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Lebanon: Hezbollah Weapon Stocks

Lord Turnberg asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): The Government have repeatedly called on Syria and Iran not to supply arms to Hezbollah. During the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah we summoned both the Syrian and Iranian ambassadors in London to raise our concerns with them about the supply of arms. The UK also worked hard with our international partners in securing the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for an embargo on all arms sales to Lebanon unless authorised by the Government of Lebanon or by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. The UK is now working with our international partners to implement Resolution 1701, in particular by strengthening the ability of the democratically elected Lebanese Government to exercise control throughout Lebanon and ensuring that militias, supported and supplied from outside Lebanon, can never again plunge the region into crisis.

Lord Turnberg asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Triesman: Using a definition of a missile as a surface-to-surface rocket, we can make the following estimate. Before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that began on 12 July, Hezbollah claimed, and Israel agreed, that Hezbollah had approximately 12,000 rockets. We have no way of independently verifying this figure, but have no reason to think it was false. During the conflict Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 of its rockets, reducing its stockpile by about one third. We therefore broadly assess that there are about 8,000 rockets remaining in Hezbollah's arsenal. There are no estimates available on the division between short and long range rockets. However, around 90 per cent of rockets fired were short range and this ratio is possibly reflected in the remaining stockpile.

Lord Steinberg asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Triesman: Before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that began on 12 July, Hezbollah claimed, and Israel agreed, that Hezbollah had approximately 12,000 rockets. We have no way of independently verifying this figure, but have no reason to think it was false. During the conflict Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 of its rockets, reducing its stockpile by about one third. We therefore broadly assess that there are about 8,000 rockets remaining in Hezbollah's arsenal.

Living Wills

Lord Lester of Herne Hill asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): People can make a decision in advance to refuse treatment in case they lose capacity to make such decisions in the future. There are a wide range of advance decisions that people will want to make, including written and oral decisions, those made a long time before a person loses capacity and those made, for example, just before an operation takes place.

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) sets out statutory rules governing advance decisions and introduces clear safeguards that are flexible enough to cover all these situations. A registration scheme would impose unnecessary bureaucracy on such decisions. The MCA code of practice will make clear that if an advance decision is not recorded on someone's medical record, they will need to think about what steps they will take to alert others to its existence.

Official Travel: Mr Philip Anschutz

Lord Hanningfield asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Davies of Oldham: The Government Car Service (GCS) is responsible for providing ministerial transport. No GCS car has ever been booked specifically for Mr Philip Anschutz or any of his associates. Furthermore, there is no record of Mr Anschutz or any of his associates ever travelling as passengers in any ministerial car provided by GCS.

Olympic Games 2012: Northern Ireland

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: The members of the Northern Ireland Olympic Task Force have met twice and are currently working on implementing the strategy.

Palestine: Refugees

Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): Total commitments from the European Community and from EU member states to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in 2006 amount to $200.3 million. This compares with total EU commitments in 2005 of $192 million.

The Department for International Development has fully paid its 2006 contribution to UNRWA of £15 million ($27 million). This will help UNRWA to provide essential services such as education, housing and healthcare for Palestinian refugees.

Racism

Lord Dykes asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): Activity to combat racism takes a number of forms, including actions against discrimination and racist crime and positive efforts to improve community cohesion.

The discrimination law review, which is currently under way, will address long-held concerns about inconsistencies in the current anti-discrimination legislative framework, including the Race Relations Act 1976, which deals with discrimination on the ground of race. It is also considering opportunities for creating a clearer and more streamlined legislative framework having due regard to better regulation principles, which will be more “user-friendly” for employers and employees, as well as the providers and consumers of services. We will also consider the report of Trevor Phillips’s equalities review, which is examining the underlying causes of inequality, which we expect to be published early next year. In addition to tackling racial discrimination, the Government are funding projects that are working with people from different communities to overcome racist attitudes and violence.

As we outline in our first annual progress report on our race equality and community cohesion strategy Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society, we are also working to ensure that hate crime (whether race, faith or homophobic) is tackled more effectively. We are improving the local response to hate crime; increasing victims’ confidence in the criminal justice system; increasing the proportion of crimes that are brought to justice; and improving the evidence base on hate crime so that action can be taken against perpetrators.

