My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families (Kevin Brennan) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I am today giving Parliament advance notice of a major consultation on children and young people's safety. Keeping children and young people safe is a top priority and the responsibility of us all. The consultation document, Staying Safe, seeks views from parents, children and young people, our partners and the children's workforce on the issues. I am today placing a copy of the document in both Libraries.

Staying Safe has been developed working across the Government and signals the Government's strong collective commitment to the safety of children. It has four key objectives. These are to:

raise awareness of the importance of safeguarding children and young people;

promote better understanding of safeguarding issues, and start to change behaviour towards children and young people, and their safety and welfare;

ensure that safeguarding activity is coherent and effectively co-ordinated across the Government; and

reinforce existing activity by proposing new actions to plug gaps or improve linkages.

The consultation will run until 31 October 2007 including a range of activities for all interested parties to explore this vital area of work, and respond to the questions and issues set out in the consultation document. After the consultation, the Government will produce a response and decide on follow-up action.

We hope that by talking about these issues, and by proposing new work in some areas, we can do even more to improve the safety of children and young people.

My honourable friend the Minister of State for Security, Counterterrorism, Crime and Policing (Tony McNulty) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I am today announcing that 30 police forces across England and Wales will be taking part in a new programme aimed at establishing new collaborative arrangements for combating serious organised crime and other threats to public safety (also known as protective services).

The Home Office will support 10 separate initiatives by police forces and authorities to become demonstrator sites for joint-working solutions to deliver greater capability and capacity in a range of protective services.

The initiatives that will be supported are:

These initiatives have been selected from 22 bids to provide a balanced programme across England and Wales to explore and develop the models of collaboration between forces that can deliver these vital services to protect the public more effectively and more efficiently.

Collaborative working is a key part of a national programme of work that the Government are taking forward, in consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities, to improve the way in which the police combat serious organised crime and other threats to public safety. All police forces will be expected to meet newly developed protective service standards. Forces will need to collaborate to do this and the demonstration sites initiative will help to ensure that all forces can learn from the experiences of these sites and make use of their best practice.

The selected demonstrator sites will together be offered £3.7 million in Home Office funding to contribute to their start-up costs and they will take part in an evaluation process to be managed by the National Policing Improvement Agency, which will monitor and measure their progress and delivery of benefits and develop a shared body of knowledge for the police service.

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 5 to 7 July in Guimarães, Portugal. I represented the UK.

The theme of the informal meeting was “improving policies, improving results”, which was discussed in two plenary sessions. The discussions were informed by a paper presented by Maria João Rodrigues, who was involved in the formulation of the Lisbon strategy during the last Portuguese presidency.

Ministers discussed what the future priorities of the Lisbon strategy should be and how to make the open method of co-ordination (OMC) work better. There was broad agreement that the Lisbon goals were the right ones and that next year’s review should avoid major changes to the strategy, as continuity was needed and would enable comparisons over time. Ministers believed that the focus should be on proper implementation and better exchange of good practice. A number of member states called for greater prominence to be given to the social dimension of Lisbon. On behalf of the UK, I made it clear that we should not reopen the employment guidelines and that the focus should remain on jobs and growth. I also emphasised that we needed to do more to tackle skills issues, as this is the key to helping people into work and ensuring their progression.

In terms of process, most felt that the OMC was a success. There was broad agreement that there should be no new instruments or processes. Suggestions for areas of greater focus were: education, skills and lifelong learning; making flexicurity work; increasing labour market participation (including active ageing, work-life balance, gender equality and childcare provision); fighting child poverty; making mobility in the EU work; and tackling the social impacts of migration.

Germany also suggested a one-off “European social day” where, for example, parliaments across the EU could discuss the EU’s contribution to social policies on the same day. The idea received considerable support.

The presidency concluded that the revised Lisbon process had improved the focus on employment but the meeting had highlighted the need to have greater co-ordination of policy approaches, to improve the integration and visibility of social priorities and to have a balanced approach to flexicurity.

My honourable friend the Minister of State for Pensions Reform (Mike O’Brien) has made the following Statement.

The review of pension scheme assets led by Andrew Young published its interim findings yesterday on 16 July.

The review team has worked hard to gather data and engage with stakeholders and I am grateful for its efforts and the co-operation of those who have contributed. The interim findings represent a significant improvement on our understanding of the circumstances of failed pension schemes and provide us with an evidence base on which to build policy in the future.

The assets review has made considerable progress in identifying the value of assets remaining in pension schemes that qualify for FAS and has stated that the current process of annuitisation on a scheme-by-scheme basis may not offer the best use of these assets. It concludes that it is probable that additional value for money could be secured through a number of different methods and the team will focus on investigating the feasibility of these options before it delivers its final conclusions later in the year. I welcome these interim findings and am hopeful that the work that the review team is to continue over the summer will enable us to increase the value of assistance that FAS is able to offer without further calls on public funds.

