Lords Hansard Written Answers text for 30 May 2002

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30 May 2002 : Column WA163

Written Answers

Thursday, 30th May 2002.

House of Lords: Medical Screening for Members

Lord Jopling asked the Chairman of Committees:

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff): The House agreed last year that each Member of the House should be offered free medical screening once every three years on a rolling basis. The service will begin on 10 June 2002, under contract with St Thomas' Hospital. Screenings and follow-up interviews will take place in the premises of the Occupational Health and Welfare Service, which will start issuing invitations to Members to make appointments shortly.

Arms Exports

Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:

(a) from Hong Kong to mainland China (which is under existing European Union arms embargo); (b) from Jordan to Iraq;

(d) from Singapore to other countries.[HL4350]

The Minister for Trade (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): We assess all export licence applications on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria. The consolidated criteria clearly state that we would not issue licences where there is a risk that exports might be diverted to undesirable end-users. The criteria were set out in the answer given by my right honourable friend the Member for Neath to my honourable friend the Member for Crawley on 26 October 2000 (Official Report, Commons; col. 199–203W).

To assess the risk of diversion we examine open and sensitive source reports, and classified reports from our posts overseas. We have introduced a number of safeguards in order to minimise the risk of diversion; and those measures are under constant review. We do not disclose specific details of our safeguards, as they largely depend on information obtained from sensitive sources which is exempt from disclosure under part 2 section 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

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With specific reference to the countries you name:

(a) Officials from FCO, MoD, DTI and HM Customs & Excise undertake regular visits to Hong Kong to see how effectively its export control system is working. On the basis of their visits, we retain confidence in Hong Kong's independent strategic trade controls. Customs procedures are rigorously enforced. As the late Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Mr Derek Fatchett announced on 14 January 1998, in order to fulfil our obligations under the EU embargo on China, goods which we would not approve for export to the Chinese armed forces in mainland China will not be permitted for export for military end-use in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Official Report, Commons; col. 221W).

(b) We do not believe it is in Jordan's security interests to divert arms to Iraq now. Although the Jordanian Government have close relations with Iraq, we do not believe they would divert military equipment there. Jordan has consistently supported implementation of UN sanctions.

(c) When assessing small arms export licence applications for Paraguay, the risk of diversion is carefully considered. Our embassy in Asuncion is asked on each occasion for an assessment of the risk of diversion and, if necessary, to check the bona fides of the proposed end-user locally.

(d) The Singaporeans are aware that we would be concerned over any diversion and that we would act if we found evidence of it. Our post in Singapore often carries out checks on proposed end-users when a licence application is being considered.

NHS: Patient Contact Measures

Lord Morris of Manchester asked Her Majesty's Government:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): Commissioners, the professions and the Department of Health used total face-to-face contacts as a measure of activity levels. However the review group report on Korner Community Health Services and Cross Sector Returns details the weaknesses of using total contacts with patients as, for example, they represent only a small part of work done and there is no measure of quality of care or outcome. Collection of this information was also seen as particularly burdensome by the professional groups involved in the review. For these reasons, total face-to-face contacts were judged to be ill suited as a measure of workload and the review

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group recommended that the count of total face-to-face contacts should be abandoned. This recommendation was accepted by Ministers and collection of information about total face-to-face contacts was discontinued for 2000–01.

Information about first contacts, the number of patients seen in a financial year, and initial contacts, the number of episodes of care in a year, were seen as more useful measures of activity and the review group's recommendation that these should be retained was also accepted by Ministers.

The review group report also urged commissioners who use total face-to-face contacts to take the opportunity to consider and move to more appropriate measures of activity. This was regarded as a matter for local commissioners and service providers to determine and agree between themselves with due regard to local circumstances. The department has not collected information about these local commissioning arrangements and information about the numbers of commissioners who have moved to different systems of measurement, and what these systems are, is therefore not available centrally. Furthermore, the department would not seek to impose an additional data collection of this nature on the National Health Service where there is no central requirement for the information.