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This approach will direct additional payments to those people who were disadvantaged under the previous scheme, because they had long Icelandic careers, but received reduced payments or no payments at all as a consequence of the breaks rule, which the Parliamentary Ombudsman criticised in her 2007 Report.

We will consider claims from anyone that applied under the previous schemes, or from anyone that has not applied previously where they can submit good and reliable documentary evidence supporting their claim. We have agreed to add an extra vessel to the original list of Icelandic vessels and will consider the case for adding further vessels, assessing any evidence submitted against criteria based on that used under the previous scheme.

We plan to formally launch the scheme on 31 July. At launch, we will announce the scheme through local newspapers in each of the ports concerned; establish a helpline to deal with queries and issue copies of the application forms and scheme rules; and place this information onto the BIS website. We will also write to everyone that replied to the recent consultation paper. We will allow nine months from launch for people to submit claims. However, no payments will be made until the vessels list has been finalised.

We believe this scheme represents a fair and equitable way forward. It has been designed to meet the concerns raised by the Parliamentary Ombudsman in connection with the previous scheme, and will enable an estimated 1000 former trawlermen to receive additional payments totalling around £5-10 million.

Forced Marriage

Statement

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Crime Reduction (Alan Campbell) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Today the Forced Marriage Unit (a joint Home Office/Foreign and Commonwealth Office unit) launches its Forced Marriage Case Handling Guide for MPs and Constituency Offices.

The guide aims to help Members of Parliament and their staff when they are faced with issues related to forced marriage. It offers background on the issue and gives suggestions of best practice for supporting victims and dealing with their families. It gives details of the Forced Marriage Unit and of non-government organisations which can offer help and advice and also gives contact details of UK embassies/high commissions overseas.

The new guide is available from the House Library. The guide can also be accessed on the Forced Marriage Unit's website at www.fco.gov.uk/forcedmarriage, and further hard copies can be obtained directly from the unit at the following address: Forced Marriage Unit, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Room G58, Old Admiralty Building, London SW1A 2PA.

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Haslar Hospital

Statement

The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): My honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Kevan Jones) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

The Royal Hospital Haslar is an important historical site. It opened to patients in 1754 and formally ceased to be a military hospital in 2007, although it continued treating NHS patients until July this year when clinical facilities and Defence Medical Services personnel were transferred to the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham, and elsewhere.

The future use of this site, which extends to some 23 hectares and comprises around 75,000 square metres of buildings, 13 of which are grade 2 listed, is clearly an important issue locally and nationally. Accordingly, in 2008, the Ministry of Defence commissioned an enquiry by design led by the Prince's Regeneration Trust and the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment. The inquiry concluded that alternative uses should include new enabling development and that every effort should be made to retain some medical and healthcare presence on the site.

An expressions of interest campaign was undertaken earlier this year and a number of bids were received by the closing date. I am announcing today that Our Enterprise, a community interest company that brokers and delivers bespoke commercial partnerships between charities, social investors, commercial operators and the public sector to deliver large-scale integrated regeneration projects, has been chosen as our preferred bidder for the site. Our Enterprise has been chosen as our preferred bidder for the site in accordance with government policy on the disposal of historic buildings. We expect to exchange contracts with the purchaser and complete the transfer by the autumn, if not earlier.

Our Enterprise has a vision of promoting the quality of life for both individuals residing on the site and for Gosport as a whole and will continue social and health care on the site by providing a veterans' village, student accommodation, community healthcare and a commercial centre as well as residential uses.

I believe that the choice of preferred bidder for Haslar is good news for the local community and will preserve the heritage and visual aspects of this important site.

Higher Education

Statement

The First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council (Lord Mandelson): This Government are committed to expanding higher education.

There are currently record numbers of students in higher education with 300,000 additional students in the system since 1997. Government spending on higher education is over 25 per cent higher in real terms than in 1997. By contrast, funding fell by 36 per cent under the previous Government.

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Our expansion of higher education is more important now than ever before, as we continue to invest in developing a highly skilled workforce that is well placed to win the jobs the future economy will offer.

Demand for places this year is unprecedented, demonstrating that people continue to see higher education as a good investment and a valuable route to a good job and rewarding career.

We want to support all those with the aspiration and ability to succeed in higher education. Work with the sector indicates there are institutions able to recruit more students to meet the increased demand without compromising the quality of their offer.

Therefore an extra 10,000 higher education places will be made available to universities this year to support more students in going to higher education this year.

The Government will pay the student support costs for extra places in courses related to the New Industry, New Jobs agenda such as science, technology, engineering and maths-areas which will equip young people with the skills they need for the jobs of the future.

The package will fund the financial support for these students, which includes, for full-time students the fee loans to cover the cost of the tuition fees charged by institutions.

Institutions wishing to take additional students will be able to charge students on full-time courses in England up to £3,225 in tuition fees in 2009-10, the same as for other students. A tuition fee loan is available to eligible students to cover the full cost of the fee.

