| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Cavity Wound Dressing Provision
Baroness Masham of Ilton asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What proportion of (a) community trusts, or
(b) fundholding general practitioners provide up-to-date cavity wound dressings for use by the district nurses whom they employ.
Baroness Cumberlege: This information is not available centrally.
Drug Tariff: Cavity Wound Dressings
Baroness Masham of Ilton asked Her Majesty's Government:
- Whether they will extend the drug tariff to include up-to-date cavity wound dressings and a selection of bandages for leg ulcers.
Baroness Cumberlege: We are considering the case for making such additions to the drug tariff.
Consultancies: Expenditure by Government Departments
Baroness Park of Monmouth asked Her Majesty's Government:
- How much they spent on consultancies in the years 1992-96, broken down by department.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe): I have asked ministerial departments and the Attorney General's Office to provide details of their expenditure on consultancies in the years 1992-96. Unless otherwise noted, the figures shown in the table below are for expenditure on external consultancy at 1996 prices and include departmental agencies, where appropriate.
| Department | 1992- 93 | 1993-94 | 1994-95 | 1995-96 |
| Environment | (1)10.20 | (1)10.20 | (1)(2)11.30 | (1)(2)(3)9.00 |
| Welsh Office | 1.55 | 1.55 | 0.84 | 1.21 |
| Scottish Office | 4.68 | 5.63 | 4.17 | 5.44 |
| Attorney General(4) | 1.20 | 1.34 | 1.24 | 1.14 |
| Foreign & Commonwealth Office | ||||
| Diplomatic Wing | (5)-- | 14.20 | 13.60 | 17.65 |
| Aid Wing | (5)-- | 0.61 | 0.50 | 1.28 |
| Transport | 253.0 | 213.0 | 208.0 | 176.0 |
| Northern Ireland Office and Departments | 19.94 | 30.59 | 24.41 | 24.65 |
| Social Security | 36.39 | 33.99 | 26.10 | 24.01 |
| Trade & Industry | 40.48 | 31.77 | 9.95 | 6.48 |
| Ministry of Defence(6) | n/a | n/a | n/a | 150.8 |
| Education & Employment(7) | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| HM Treasury(8) | 2.70 | 6.90 | 5.80 | 2.10 |
| PAYMASTER(8) | n/a | 0.90 | 0.80 | 1.20 |
| Cabinet Office(9) | 6.75 | 6.32 | 6.25 | 4.07 |
| HMSO | 0.45 | 1.10 | 1.80 | 0.84 |
| Central Office of Information | 0.15 | 0.07 | 0.16 | 0.14 |
| Health | 19.73 | 16.61 | 18.92 | 18.36 |
| Ministry of Agriculture(10) | 7.60 | 13.83 | 12.55 | 14.73 |
| Home Office(11) | 9.90 | 3.70 | 2.80 | 10.20 |
| Lord President of the Council(12) | nil | nil | 0.01 | 0.02 |
| HM Customs & Excise(13) | n/a | n/a | n/a | 5.40 |
| Inland Revenue | 25.90 | 24.50 | 25.30 | 29.20 |
| Valuation Office Agency | 12.90 | 0.60 | 0.30 | 0.30 |
| National Heritage(14) | 4.46 | 6.25 | 2.76 | 1.75 |
| Lord Chancellor's Department | 3.63 | 1.28 | 1.68 | 4.29 |
Notes:
(1) Department of the Environment: figures exclude expenditure by Property Holdings/PACE.
(2) DoE: figures exclude expenditure by the Building Research Establishment, which does not hold a central record of expenditure on consultancies.
(3) DoE: 1995-96 figures are best estimates.
(4) Attorney General: this is an aggregated figure for the Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office, the Treasury Solicitor and the Government Property Lawyers.
(5) Foreign and Commonwealth Office: figures for earlier years could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
(6) Ministry of Defence: information on expenditure on external consultants is not held centrally for the years 1992-93 to 1994-95. The figure for 1995-96 includes expenditure of £25 million by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, which operates as a trading fund.
(7) DFEE: information in the form requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
(8) HM Treasury: separate figures supplied for PAYMASTER (shown above), Office for National Statistics (£0.26 million since its inception) and the Royal Mint (approximately £100,000 since 1992-93). Figures do not include HM Customs & Excise or Inland Revenue departments, whose expenditure is shown separately.
