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Lighthouses

Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the Written Answer by Lord Macdonald of Tradeston on 5 November (WA 92-93), whether they have received representations about bringing lighthouses around Britain and Ireland under the British-Irish Council; and, if so, from whom.[HL252]

The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston): We have received one representation from the Northern Ireland Executive concerning lighthouses in Ireland and Northern Ireland only.

European Bus Directive

Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the reply by Lord McIntosh of Haringey on 27 November (HL Deb, cols. 743–44), what is the position with the European Bus Directive, and whether the future of the double-decker bus is assured.[HL331]

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: The directive was adopted on 20 November 2001. Officials at the Department of Transport are in the process of completing initial consultations requesting views on the proposed method of implementing it into UK legislation. We are proposing to integrate the requirements of the directive into a consolidation of existing bus and coach regulations to make them simpler and easier to understand. It is hoped to implement this consolidation in the latter half of 2003.

The directive will have no effect on the use of existing double-decker buses operating in the UK. Our regulations will permit the current design of low-floor, accessible double-decker buses to continue to be produced.

Civil Defence Grants

Baroness Gale asked Her Majesty's Government:

If they will publish (a) the aggregate amount of civil defence grants to be made for the financial year 2003–04, (b) the amount of grant to be paid in to each local authority, and (c) any formula or other criteria used to determine the allocation between authorities. [HL370]

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: The aggregate amount is £19,038,000 of which £100,000 will be retained as discretionary grant for special projects and special events deemed of benefit to the wider emergency planning community in England and Wales.

The remaining £18,938,000 will be allocated to individual authorities as set out in the table below.

3 Dec 2002 : Column WA94

The grants have been allocated in the same way as last year, but with each authority receiving an equal share of the additional £70,000 available. Every authority thereby receives a slight increase in grant of £386.

Local Authority	Grant Allocation 2003–04 (£)
Anglesey/Ynys Mon	61,342
Barking and Dagenham	75,969
Barnet	80,694
Barnsley	76,076
Bath and North East Somerset	90,011
Bedfordshire	136,511
Bexley	78,758
Birmingham	187,380
Blackburn with Darwen	70,658
Blackpool	66,662
Blaenau Gwent	63,083
Bolton	82,674
Bournemouth	70,122
Bracknell Forest	63,899
Bradford	125,756
Brent	86,592
Bridgend	68,323
Brighton and Hove	81,172
Bristol	98,486
Bromley	84,980
Buckinghamshire	200,557
Bury	71,195
Caerphilly	73,088
Calderdale	74,574
Cambridgeshire	163,057
Camden	84,175
Cardiff	87,322
Carmarthenshire	73,858
Ceredigion	64,143
Cheshire	189,969
Conwy	64,811
Cornwall	189,279
Corporation of London	60,145
Coventry	77,776
Croydon	90,666
Cumbria	216,116
Darlington	63,899
Denbighshire	71,434
Derby	76,503
Derbyshire	220,459
Devon	217,294
Doncaster	85,516
Dorset	175,886
Dudley	82,908
Durham	213,601
Ealing	90,344
East Riding of Yorkshire	72,166
East Sussex	208,288
Enfield	88,198
Essex	315,112
Flintshire	77,741
Gateshead	79,140
Gloucestershire	189,960
Greater Manchester FCDA	64,060
Greenwich	86,482
Gwynedd	67,698
Hackney	88,145
Halton	68,137
Hammersmith and Fulham	76,719
Hampshire	298,996
Haringey	85,624
Harrow	65,726
Hartlepool	64,650
Havering	77,685
Herefordshire	70,229
Hertfordshire	310,886
Hillingdon	81,386
Hounslow	80,742
Hull (Kingston upon Hull)	72,265
Isle of Wight	72,230
Isles of Scilly	53,708
Islington	83,424
Kensington and Chelsea	74,788
Kent	339,586
Kingston upon Thames	67,654
Kirklees	95,431
Knowsley	74,359
Lambeth	87,789
Lancashire	315,233
Leeds	172,987
Leicester	88,896
Leicestershire	192,957
Lewisham	83,978
Lincolnshire	212,793
Liverpool	97,648
London FEPA	151,825
Luton	59,894
Manchester	147,667
Medway	81,547
Merseyside FCDA	73,332
Merthyr Tydfil	60,998
Merton	72,053
Middlesbrough	71,355
Milton Keynes	81,404
Monmouthshire	62,154
Neath Port Talbot	70,259
Newcastle Upon Tyne	102,823
Newham	88,226
Newport	68,616
Norfolk	276,813
North East Lincolnshire	71,624
North Lincolnshire	69,532
North Somerset	71,248
North Tyneside	74,091
North Yorkshire	244,523
Northamptonshire	239,260
Northumberland	188,122
Nottingham	86,321
Nottinghamshire	210,927
Oldham	79,294
Oxfordshire	202,459
Pembrokeshire	66,735
Peterborough	72,214
Plymouth	81,708
Poole	66,635
Portsmouth	74,467
Powys	85,886
Reading	67,386
Redbridge	82,566
Redcar and Cleveland	69,693
Rhondda Cynon Taff	82,319
Richmond upon Thames	69,424
Rochdale	77,310
Rotherham	81,654
Rutland	56,443
Salford	72,386
Sandwell	88,413
Sefton	84,015
Sheffield	96,386
Shropshire	153,834
Slough	68,566
Solihull	73,716
Somerset	164,359
South Gloucestershire	76,183
South Tyneside	71,516
South Yorkshire FCDA	84,356
Southampton	77,470
Southend	71,966
Southwark	77,343
St Helens	73,333
Staffordshire	226,842
Stockport	79,992
Stockton-on-Tees	73,877
Stoke-on-Trent	74,413
Suffolk	221,786
Sunderland	101,107
Surrey	297,388
Sutton	73,126
Swansea	78,933
Swindon	71,355
Tameside	77,310
Telford and Wrekin	72,385
Thurrock	68,666
Torbay	67,440
Torfaen	64,876
Tower Hamlets	93,509
Trafford	75,754
Tyne and Wear FCDA	34,892
Vale of Glamorgan	72,385
Wakefield	86,667
Walsall	83,639
Waltham Forest	83,532
Wandsworth	79,155
Warrington	72,804
Warwickshire	181,722
West Berkshire	67,815
West Midlands FCDA	60,386
West Sussex	225,386
West Yorkshire FCDA	61,593
Westminster	86,804
Wigan	84,497
Wiltshire	194,786
Windsor and Maidenhead	66,796
Wirral	89,861
Wokingham	66,525
Wolverhampton	82,030
Worcestershire	186,835
Wrexham	72,926
York	72,220

