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Children: TV Advertising
Lord Dykes asked Her Majesty's Government:
What further steps they will take to reduce the exposure of young children to inappropriate television advertising. [HL923]
Lord Davies of Oldham: Under the Communications Act 2003 Ofcom has a statutory duty to protect children and the responsibility for the regulation of broadcast advertising.
More broadly, the Government have announced as part of the recently published Children's Plan that they will commission a new independent assessment of evidence relating to the impact on children of their changing commercial environment.
Baroness Coussins asked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the comments by Lord Evans of Temple Guiting on 8 June (Official Report, col. 1407) and the answer by Baroness Royall of Blaisdon on 29 November (Official Report, col. 1297) that “we need a ban on all high-fat, salty and sugary foods before the 9 pm watershed”, what evidence has led to this change in policy on a pre-watershed ban on television advertising of such foods. [HL948]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham): A large number of associations have called on the Government for a pre-9 pm watershed ban on the advertising of high fat, salt and sugar foods. Ofcom conducted a regulatory impact assessment and concluded that a pre-9 pm watershed ban would be disproportionate. Government policy in this area is continuously under review. We are monitoring the impact of current Ofcom regulations on advertising to children, and we have always been clear that if we do not see significant progress in the nature and balance of food promotion, then we will look again at how we can make faster progress as part of our drive to tackle obesity and promote healthier lifestyles.
Climate Change: Emissions Trading
Lord Beaumont of Whitley asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why the United Kingdom contribution towards scarcity of allocations in the second phase of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is less than in the first phase. [HL685]
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): The UK contribution to scarcity of allowances is not less in
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A comparison of the level of scarcity shows that in Phase I the UK allocation to installations covered by the scheme was 65MtCO2 less than what was required in business as usual projections. This represents an annual effort of 21.66MtCO2.
In Phase II the UK allocation to installations covered by the scheme is 145MtCO2 less than what will be required in business as usual projections. This represents an annual effort of 29MtCO2.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley asked Her Majesty's Government:
To which companies and in what proportions United Kingdom allocations will be distributed in phase two of the European Emissions Trading Scheme. [HL738]
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office & Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Lord Jones of Birmingham): The UK's EU ETS Phase II National Allocation Plan (NAP) provides full details of all the UK installations that have been allocated phase II allowances and the number of allowances each will receive.
The NAP is published in full on the Defra website at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climate change/trading/eu/operators/phase-2.htm.
Climate Change: Greenhouse Gases
Lord Beaumont of Whitley asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have assessed the relative effectiveness of measuring the United Kingdom's contribution to global greenhouse gas levels on the basis of United Kingdom greenhouse gas consumption rather than greenhouse gas production; and [HL898]
What assessment they have made of the proposal that the United Kingdom should be in part responsible for greenhouse gas emissions involved in the manufacturing of goods consumed in the United Kingdom but produced abroad. [HL899]
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): As part of its sustainable consumption and production evidence programme, Defra commissions research to enable a better understanding of the environmental impacts of UK-consumed products along their supply chains. One study under way is investigating the possibility of developing an indicator for greenhouse gas emissions embedded in imported goods and commodities.
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Climate Change: Research
Lord Dykes asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will provide additional funding for the Swansea University GLIMPSE project's current research programmes into glacier melting and its effects on global warming. [HL888]
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): My department has no plans to fund the GLIMPSE project directly.
I understand that Swansea University's GLIMPSE team has significant funding from the Leverhulme Trust for its important climate research better to understand the dynamics of the Greenland ice sheet, and has several other research grants from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) which support this work.
Jointly with the Ministry of Defence, my department funds significant climate research and modelling at the Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC). MOHC works closely with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), other NERC institutes and NERC-funded academic groups to improve understanding of the response of ice sheets to climate change; as well as to improve representations of ice sheets in climate models.
This integrating work will be strengthened through the new Met Office / NERC Joint Climate Research Programme and I anticipate that this will include close co-operation with the Swansea team.
Crime: Knives
Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many crimes have taken place in Northern Ireland in the past 12 months which involved the use of a knife; and how many convictions there have been in connection with these crimes. [HL784]
Lord Rooker: Table 1 gives the number of crimes recorded where a knife was involved in the crime, regardless of how the knife was used, and the number of these crimes cleared by means of a charge or summons between 1 December 2006 and 30 November 2007.