(9) Cabinet Office: figures include the Office of Public Service and its agencies, except HMSO and COI which are shown separately. The figures also include expenditure by privatised agencies (Chessington Computer Centre, Recruitment and Assessment Services and Occupational Health & Safety Agency) up to the date of privatisation.
(10)Ministry of Agriculture: figure for 1995-96 is an estimate and excludes expenditure by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the Meat Hygiene Service.
(11)Home Office: figures for 1993-94 and 1994-95 represent expenditure on management consultancy only.
(12)Lord President's Office: expenditure shown relates to the work of the Central Drugs Co- ordination Unit (charged to the Privy Council).
(13)HM Custom & Excise: figures for earlier years could be supplied only at disproportionate cost.
(14)DNH: aggregated figures include Historic Royal Palaces Agency and, for 1993-94 to 1995- 96, the Royal Parks Agency.
The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
Earl Howe: No. My department's own research and that of the American authorities, who have passed to us details of a number of alleged detections of chemical warfare agents during the Gulf War, does not indicate any confirmed use of chemical warfare agents during the conflict.
It is important not to treat as factual and proven unsubstantiated reports of possible chemical warfare incidents that appeared during the chaotic atmosphere of war.
The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:
Earl Howe: I am aware of alleged detections on the dates referred to. These have been discussed with our American colleagues. Not only was each of the alleged detections of CW agents uncorroborated at the time, but subsequent research has failed to establish these and other alleged detections as factual.
Baroness Wharton asked Her Majesty's Government:
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers): I have recently received representations from the House Builders' Federation requesting that show houses be subject to the council tax and not non-domestic rates. I am currently considering my response.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked Her Majesty's Government:
Lord Lucas: Fishing effort expressed in "kilowatt days" is the product of the power of the vessel in kilowatts and its time at sea expressed in days. Thus a 500kW vessel at sea for two days would represent
1,000 kilowatt days of fishing effort.
A "standard vessel" is taken to be equivalent to
700 brake horsepower (bhp) or 515kW. Thus a
standard vessel at sea for two days would represent
1,030 kilowatt days of fishing effort.
Conversion factors have been used in the EU to convert to standard vessel equivalents a range of bhps and these are given in the table below:
Lord Mackie of Benshie asked Her Majesty's Government:
Lord Lucas: We are well aware of the need to ensure that department-funded research results continue to be properly exploited to the benefit of the industry as a whole. Where existing intellectual property rights are sold with an ADAS business, we will attach appropriate conditions, which may include a requirement on the purchaser to grant non-exclusive licences to third parties to exploit the intellectual property. Future contracts with the privatised company will specify the arrangements for ownership of the intellectual property rights and the conditions attached to such ownership.
Whether the Ministry of Defence has any documentary evidence of chemical warfare which occurred during the Gulf War such as that now being revealed to the United States Congress.
Whether, in the light of the information released by the Pentagon on 6th December 1996, having been held on the Army Information Desk since December 1993, about detections by Fox vehicles of mustard and nerve gas in the vicinity of United States and British troops, particularly on 14th, 26th and
27th February 1991, they will reconsider their written replies to the Countess of Mar of 20th March 1995 (H.L. Deb., WA 57), 21st March 1996 (H.L. Deb.,
WA 107), 4th June 1996 (H.L. Deb.,
WA 120) and 5th June 1996 (H.L. Deb., WA 129) in which the deployment and use of chemical weapons during the Gulf War was denied.
What recent representations they have received from the housebuilding industry about the imposition of the uniform business rate on show houses; whether they have any plans to bring forward proposals to treat such show houses for local government taxation purposes as the stock of the housing industry or as unoccupied residential property, and, if not, why not.
What is the formula for a "kilowatt day" as applied to fishing vessels, and how does this unit compare to a "standard vessel day".
BHP range Equivalence to standard vessel
Under 300 0.57
300 but less than 400 0.76
400 but less than 500 0.85
500 but less than 600 0.90
600 but less than 700 0.96
700 but less than 800 1.00
800 but less than 1,000 1.07
1,000 but less than 1,200 1.11
1,200 and above 2.25
How they will ensure that the benefits of MAFF-funded research and development carried out by ADAS continue to be made available to the industry as a whole following privatisation.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page