Railways: Leeds Commuter Services

Lord Greaves asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Davies of Oldham: The funding has not been withdrawn. It has been extended to March 2007 and the department is discussing the aspirations of Northern Rail and the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive to extend the use of carriages beyond that date.

Rally Ireland

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: I have nothing further to add.

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: A business case/economic appraisal for the Rally Ireland World Rally Championship bid was supplied to the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) on 14 September 2005. On 20 September 2005, DCAL made a decision to authorise the Northern Ireland Events Company (NIEC) to provide funding for Rally Ireland's 2005 pilot event.

On 4 January 2006 DCAL received a revised business case/economic appraisal for the World Rally Championship bid and on 20 January 2006 it decided in principle to approve the release of funding for Rally Ireland's 2006 pilot event, subject to the agreement of NIEC and Rally Ireland on a contract for the 2006 event.

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: No funding from the promoters was indicated in the business cases for Rally Ireland 2005 and 2006 events.

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: The grant funding for Rally Ireland was not given on the understanding that it would be given back if the event made money in the future.

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: Details of expenses for the Rally Ireland 2006 event remain to be finalised. However, Rally Ireland has been accredited World Rally Championship status in the 2007 calendar and this will bring significant economic and social benefits to Northern Ireland, due in part to the success of the 2006 event.

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: Details of expenses for the Rally Ireland 2006 event remain to be finalised. However, Rally Ireland has been accredited World Rally Championship status in the 2007 calendar and this will bring significant economic and social benefits to Northern Ireland, due in part to the success of the 2006 event.

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Rooker: The Northern Ireland Events Company offered the Circuit of Ireland up to £6,000 for its 2005 event and up to £70,000 for its 2006 event.

The Northern Ireland Events Company offered Rally Ireland up to £368,931.13 for its 2005 event and up to £647,953.20 for its 2006 event.

Schools: Yellow Bus System

Baroness Scott of Needham Market asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord Davies of Oldham: We are providing £18.7 million over three years to purchase 150 dedicated buses for West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive’s Mybus school bus scheme. The evaluation of this scheme should be completed next year but the initial signs are that there has been some impact in reducing the number of children travelling to school by car and other non-transport benefits have also been reported.

Individual local authorities and passenger transport executives are encouraged to consider these and other dedicated school bus schemes as part of broader local transport planning and decide if they would be appropriate to their area.

The Education and Inspections Bill includes provisions to improve home-to-school transport, including enabling a small number of local authorities to propose pathfinder schemes to pilot innovative approaches to home-to-school transport which would focus on better school bus provision for more pupils and which could include trialling yellow bus schemes.

The Department for Education and Skills has policy responsibility for home-to-school transport and has published the School Travel Pathfinder Draft Prospectus and Guidance alongside the Education and Inspections Bill. This includes details of the criteria that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills will apply in deciding which schemes to approve (www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=9800).

Taxation: Corporation Tax

Baroness Noakes asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord McKenzie of Luton: The Government confirmed on 12 September that they are studying the detail of the judgment carefully and will announce as soon as possible what, if any, changes to the UK’s controlled foreign companies rules are needed to sustain their effectiveness in protecting tax revenues.

Lord Patten asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord McKenzie of Luton: The UK has the lowest headline corporation tax rate among the G7 leading industrial economies. The UK remains a highly competitive location for investment, based on both tax and other factors, receiving more foreign direct investment than any other country apart from the US.

Taxation: Inheritance Tax

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Lord McKenzie of Luton: Inheritance tax receipts are published on the HMRC website at www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_receipts/table1-2.xls. The total estimated receipts for 2006-07 are broadly equivalent to what would be raised by increasing the basic rate of income tax by 1 pence as shown in the relevant tax ready reckoner. www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_expenditures/1_6_apr06.xls. The results cover only the direct effects of tax changes on tax receipts. In practice, changes to the tax regime will affect economic variables which in turn would have further effects on tax receipts.

Trees

Baroness Byford asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): The Department for Communities and Local Government expects to publish the full report and other outputs from the Trees in Towns II research in January 2007.


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