The potential for any increase will, of course, depend on the value of assets available. While it is too early to say with any certainty that the review will lead to a means of improving FAS above the promised 80 per cent level (subject to the cap), it is hopeful that this is the case. In the mean time, the Government’s position has always been (and remains) that trustees must act in the best interests of their members, but trustees may wish to take into account the effect that the decisions that they take about winding up their scheme may have on the amount of assets potentially available to increase assistance levels.

It is important that trustees continue with the processes of wind-up, including data cleansing and determination of asset share. They should also continue to pay interim pensions to members as they reach normal retirement age and co-operate with the Financial Assistance Scheme operational unit to ensure initial payments can be made from age 65.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Ed Balls) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

The recent flooding has brought widespread damage to large areas of central and northern England.

The Government are very grateful to the committed staff in schools, early years and childcare settings and local authorities who have worked so hard to contain and reduce the effect of the flood waters, to get many schools and early years settings back in use and to provide places in temporary or alternative accommodation where necessary.

In the flood-hit regions, numbers of schools that lost teaching days included 91 in Kingston upon Hull, 72 in East Riding, 72 in Doncaster, 66 in Sheffield, 27 in Lincolnshire, six in Nottinghamshire, four in Derbyshire and two in Rotherham. Only eight of Kingston upon Hull’s 99 school sites were unaffected—65 primary schools, 13 secondary schools, 10 special units and three nurseries were all temporarily closed. Nine sites were still closed last week. The local authority has found temporary premises for the children affected. Kingston upon Hull calculates that the flooding resulted in losing 107,000 pupil days, but prompt action by the schools and council avoided losing up to 90,000 more. In Doncaster, six schools were damaged and closed at some point, but only one is still closed. In the east Midlands, five schools have all their pupils in temporary premises.

Our main aim is to help as many of these schools and early years settings as possible to reopen at permanent premises by the start of the September term and, where that is not possible, to help to ensure satisfactory alternative arrangements so that no child suffers educationally because of flood damage. There is still an immense amount of hard work to do. The immediate dangers are over, but every child and young person and their parents will rightly expect no let-up in efforts to get back to normal as quickly as possible.

To that end, my department is working closely with the regional government offices and local authorities to:

assess fully the extent of the damage to schools and early years and childcare provision (including children’s centres), both buildings and equipment;

assess the impact that the floods have had on children and young people’s ability to learn and make the progress that we expect (this includes any impact on examinations or course work); and

take decisions on how best to get children back into proper permanent educational accommodation.

Already the Government have allocated £14 million and have widened the rules on Bellwin funds to deal with flood damage. In addition, my department will make available an initial sum of £10 million for flood-affected schools and children’s services. My officials, with colleagues from government offices, will hold detailed discussions on an area-by-area/case-by-case basis to determine how best to provide both interim and long-term solutions. As part of these discussions, we will:

determine how best we can use and, if necessary, rephase the significant capital investment planned over the next five years to address the needs of the schools most affected;

decide what additional educational support we can give schools and other providers to help to maintain standards while there is disruption;

and look to fund, in particular:

extra surveyors—to be arranged through existing departmental call-off contracts—to help authorities accurately to assess damage and more quickly to reach a clear picture on the cost of repairs;

temporary accommodation for those settings that will still be in such accommodation in September;

additional summer activities for young people who cannot yet return to their homes and are living in caravans or other temporary housing; and

family support workers to help with longer-term pressures on family life for families who have been seriously affected by the flood waters.

In addition, I have already written to:

exam boards, asking them to ensure that, where exams were disrupted, cases seeking special consideration are dealt with promptly and with due consideration; and

Ofsted, asking for inspections to take proper account of the disruption and loss of school days and records caused by the floods.

The Minister for Schools, Jim Knight, is working closely with the Minister for Children, Beverley Hughes MP, to oversee implementation of the above programme of DCSF work on flood recovery. These Ministers are seeing daily progress reports from departmental officials. DCSF is playing its part in the flood-recovery inter-ministerial group chaired by Local Government Minister John Healey.

My honourable friend the Minister for Local Government (John Healey) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I am today publishing a consultation document looking at proposals for reviewing the formulae used to distribute formula grant to local authorities. Formula grant underpins the provision of a wide range of local services.

The formula grant distribution system was last reviewed following the introduction of multi-year settlements. This first multi-year settlement round covering 2006-07 and 2007-08 is now coming to an end and we have taken the opportunity to consider updating and modifying some of the formulae to be used in the distribution system for the proposed three-year settlement covering 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11.

