---

Department of Health: DEL

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health (Alan Johnson) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Subject to the necessary supplementary estimate, the Department of Health's element of the departmental expenditure limit (DEL) will be increased by £7,208,000 from £93,848,552,000 to £93,855,760,000 and the administration cost limit will be increased by £6,370,000 from £224,633,000 to £231,003,000. The Food Standards Agency DEL remains unchanged at £154,339,000. The overall DEL including the Food Standards Agency will increase by £7,208, 000 from £94,002,891,000 to £94,010,099,000. The impact on resource and capital are set out in the following table.

	Change		New DEL
	Voted	Non-voted	Voted	Non-voted	Total
Department of Health	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million
Resource DEL	2,474.227	-2,467.293	91,266.570	-1,730.982	89,535.588
Of which:
Administration budget*	6.370		231.003		231.003
Near-cash in Resource DEL	1,617.979	-1,430.783	86,424.838	-584.733	85,840.105
Capital DEL	66.075	-65.801	1,803.265	2,516.907	4,320.172
Total Department of Health DEL	2,540.302	-2,533.094	93,069.835	785.925	93,855.760
Depreciation**	114.672	76.313	-785.253	-109.569	-894.822
Total Department of Health spending (after adjustment)	2,654.974	-2,456.781	92,284.582	676.356	92,960.938
Food Standards Agency
Resources			152.392		152.392
Of which:
Administration budget*			56.515		56.515
Near-cash in Resource DEL			149.584		149.584
Capital			1.947		1.947
Total Food Standards Agency DEL
Depreciation*			-2.004		-2.004
Total Food Standards Agency spending (after adjustment)			152.335		152.335

* The total of “administration budget” and “Near cash in Resource DEL” figures may well be greater that the total resource DEL, due to definitions overlapping.

** Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since the capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

The Department of Health DEL has increased by £7,208,000 made up of:

the take-up of £6,000,000 (administration costs) end-year flexibility as announced in the provisional outturn White Paper (Cm 7156) for a range of planned non-recurrent expenditure which includes; activities for professional, regulation and leadership and the “Five Programmes with the NHS” work, £838,000 (£214,000 capital) for round 8 and 9 Invest to Save budget awards; a transfer of £370,000 (administration costs) from the Cabinet Office for services of the Parliamentary Counsel; and

19 Feb 2008 : Column WS27

a £60,000 adjustment to budgets which reduces capital charges (revenue) for care standards tribunal services (which moved from the Ministry of Justice) and increases capital by £60,000.

The Department of Health’s administration cost limit has increased by £6,370,000 as described above.

There is no change to the Food Standards Agency element of the DEL.

EU: Competitiveness Council

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office & Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Lord Jones of Birmingham): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Consumer Affairs (Gareth Thomas) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I will be attending the EU Competitiveness Council in Brussels on 25 February.

The two main agenda items are likely to be the Lisbon economic reform process, and the single market review. The council will be invited to adopt a key issues paper on the renewed Lisbon strategy. This will form the Competitiveness Council’s contribution to the spring European Council. The council will then be invited to adopt conclusions on the Commission’s single market review. The review follows much of what the UK called for—a new flexible approach to single market policy that puts the emphasis on promoting competition, reducing the burden of regulation, and encouraging innovation. It is important that the UK builds on the success of the review by ensuring positive conclusions.

The only other substantive agenda item for which BERR is responsible will be:

Strategic energy technologies (SET) action plan (an exchange of views). The UK strongly supports the need at member state and EU level to increase the scale and impact of our investments in low-carbon technologies.

There will be seven further items taken under any other business for which BERR is responsible:

a presentation by the Commission on its recent package of proposals for the European defence industry;information from the presidency on emissions of CO2 from passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles;information from the Commission on a consumer markets scoreboard;information from the presidency on the recent European Clusters Conference;information from the presidency on the climate-energy legislative package;information from the Commission on the single market scoreboard; and information from the Commission on better regulation.

19 Feb 2008 : Column WS28

EU: Employment and Social Policy Ministers' Meeting

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (James Plaskitt) has made the following Statement.

The Employment and Social Policy Informal Meeting was held on 31 January to 2 February in Brdo, Slovenia. I represented the UK.

The theme of the informal was “How best to respond to the common principles of Flexicurity”, following their adoption at last year’s December Council. There was broad consensus around the concept of flexicurity and the discussion was positive and forward-looking, but there was no agreement on how to make the flexicurity principles a reality.

Ministers agreed that there was no one model to copy, but that we could usefully learn from each other’s experiences. All member states raised the importance of better training and lifelong learning, and the need to anticipate the economy’s future requirements. There was also a strong focus on the need to facilitate job transitions, modernising social protection systems to ensure their long-term fiscal sustainability and ensuring that flexicurity worked for all workers, with a particular focus on young and older workers.

I spoke on the importance of maintaining flexibility at a time of economic uncertainty, the need to promote new approaches to skills and lifelong learning, and support for the idea of a European skills review.

The French also launched their idea of a “flexicurity mission”. Its objective would be to explain flexicurity and what it meant in terms of reforms to European citizens. The mission would visit a few member states before reporting back to the council during the French presidency.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: DEL

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David Miliband) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Subject to parliamentary approval of any necessary supplementary estimate, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office departmental expenditure limit (DEL) will be increased by £235,038,000 from £1,888,455,000 to £2,123,493,000. The administration budget will decrease by £9,424,000 from £870,060,000 to £860,636,000. Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the following table:

19 Feb 2008 : Column WS29

	Change £000		New DEL		£’000
	Voted	Non- Voted	Voted	Non- Voted	Total
Resource	139,059	-5,000	1,950.523	5,862	1,956,385
Of which:
Administration budget *	-9,424	-	860,636	-	860,636
Near-cash in Resource DEL	154,059	-5,000	1,808,804	5,862	1,814,666
Capital**	60,814	-	243,567	-	243,567
Depreciation	40,165	-	-76,459	-	-76,459
Total	240,038	-5,000	2,117,631	5,862	2,123,493

* The total of “Administration budget” and “Near-cash in Resource DEL” figures may well be greater than total resource DEL, due to the definitions overlapping.

** Capital DEL includes items treated as resource in estimates and accounts but which are treated as capital DEL in budgets.

Depreciation, which forms part of resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of those assets would lead to double counting.

---