No additional teaching grant from HEFCE will accompany these additional students. It is for universities to manage their own admissions and we are confident that many will want to offer high quality places to students on this basis.

This is a fiscally neutral change-the costs of supporting the extra students will be met through reprioritising existing budgets and reducing the optional five-year holiday on repayment of student loans to two years.

The repayment holiday on student loans was announced in July 2007. All students starting a higher education course in 2008-09 or later, taking out their first student loan and having a repayment start date of April 2012 or later are entitled to a repayment holiday. The intention is to help borrowers to manage their finances if there are other changes in their lives. Qualifying borrowers will now be offered the choice of putting their student loan repayments on hold for up to two years as opposed to up to five years as announced in July 2007.

The expansion described here is a proposition affordable to the Government and viable for universities in order to meet an important need; helping thousands more people achieve their ambitions.

It is up to individual institutions whether or not or how many places they want to offer on this basis and we will ask HEFCE to oversee the process.

This funding for student support, which will be reprioritised from within existing BIS budgets, is in addition to the extra funding for additional student numbers provided in this year's HEFCE grant letter.

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That funding was expected to result in an additional 3,000 full-time entrants in 2009-10 as well as growth in part-time entrants.

As a result of this announcement, we expect that there will be 50,000 more accepted applicants this year than just three years ago.

Housing

Statement

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): My right honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning (John Healey) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

On 2 April 2009, the Government informed Parliament about the review into the extent and impact of housing development on garden land. This explained that the review would be carried out in two stages.

I can today confirm that we received 127 detailed responses from local planning authorities to stage 1 of the review, and that stage 2 is being carried out by Kingston University, London. I have asked them to consider the following:

whether there has been any increase or decrease in development in gardens from 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2008, and the reasons for any change;the impact of the brownfield definition and brownfield target in Planning Policy Statement 3 on any increase or decrease in development in gardens;whether development on garden land is widespread, or confined to a handful of authorities or certain areas of the countrythe contribution that this type of development makes towards local housing delivery objectives and the impact that any restrictions on development on garden land would have;the role of the Planning Inspectorate in determining appeals for development on garden land-typified by accusations that they force the hand of local authorities by routinely overturning decisions on garden development;whether local authorities are developing local policies in line with advice from government and the policy in Planning Policy Statement 3, and in particular whether local policies on brownfield development and trajectories are being developed; andwhether local policies developed in accordance with PPS3 are effective in supporting local authorities decisions on garden development at appeal, and to establish the common reasons for local objections to development on garden land.

Our aim is to conclude the review and make a further announcement and publish summary findings and evidence to Parliament after the Summer Recess.

The purpose of the review is to establish whether there is a clear and genuine problem with the extent of housing development on gardens. And, as we have previously confirmed, the Government are committed

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to considering action if the evidence confirms a problem, provided that any changes should not have the effect of undermining our objectives on housing.

Insolvency Service

Statement

The Minister for Trade and Investment (Lord Davies of Abersoch): My honourable friend the Minister for Business, Regulatory Reform and Employment Relations (Ian Lucas) has made the following Statement.

The Insolvency Service is today publishing its first report on the operation of Statement of Insolvency Practice 16 (SIP 16).

SIP 16 sets out required practice for insolvency practitioners who carry out pre-packaged administrations. The Insolvency Service's report examines practitioners' compliance with the SIP in its first six months of operation, and the conduct of directors who have engaged in pre-packs. A further report will be issued in early 2010.

Copies have been placed in the Libraries of the House.

The report is available at http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/insolvency professionandlegislation/iparea/iparea.htm.

Intellectual Property Office: Performance Targets

Statement

The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Ministry of Defence (Lord Drayson): My right honourable friend the Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property (David Lammy) has made the following Statement.

I have tasked the Intellectual Property Office with managing and shaping an intellectual property system which encourages innovation and creativity, balances the needs of rights holders and the public, provides support to businesses on managing and exploiting their intellectual property, and stimulates economic growth.

I have set the Intellectual Property Office a broad range of targets for 2009-10 based on a balanced scorecard approach. These targets are:

Customers and Stakeholdersa substantive response to an allowable request for accelerated patent examination to be issued within two months of receipt in 90 per cent of searched applications;give good customer service in processing patent applications in 95 per cent of quality assured cases;issue 80 per cent of patent searches within four months of request;the correct decision on registration will be made on at least 98.5 per cent of Trade Mark applications;90 per cent of Trade Mark applications (to which no substantive objections have been raised or oppositions filed) to be registered within seven months;