Following the last review of grant distribution formulae, the Government have been working with local government and other interested parties to explore possible ways of updating the formulae where necessary and fine-tuning some of the elements of the distribution mechanisms.

Over the last five months, the official-level settlement working group, consisting of representatives from all types of local authority in England along with interested parties from central government, has considered some 53 technical papers and reports looking at options for changes to the distribution formulae. A separate technical group has examined the formulae for the police.

Following the work of this settlement working group, the Government are now publishing this consultation on options for updating the formula grant distribution system. I have placed copies in the Library of the House and in the Vote Office. The consultation document is also available today on the Communities and Local Government website at: www.local.communities.gov.uk/finance/0809/grant/sumcons/

We look forward to receiving views on our proposals. The consultation period will close on 10 October 2007 and the Government will then decide on the formula grant distribution system for the next three years.

My right honourable friend the Minister of State (David Hanson) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

The annual report of Her Majesty’s Prison Service for 2006-07 (HC 717) has today been laid before Parliament. The National Probation Service annual report has also been published today. Copies have been made available in the Libraries of both Houses, the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office. The regional offender managers have today published their statement of performance on the NOMS website at www.noms.justice.gov.uk. Copies have also been made available in the Libraries of both Houses, the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office.

The Prison Service report includes the financial accounts for 2006-07. The financial accounts for the National Probation Service will be published later in the year.

Performance against all the national offender management targets for 2006-07 is shown in the table below:

My right honourable friend the Minister of State (David Hanson) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Today I am delighted to announce that the appointment of Andrew Bridges CBE as HM Chief Inspector of the National Probation Service for England and Wales has been extended until 30 September 2008. Mr Bridges’s expertise and knowledge will continue to play a key role in enabling the probation inspectorate to deliver a credible and effective inspection programme for probation and youth offending teams.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development (Douglas Alexander) has made the following Statement.

I wish to inform the House that the UK intends to make a contribution of £3 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA). This will go towards paying private sector arrears of around £225 million accrued by the PA. Combined with a £3 million contribution to the temporary international mechanism (TIM) in May, a £1 million contribution to the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross and a £15.6 million payment to the UN Relief and Works Agency in April, this brings the UK’s total bilateral spend this financial year to £22.6 million.

The last year has seen a deterioration of the chronic economic decline in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel has withheld clearance revenues owed to the PA, leading to the PA having to reduce or stop entirely the payment of civil servant salaries. At the same time, the PA has run up significant debts with private sector suppliers. This has in turn reduced investment, thereby further shrinking the productive capacity of the economy.

Israel has now agreed to transfer the customs revenue, allowing the Government to pay salaries again. However, the large backlog of public debt remains unpaid. The Prime Minister, Salaam Fayyad, has requested international support to address this. Direct international assistance through the Palestinian Authority’s central treasury account will boost the economy and make clear international approval for Fayyad’s Government. It will also increase Palestinian companies’ ability to continue trading and so invest and employ more people.

In the past year, DfID has provided £15 million out of a total of £265 million committed through the TIM. This has successfully stemmed the economic decline in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from a projected 27 per cent to around 10 per cent. The quartet recently extended the TIM until the end of September. It has already been aligned with the Ministry of Finance to enable full salaries to be paid to public sector workers. Following the creation of the emergency Government in June, DfID can now resume direct financial assistance.

The UK is working with President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad as they seek to make the Palestinian Authority more responsive to the urgent needs of all Palestinians. But ultimately the only way to guarantee the long-term welfare of the people is for all sides to give up violence and work towards a two-state solution.

My honourable friend the Minister of State for Security, Counterterrorism, Crime and Policing (Tony McNulty) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I would like to inform the House that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has signed a certificate to exempt Transport for London (TfL) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) from certain provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 to facilitate the bulk transfer of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) data from TfL to the MPS.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police believes that this is necessary due to the enduring, vehicle-borne terrorist threat to London. The MPS requires bulk ANPR data from TfL’s camera network in London specifically for terrorism intelligence purposes and to prevent and investigate such offences. The infrastructure will allow the real-time flow of data between TfL and the MPS.

As one of the conditions of this certificate, the MPS will provide an annual report to the Information Commissioner so that he can satisfy himself that the personal data processed under the certificate are required for the purposes of safeguarding national security and that any processing that is undertaken other than under an exemption set out in the certificate is carried out in compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

My right honourable friend the Home Secretary will review the operation of the certificate in three months’ time when the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police provides her with a separate, interim report so that she can be personally satisfied that the certificate is being operated in accordance with the agreement and that the privacy of individuals is protected. In the coming months, proposals will be developed and discussed across the Government to ensure that bulk ANPR data sharing with the police is subject to a robust regulatory regime that ensures reasonable transparency and scrutiny.