Court prosecution and conviction datasets do not contain background information in relation to the commission of an offence so it is not possible to separately identify the number of convictions for offences in which a knife was involved. It is only possible to provide prosecution and conviction statistics for those offences which, in their definition, refer to an “offensive weapon” or “article with blade or point”, within which knives are included.
Prosecution and conviction data, documented in table 2, are given for the calendar year 2005 (the latest available year) and are collated on the principal offence rule; so only the most serious offence with which an offender is charged is included.
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2. Based on Home Office counting rules, the two figures provided above cannot be presented as a clearance rate.
3. Recorded crime data denote each offence as it has been initially recorded and this may differ from the offence for which a suspect or suspects are subsequently proceeded against in the courts.
| Table 2: Number prosecuted and convicted for offensive weapon offences by offence 2005. | ||
| Prosecuted | Convicted | |
Crime: Murder of Paul Quinn
Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:
Lord Rooker: The murder of Paul Quinn is currently under investigation by the An Garda Siochana and the PSNI are co-operating very closely with the investigation. In view of this it would not be appropriate for me to comment further.
Defence: Outputs
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Lord Drayson on 22 October (WA 76), whether they will place in the Library of the House a description of what is included in each defence output category. [HL364]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): There is no detailed description available of what is included in each defence output category.
e-Borders
The Earl of Northesk asked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Lord West of Spithead on 3 December (WA 158), whether there is a material difference of substance between the expressions travel document information (TDI), other passenger information (OPI) and passenger
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): The term travel document information (TDI) refers to specified biographical information (name, date of birth, nationality, gender, travel document type, state of issue number and expiry date) relating to a passenger. This information is contained in the machine readable zone (MRZ) of suitably equipped travel documents.
Other passenger information (OPI) relates to any other data relating to a passenger held by a carrier in its reservations system and may include, for example, the date on which a reservation was made and payment method.
Passenger name records (PNR) are an industry term used by scheduled air carriers to describe the reservation details held by them.
Education: Commonwealth Scholarships
Lord Luce asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of the announcement by the Prime Minister in Kampala that £50 million will be made available for scholarships to students from developing countries, they will confirm that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will maintain its support for Commonwealth scholarships for students from those countries that are ineligible for assistance from the Department for International Development. [HL882]
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): I am pleased to inform the noble Lord that we will maintain our commitment to the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan in 2008-09 at £2.05 million, the same amount as this year.
Elections: House of Commons
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether they have any plans to change the voting system in the United Kingdom to allow for a more plural representation of parties in the House of Commons. [HL767]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): There are currently no plans to change the voting system for the House of Commons. However, the Government will be publishing a review of the new voting systems introduced in the UK since 1997 to inform this debate. The review considers the experience of the voting systems introduced for the Scottish Parliament, the Assemblies for Wales and Northern Ireland, the European
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Embryology
Lord Alton of Liverpool asked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Lord Darzi of Denham on 3 December (WA 160) regarding the lack of women donating eggs specifically for research, how the annual number of registered egg donors for treatment has varied since 2000; how this compares with that reported for sperm donors over the same period; and what assessment they have made of the possible factors underlying any observed differences. [HL863]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham):The table below sets out the number of sperm and egg donors since 2000, from data provided to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The number of sperm donors has remained relatively stable over that period but the number of egg donors has reduced. We have made no specific analysis of the reasons, but we are supporting the National Gamete Donation Trust to assess and spread good practice on donor recruitment.
| Year | Sperm donors | Year | Egg Donors |
Lord Alton of Liverpool asked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by Lord Darzi of Denham on 5 December (WA 195—6) regarding information held by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority on the number of eggs retrieved from each patient, how many in vitro fertilisation patients have produced 20 or more eggs at each licensed centre; and what are the highest recorded numbers of eggs obtained from individual patients overall, together with the frequency with which such numbers of eggs have been obtained. [HL866]
Lord Darzi of Denham: I refer the noble Lord to the Answer given on 18 December, (Official Report, col. WA 116).
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