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Reserve Forces Call-out Order

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ivor Caplin) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

A new call-out order has been made under Section 56 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 so that Reservists may continue to be called out to support operations in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The order will take effect from 1 March 2004, the date the previous order expires. There are no plans to call out Reservists compulsorily under this order as it is expected that the small numbers needed will be met through volunteers for service in those countries.

British Forces in the Gulf: Free Packet Service

Lord Bach: My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Defence (Mr Adam Ingram) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

On 17 April 2003, with the generous support of the Royal Mail Group, the Ministry of Defence introduced a free postal service to enable families to post packets up to 2 kg free of charge to BFPO addresses in the Gulf. The provision of a free packet service recognised the difficult conditions personnel were operating in and that it was not possible to provide the full spectrum of welfare support normally available to personnel on operations. While southern Iraq is not yet a benign environment, the level of welfare support and the facilities available on Operation TELIC are now comparable to those provided in other operational theatres.

It has therefore been decided that from 8 April 2004 with the handover of 20 Armoured Brigade to 1 Mechanised Brigade this free service will cease. This date should allow for any Easter gifts to be sent under the free service.

In common with other operations, personnel in Iraq are provided with free forces air letters and their electronic counterparts ("Blueys" and "eblueys") in addition to free Internet access and free 20-minute phone calls each week. Families may also send packets up to 2 kg in weight to personnel in the Gulf at a concessionary rate—the equivalent of the UK inland first class postal rate. The NAAFI/Expeditionary Forces Institute also sells through its outlets in theatre many of the small consumable items that families were previously sending to personnel and this has lead to a significant decline in the demand for the free packet service.

Olympic Games 2012: London Bid

The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker): My right honourable friend the First Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

1 Mar 2004 : Column WS47

London's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games is focused on the Olympic Park in the lower Lea Valley. The London Development Agency submitted an outline planning application for the park and four ancillary applications to the Joint Planning Authorities Team (representing Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest London boroughs) on 30 January 2004. Decisions on these, and any subsequent applications, are matters for the local authorities concerned. However, it is possible that decisions in relation to these applications could fall to be determined by me as First Secretary of State (either on appeal or if applications were to be called in). I and other Ministers in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister have other policy responsibilities, including the delivery of development and regeneration in the Thames Gateway and the role that the London Olympics bid might play in achieving these objectives. In order to ensure that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Guidance on Propriety Issues in the Handling of Planning Casework is followed, I have decided that any planning decisions arising for the First Secretary of State in respect of development related to the Olympics bid will be dealt with by my honourable friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford. She will not be involved in any other matters relating to the Olympics bid.

Civil Defence Grant

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My right honourable friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office has made the following Written Ministerial Statement today.

The aggregate of civil defence grants to be made for the financial year 2004–05 is £19,038,000. £100,000 will be retained as discretionary grant for special projects and special events deemed of benefit to the wider civil protection community in England and Wales. The remaining £18,938,000 will be allocated to individual authorities as set out below.

Local Authority	Grant Allocation 2004–05 (£)
Anglesey/Ynys Mon	61,342
Barking & Dagenham	75,969
Barnet	80,694
Barnsley	76,076
Bath & 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 & 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
Hatton	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 & 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

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To determine the individual allocations the following formula was adopted:

Each authority received £53,000. Each county council received £12,000 in respect of each shire district within the authority's boundaries. These flat-rate payments accounted for approximately 65 per cent of the aggregate grant in recognition of the fact that every authority, regardless of size and population, would incur similar unavoidable costs in conducting the basic civil protection function.

The remaining 35 per cent of the aggregate grant was distributed according to the Bellwin threshold, using population size as a proxy for the scale of the civil protection that authorities need to undertake.

This formula is retained by agreement with the Local Government Association.

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