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Questions for Written Answer: Corrections to Commons Answers
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): My right honourable friend the Minister for Europe (Geoff Hoon) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
In my reply on 26 October to the below Question from the honourable Member for Cotswold (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), two pages were omitted from the Answer (Official Report, col. 2071W). I regret this error and now attach the whole reply.
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many redundancies there were in her department in each year since 1997; what the cost of such redundancies was in each year; how many temporary staff were employed in each year; and how many staff were seconded by outside organisations to posts within the department in each year. (95254)
The Minister for Europe (Mr. Geoff Hoon): The rules governing redundancies are set out by the Cabinet Office and include schemes for compulsory early retirement (CER) for officers over 50 and compulsory early severance (CES) for those under 50.
The annual number of junior/middle management officers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) who have taken redundancy through the CER or CES schemes for the years 1997 to 2006 are shown below and include efficiency restructuring in FCO Services. Costs shown for 1997 to 2001 are the total for all early retirements in each of those years. We could not break these figures down further without incurring disproportionate costs. The costs from 2002 to 2006 cover redundancy packages only.
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| Numbers | Costs | |
Since 1995, we have given FCO senior management staff the opportunity to volunteer for early retirement on CER or CES terms if they complete a full posting before retirement age or had been unable to find a suitable appointment within the department. To meet efficiency targets, in particular to reduce substantially the number of staff in the senior management structure, we extended this offer to a wider range of senior officers in September 2004, using funding from HM Treasury's Efficiency Challenge Fund. The numbers of officers who took early retirement on these terms since 1997 are shown below. As mentioned previously, the costs for 1997 to 2001 are totals covering all early retirements; to provide a further breakdown would incur disproportionate costs.
The number of temporary/agency staff employed annually by the FCO is as follows:
The figures listed refer to FCO and FCO Services members of staff on temporary contract whose salary is paid from the FCO pay bill. Officers paid from project or departmental funds have been excluded. Information prior to 2003 has not been included; the research required to collect this data would incur disproportionate costs.
The FCO does not have a central record of the number of staff under contract from agencies. To obtain such figures would incur disproportionate costs.
We do not maintain central records of staff working in the FCO on inward secondment. Individual directorates within the FCO have the authority to recruit and
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The FCO considers inward secondments to be loans from organisations other than government departments or agencies. Loans from other government departments or agencies are known as interchange.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): My honourable friend the Minister of State for Health Services (Rosie Winterton) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
On 18 October, in a Written Answer to the honourable Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) Official Report, col. 1331W, I stated that 187,086 tattoos were removed by the NHS between April 2004 and March 2005. I regret that this figure was incorrect.
A variety of procedures are used to remove tattoos, which are also used in the treatment of other skin conditions. NHS information systems do not record sufficient detail to allow distinction between procedures to remove tattoos and procedures to treat other skin conditions. The Answer was based on a mistaken attempt to estimate the number of tattoos from the information on the wider grouping of skin procedures. That attempt was intended to be helpful, but ended up being misleading, first, because it is not possible from the existing data sets to say with any precision how many tattoos are removed by the NHS each year and, secondly, because clinical advice is that it is likely to be a far smaller number than the figure given.
I have received a formal apology from the Information Centre, which accepts full responsibility for providing an incorrect response to the parliamentary Question.
The Information Centre and the Department of Health place the highest importance on the integrity of information, and I have been assured by the chief executive of the Information Centre and the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health that appropriate steps are being taken to ensure that a similar situation does not recur. I apologise to the House for the error.
UN: Sanctions
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My honourable friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Ed Balls) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
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In line with measures I announced to Parliament on 10 October regarding the strengthening of counter-terrorist financing frameworks, the Government will be seeking the agreement of the Privy Council on 14 November for the adoption of two Orders in Council concerned with giving effect to UN financial sanctions regimes against Al-Qaida and the Taliban, and North Korea. The Government strongly support international efforts to tackle abuse of financial systems and these new orders will further enhance the UK's ability to play its full part in these international actions.
Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006
UN financial sanctions against persons associated with Al-Qaida and the Taliban are currently given effect in the UK through the Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2002. The new order will update these earlier provisions, bringing them into line with the new Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 that came into effect on 12 October 2006.
The Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 will further strengthen our powers to freeze assets, including the property of persons listed at the United Nations under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions or who we suspect are persons acting on their behalf, and to prevent funds or economic resources being made available to them.
North Korea (United Nations Measures) Order 2006
Following North Korea's announced nuclear test, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on 14 October 2006 to adopt resolution 1718 (2006), which calls upon all member states to impose sanctions against North Korea's nuclear, ballistic missile and other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes. The North Korea (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 will give effect to the financial sanctions measures set out in Resolution 1718.
Consistent with the UN Security Council resolutions and with other financial sanctions legislation, both Orders in Council include provisions to allow the Treasury to license exemptions to the restrictions to meet legitimate humanitarian needs.
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