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Royal Navy (Women)
Mr. Cox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many women members of the Royal Navy were serving at sea on 1 November. [99525]
Mr. Spellar: The number of women in the Naval Service serving at sea on 1 November 1999 was 784.
Tornado Incident
Mr. Home Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the loss of an RAF Tornado off the coast of East Lothian on 17 November; if he will ensure that the inquiry into this incident includes consideration of the extent of exclusion zones around nuclear installations; and if he will publish the inquiry report when it is completed. [99533]
Mr. Kilfoyle: A Board of Inquiry is under way to establish the cause of this accident. The safety of nuclear power stations is a matter for the nuclear industry, which would approach us to review the extent of avoidances if they thought that insufficient safety margins existed. Once the Board of Inquiry is complete, a Military Aircraft Accident Summary of the Board's report will be produced and placed in the Library of the House in the normal way.
Service Women
Mr. Keetch: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which posts in the Infantry and Royal Armoured Corps women are excluded from; and by what criteria his Department makes decisions as to which posts are open only to men. [99326]
Mr. Spellar:
All cap-badged posts in the Regular Infantry and Household Cavalry/Royal Armoured Corps are presently closed to women, on the ground of combat effectiveness. Women can, however, serve in all deployable posts that are attached to Regular Infantry and Household Cavalry/Royal Armoured Corps units (for example, as a member of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers cap-badged Light Aid Detachment). The Government are wholly committed to maximising employment opportunities for women in the Armed Forces,
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and to this end the Army is currently conducting a study into the effects of gender upon combat effectiveness, which is due to report to Ministers in 2001.
Drug Producers
Dr. Tonge: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what progress is being made by her Department in implementing alternative development in drug-producing regions of drug-producing countries. [99249]
Clare Short: Our Strategy for alternative development drug producing areas is set out in "Illicit Drugs and the Development Assistance Programme", a copy of which is in the Library. My Department is currently funding alternative development in the lower Huallaga valley in Peru and in the Chapare region of Bolivia through the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP). We have also been funding a project in the Dir district of Pakistan.
There have been substantial reductions of coca in the Chapare region during 1998 and farm plans for agricultural diversification and soil conservation have been developed with farmers and are now being implemented. The project also involves several micro-projects, including strengthening women's groups and providing micro-credit to help the women produce flowers, vegetables and honey. Work in the Lower Huallaga valley is still in the early planning stages. The opium poppy has been virtually eliminated in the Dir district, partly through the introduction of alternative crops and development infrastructure.
Sudan
Dr. Tonge: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what education projects her Department is supporting in Southern Sudan; and if she will make a statement. [99239]
Clare Short: We are not funding any education projects in Southern Sudan. Britain suspended bilateral aid to Sudan in 1991 following concern about the Government of Sudan's Policies on Human Rights, international issues and the continuing civil war. Substantial support for United Nations and NGO emergency programmes in Sudan continues. Sudan also benefits from DFID's Civil Society Challenge (Global) Fund, which provides matching funding for a World University Service education initiative with the displaced of Sudan.
HOME DEPARTMENT
Firefighters
Helen Jones:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will announce the terms of reference of the Inquiry which he is establishing into the machinery for determining firefighters' conditions of service; and who will be undertaking it. [100430]
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Mr. Mike O'Brien:
The terms of reference of the Inquiry are:
Professor Burchill will shortly be writing to interested parties seeking written evidence by 31 January 2000. I have asked Professor Burchill to let me have his report and recommendations by 31 March 2000.
Ms Dari Taylor:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to consult on the regulations which he plans to put in place under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. [100431]
Mr. Straw:
I have today placed in the Library copies of a consultation paper which sets out our proposals for those regulations which we intend to put in place under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. We are also sending copies of the document direct to interested groups and will make it available on the internet. The consultation period will end on 14 January 2000.
Mr. Derek Twigg:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he intends to announce the allocations of police grant for individual police authorities in England and Wales for 2000-01. [100432]
Mr. Straw:
I have today placed a copy of my proposals for the allocation of police grant for 2000-01 in the Library. I intend to implement these proposals subject to consideration of any representation I receive about them and to approval by the House.
I am proposing to continue to allocate the greater part of police grant according to the police funding formula. I announced in my reply to the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) on 2 November 1999 , Official Report, column 118W, that I did not intend to make any changes to the funding formula in 2000-01.
I am proposing that the Metropolitan Police Service should continue to receive additional funding in recognition of its distinct national and capital city functions. It has proved very difficult for the principal formula to take account of these special circumstances. As in previous years, a special payment of grant will be made to the Metropolitan Police Service over and above that available through the principal formula. I have set the amount of this special payment at £182 million.
In addition, I am proposing to make special payments of grant to the following police authorities in 2000-01 in
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recognition of the additional costs which will be incurred as a result of the changes to the Metropolitan Police District boundaries:
"To consider whether, and if so, what changes need to be made to the present procedures for determining the conditions of service (other than pay) and the working practices of firefighters employed by local authorities' fire brigades so as to secure best value, fairness at work, and effective procedures for the settling of disputes, and to report to the Secretary of State."
The Inquiry will be undertaken by Professor Frank Burchill, Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Keele.
| £ million | |
|---|---|
| Essex | 1.25 |
| Hertfordshire | 2.75 |
| Metropolitan Police | 0.50 |
| Surrey | 5.50 |
Other police funding proposals within the local government finance system are being announced today by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) and by the National Assembly for Wales. These proposals and mine would increase Total Standard Spending on the police in England and Wales by 3 per cent. or around £212 million over 1999-2000.
I have also announced that new money will be made available through the Crime Fighting Fund to recruit 5,000 more police officers over and above the number forces would otherwise have recruited over the next three years commencing in April 2000. £35 million will be ring-fenced for this purpose in year one, with further sums being made available in years two and three. This money will be ring-fenced for front-line policing.
The settlement also takes account of my commitment to improve police efficiency. I have set a target of 2 per cent. efficiency gains year on year for the police service from 1999-2000. By achieving these targets in 2000-01, police authorities can reinvest the savings to help meet front-line policing priorities. Police grant allocations in 2001-02 will depend on police authorities meeting the 2 per cent. efficiency targets which have been set. Authorities which fail to achieve the efficiency gain sought may be subject to an appropriate deduction from their resources.
(1) Rounded to the nearest £100,000. The Allocation is the sum of Police Grant, Transitional Grant, Police SSA, Capital Finance SSA, SSA Reduction Grant and Central Support Protection Grant.
(2) Figures for the Metropolitan Police does not include funding allocated to the Receiver under the Environmental, Protective and Cultural Services SSA for school crossing patrols. Magistrates' Courts and the Probation Service. It does include its Special Payment.
(3) Figure for the City includes Police SSA, Grant and SSA Reduction Grant, but excludes other SSAs (e.g. Capital Financing) and Central Support Protection Grant. These are allocated to the Common Council of the City of London as a whole in respect of all its functions.
(4) These authorities will be affected by the changes to police force boundaries around London on 1 April 2000. To provide comparison, indicative 1999-2000 totals for these authorities as on the new boundaries are Essex: £169.8 million, Hertfordshire: £114.3 million, Surrey: £113.6 million and Metropolitan Police: £1,701.9 million.
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