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95 per cent of correctly filed design applications to be registered within two months;develop a cross-government international IP strategy which has been agreed by Whitehall ministerial or senior official group by February 2010;the IPO Intelligence Hub will be seen by industry and enforcement agencies as the lead player in co-ordination and dissemination of IP crime-related intelligence;industry and law enforcement agencies will give positive feedback on awareness raising and training activities;to increase the understanding of British business and society about how to make the best use of the IP system, a third venue for the Science Museum exhibition will have been identified and agreement for an exhibition be in place by December 2009;evaluation of the Science Museum exhibition will demonstrate positive impact and value for money and provide information for future outreach work;extend our outreach to business through use of our online IP Health Check, and over 66 per cent of respondents will report it as useful; andto demonstrate we deliver high quality services to our customers we will receive "good" or "satisfactory" ratings in at least 80 per cent of responses to customer surveys.Finance and Resourceswe will demonstrate we are able to maintain a sustainable trading fund by delivering a 4 per cent return on capital employed; anddeliver a 5 per cent cost efficiency with reference to 2008-09 cost outturn (excluding VER/VES scheme and Science Museum IP exhibition sponsorship one-off costs)Internal Processescomplete 95 per cent of staff performance reviews (to ensure everyone understands how their work contributed to the 2008-09 corporate plan and how they will be expected to perform to enable delivery of the 4 pillars in 2009-10) signed off and returned to HR by 31 May 2009;to reduce our impact on the environment, increase proportion of waste recycled to 60 per cent;to reduce our impact on the environment reduce carbon emissions by 10 per cent compared to 2008-09 figures;promote a healthy environment and reduce numbers of sick absence days per person to 7.0 days; andto enable business effectiveness through reliable IT systems, achieve 99 per cent of the agreed monthly service levels for key IT systems.Change and Developmentpositive feedback from participants of international Forum on the economic value of IP;a plan will be agreed by SABIP and IPO for commissioning items of research;two of these SABIP research projects to be completed and reports received;

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contracts to be awarded on a further two of these SABIP research projects;introduce new Trade Mark fees and services in October 2009 to maintain registration in the UK as an attractive option vis-à-vis registration at OHIM;national and international stakeholders will report increased awareness of our work on copyright strategy;ensure that the IPO has developed a co-ordinated strategy on mutual recognition and promote that strategy with key international partners. Gain agreement on mutual recognition with Japan by March 2010;memorandums of understanding on work sharing signed with Korea and China in 2009; andpolicy skills audit will be carried out and a targeted training and development programme devised by autumn 2009.

Justice: Collective Actions

Statement

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bach): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Bridget Prentice) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Today we are announcing the Government's response to the Civil Justice Council's report Collective Actions: Improving Access to Justice through Collective Actions.

The Civil Justice Council published its report on collective actions on 12 December 2008. The report proposed that a general legal right for representative bodies to bring collective actions should be created and that this should be possible either in respect of an identified group of claimants or on behalf of an entire class-that is, for both named and unnamed claimants. Whether to allow a particular collective action to proceed, and whether on an identified group or class basis, would be a matter left to judicial discretion.

The council's recommendations included:

increasing the types of representative bodies that can bring claims;

making the judiciary the gatekeeper of the procedure;

permitting claims to be brought on an opt-out basis where it is in the best interests of justice; and

changing the law to permit the award of aggregate damages.

The Government are grateful to the Civil Justice Council for carrying out this review and welcome the report and its analysis, identifying where further work or reforms are needed and setting out the case for change. The report has been carefully considered and the Government have concluded that collective actions would be best taken forward on a sector-by-sector basis. We do not believe that the creation of a generic right to collective action would be appropriate.

There are a number of reasons why we have reached these conclusions. A generic right would introduce the possibility of collective actions for any and all types of civil claim in every sector of society and the economy. It would be very difficult to assess impacts across the

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entire economy and, if the overall benefit was positive, that might fail to highlight individual areas where the impact might be adverse.

In addition, there may be substantive law issues relating to damages. The potential for a shortfall or surplus cuts across the compensatory principle underpinning (most) civil damages and the appropriate approach may vary according to the type of claim involved and, in particular, the type of representative body bringing the action.

Nevertheless, collective actions are potentially a useful way to manage mass legal claims in a number of areas where a large number of people are likely to have related grievances. However, there may be strong arguments both for and against the introduction of collective action in any particular sector and the Government do not think that it would make sense to impose a one-size-fits-all policy across the whole economy.

Each sector will be responsible for deciding whether to introduce a right of action and for developing the required legislation, where there is evidence of need and following an assessment of economic and other impacts. For example, if the consumer sector, having considered alternative approaches and taken account of stakeholder views and economic impacts, decided that collective court actions offered a way forward, it would be able to ask Parliament to give representative bodies the right to bring actions on behalf of consumers.

The Government will work to develop a framework document that will in essence consist of a "toolkit" for legislators. It will identify the key features that legislation granting new rights of action will need to contain. In conjunction with this, the Ministry of Justice will develop rules of court. These will be designed to interface with new rights of action and will be sufficiently flexible to deal with any different approaches taken by sectors in respect of such issues as authorisation of bodies, allocation of damages and whether claims are to be brought on an opt-in or an opt-out basis.

Subject to any sector-specific exceptions, the rules will also include provisions for mandatory use of alternative dispute procedures, certification, security for costs, case management and fairness hearings.

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