3 Dec 2002 : Column WA96

HMS "Nottingham"

Lord Burlison asked Her Majesty's Government:

What plans they have for the repair of HMS "Nottingham".[HL371]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): When the destroyer HMS "Nottingham" grounded in Australian waters on 7 July 2002 she sustained severe damage and flooding in the forward part of the ship. She is now on passage to the UK on a heavy lift ship and is expected to arrive in United Kingdom waters on 7 December. She will then be unloaded and towed into HM naval base at Portsmouth where a contract has been placed for her repair with Fleet Support Limited. The repair work—which will cost around £26 million, including all materials supplied by the department—is expected to last up to 18 months. HMS "Nottingham" is expected to return to operational service in November 2004.

HMS "Nottingham" is a highly capable Type 42 destroyer designed to provide area air defence either independently or as an integral component of larger joint or coalition maritime task groups. Her key weapons, sensors and command system were significantly ungraded during an extensive refit in

3 Dec 2002 : Column WA97

1999–2000. These improvements will enable the ship to keep pace with the increasing demands of maritime air defence during the next 10 years and will aid interoperability with key allies, in particular the USA. HMS "Nottingham's" contribution will be crucial to bridging the air defence gap during the drawdown in Sea Harrier air defence aircraft beginning in 2005 and the introducton of the Type 45 destroyer from 2007.

To ease the short-term programming gap in the fleet created by HMS "Nottingham's" unavailability, HMS "Glasgow", an older and less capable Type 42, is being regenerated from a planned state of lower readiness. An alternative solution which would have given HMS "Glasgow" a similar capability upgrade to that received by HMS "Nottingham" was deemed to provide best value for money.

Armed Forces: Invalidity Pensions

Lord Howie of Troon asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the internal review of mistaken taxation of some Armed Forces invalidity pensions has been completed.[HL372]

Lord Bach: On 25 April 2002 (Official Report, cols. 426–27W), we informed the House in another place that the problem of mistaken taxation of some service invalidity pensions were more extensive than previously understood. We reported that we had set up an internal review, independent of the staffs involved, to establish the extent of the taxation errors and expose any related problems. This review is now complete.

The review has established that the taxation problem is more extensive than we indicated in April. It is now clear that some RAF pensions are affected, and that RN pensions affected are not limited to the period 1973–99. In addition, the review has found that further work is needed on Army pensions; this is required both to re-examine more thoroughly certain cases adjudged when first reviewed as correctly taxed, and to examine for the first time some other cases previously not thought to be at risk.

The findings of the review mean that the number of files needing examination has proved considerably larger than we stated previously. We now expect it will not be possible to complete a comprehensive check for all three services before next summer. We regret that this work cannot be done faster, but it is vital that it be done accurately by suitably cleared staff who are also familiar with the relevant documents. The pace of the work is also affected by the lack of comprehensive

3 Dec 2002 : Column WA98

computerised information distinguishing invalidity pensions from others. This has made it necessary to handle tens of thousands of files which are not at risk in order to identify those that are. This difficulty continues to affect progress.

We are very much aware of the importance of giving as much priority as possible to examining the cases of our oldest pensioners. Although over 70 per cent of errors identified so far affect younger pensioners, discharged in or after 1990, we anticipate that errors still to be found will include some affecting the oldest age-group. We much regret that in several of the cases recently re-examined a pensioner, previously misadvised that his pension was correctly taxed, has died before an error was recognised. In such cases the tax refund is to be paid, with due apology, to the pensioner's widow or estate.

A further problem brought to light by the review is that some of the pensions taxed in error were also affected by an underpayment of Armed Forces pension scheme benefits. Over 350 pensioners have so far been identified in this category, most of whom were discharged in the 1990s. The average underpayment in these cases was around £4,500. The cost to date of rectifying tax errors has been some £5 million, which happens also to be an average of some £4,500 per pensioner.

The review includes a full analysis of the causes of errors and the necessary remedial action; the latter is already in hand. The procedures used in the conduct of the review have been validated by the National Audit Office. The NAO's letter of validation and the report of the review have been placed in the Library of the House.

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