 150,000 have lost their homes or been affected in one way or another. Most recently DfID has made available a further £6 million for humanitarian assistance in Kenya, where malnutrition rates remain high and current season harvest assessments present a very mixed picture. In Ethiopia we have provided £l million for urgent relief to flood-affected people.
Humanitarian assistance is still needed to address the urgent medical and nutritional needs of the most seriously sick and malnourished, and to meet other basic needs, including clean water, to reduce the risks of death and disease. Basic humanitarian indicators remain worrying, but we expect that the steps taken by relief agencies have mitigated what might have been more serious consequences, such as widespread mortality and displacement. We are closely monitoring the situation.
Assistance is also being provided in an effort to improve productive capacity by investing in livestock or other farming inputs such as seeds, tools and livestock vaccinations. However, it remains a challenge to achieve sustained benefits for the poorest and most vulnerable communities. In Ethiopia we are leading supporters of a productive safety nets programme to tackle chronic hunger. We are working on the development of a similar programme in Kenya. It is also important to note that substantial risks remain from conflict in the region, and we are working closely with the international community to promote peace and stability as a prerequisite to finding long-term solutions to persistent humanitarian crises.
Civil Service: Sickness Absence
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The report Analysis of Sickness Absence in the Home Civil Service 2005 prepared for the Cabinet Office by RED Scientific Limited shows that the headline figure for the average level of sickness absence was 9.8 days per staff year. The report contains a comprehensive analysis of the 2005 figures by department/agency.
The Cabinet Office is continuing to work with other departments and agencies as they work to reduce sickness absence and progress with their implementation of the recommendations of the Managing Attendance in the Public Sector report published by the Ministerial Task Force on Health, Safety and Productivity.
The increase in the number of working days lost was primarily due to a change in the methodology used for analysing data. If the 2004 methodology had been used for the 2005 report, the adjusted average working days lost figure would have been 8.8 days per staff year, a drop of 0.3 days.
Department for Work and Pensions: Office Support Services
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My honourable friend the Minister of State for Pensions Reform (James Purnell) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
After completing a detailed commercial and tendering exercise, I wish to announce that Haden Building Management is to be awarded a seven-year contract for the delivery of a suite of office services to the Department for Work and Pensions.
In January 2005, following a wide-ranging review of support services, senior officials in my department, with the support of Ministers, concluded that bids for the future provision of all our office support services should be invited from specialist external suppliers in the private sector. Inviting bids for a single national contract for the supply of office services from the private sector would allow us to harness the benefits afforded by new technology, organisational efficiencies and the agility to respond to our changing needs as the department is modernised and reformed.
These office support services, which include post opening and despatch, messengerial work, switchboard operations, typing and secretarial services, are currently delivered through a range of external suppliers and in-house teams as well as forming part of the tasks of staff who serve the public directly. These arrangements have served us well in the past but the review concluded that these methods of delivery no longer provided best value for money and that, in their current state, would not provide the best service in the future.
Since the review, officials have been undertaking a competitive tendering exercise, in accordance with EU procurement rules, to select a supplier who can provide the services we require and offer best value for money. Following a rigorous evaluation of bids, the contract has been awarded to Haden Building Management with the new supply arrangements expected to commence on 1 March 2007.
This decision will mean that some jobs currently undertaken by DWP staff and our existing external providers will transfer to the new supplier. In total around 700 DWP staff nationally may transfer. Greatest numbers of DWP staff affected are based in Scotland, Wales and north-west England with other smaller groups in London and the north-east. We recognise that some staff may not wish to transfer and for these we will, where possible, offer the opportunity to redeploy within DWP or other government departments although we cannot guarantee this. Given the general unavailability of suitable alternative posts, however, the likelihood is that many staff engaged in support services will transfer to the new contractor under the protection of TUPE.
Proposals put forward by Haden provide more efficient ways of working and take account of the departmental modernisation programme. This is likely to result in a reduction of staff required to deliver office service contract arrangements over a period of time.
Officials have been meeting with trade unions and keeping staff affected by these changes informed of progress on an ongoing basis. Over the coming months they will continue to consult with trade unions and work with managers and HR advisors on all matters relating to the transfer of staff.
I will keep Members with significant numbers of affected constituents updated on our progress over the next few months. I am confident that these plans, for the future delivery of office services, will help support our overall goal of moving to a leaner and fitter organisation delivering world-class services to our customers.
Disability: Independent Living Review
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Anne McGuire) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
The Office for Disability Issues has set up an expert panel to support the work of the cross-Government independent living review, as announced by my noble friend Lady Royall on 14 July.
The role of the expert panel will be to shape and steer the independent living review which we have set up to identify imaginative and practical solutions to support independent living for disabled people. The independent living review project team will report regularly to the expert panel and ensure that its views are reflected as the review progresses.
The review, which will report in summer 2007, will:
bring together the views and experience of central and local government officials, disabled people and organisations of disabled people;develop imaginative new solutions in the areas of health, social care, transport, employment and housing; develop thinking on the relationship between independent living and individual budgets; and make practical proposals for activity to support independent living.Dame Jane Campbell, former chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, will chair the expert panel. Rob Greig, National Director for Learning Disabilities, will be vice-chairman.
Expert panel members include a range of experts in the field of independent living, including disabled people, and people from organisations of disabled people, user-led groups and service delivery organisations.
I am pleased to announce that members of the independent living review expert panel are:
Government departments on the Office for Disability Issues board of management will also be represented on the panel.
The first meeting of the expert panel is being held today, 11 September 2006.
EU: Economic and Social Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): The Government have submitted to the EU Council Secretariat details of the United Kingdom’s 24 nominees for membership of the Economic and Social Committee. The Government have made these nominations on the basis of a fair and transparent selection process to ensure the UK delegation reflects the social and economic diversity of the United Kingdom.
The present four-year term of the ESC ends in September 2006. The UK divides its 24 members equally between group I (employers), group II (employees) and group III (other interests).
The ESC is a consultative body, which produces opinions for the Council of Ministers on draft legislation. Additionally the Committee can produce its own opinion on any other economic or social issue.
The UK has 24 full members in the ESC from a current total membership 317. There are eight UK members in each of the three groups.
2. Peter Morgan3. Madi Sharma4. Bryan Cassidy5. Jonathan Peel6. David Sears7. Brendan Burns8. Brenda King 10. Sandy Boyle11. Marge Carey12. Peter Coldrick13. Nicolas Crook14. Brian Curtis15. Judy McKnight16. Monica TaylorOther Interests Group (Group III)
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