To ask the Attorney-General if he will list all those whom the registrar of criminal appeals consulted in determining the judges who are to cover the appeal of the six persons convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings.

The allocation of judges to the Court of Appeal criminal division is the responsibility of the Lord Chief Justice. The Lord Chancellor understands that the registrar of criminal appeals consulted the Lord Chief Justice in determining the constitution of the court which will hear the appeals of the six persons convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings.

To ask the Attorney-General whether the Government have any proposals to amend the qualification required by a candidate for appointment as a law commissioner in England and Wales.

At present, the law governing the appointment of law commissioners in England and Wales requires them to be persons appearing to the Lord Chancellor to be suitably qualified by the holding of the judicial office, or by experience as a barrister or solicitor, or as a teacher of law in a university. The Lord Chancellor now proposes to extend this latter qualification to include teachers of law at institutions other than universities. He intends to make the necessary amendment to the Law Commissions Act 1965 when a suitable legislative opportunity arises.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the pattern of debt to the Consolidated Fund in relation to the Severn bridge to assume a downward trend.

If tolls were to continue to be levied under the provisions of the Severn Bridge Tolls Act 1965 the debt should start to reduce during the financial year 1992–93. But under the Severn Bridges Bill, introduced to the House on 27 November 1990, it is proposed to introduce a new financial regime for the present and the new bridge.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress has been made in recent discussions with other European nations regarding the introduction of the proposed north-west European Loran C system of radio-navigation; and if he will make a statement on the up-to-date position.

The international discussions are still proceeding. No firm agreement has yet been reached.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to receive the report of the inquiry by the marine accident investigation bureau into the sinking of the Antares; if the report will be made public; and if he will arrange to make a statement on its publication of what action he proposes to take.

The marine accident investigation branch investigation into the sinking of the Antares has been given the status of an inspector's inquiry under the Merchant Shipping (Accident Investigation) Regulations. The inquiry involves a very detailed investigation into the circumstances of the accident; and this necessarily takes time to complete. An interim report is expected very shortly. This will assist the Secretary of State in deciding what action needs to be taken. I expect the full report of the chief inspector to be published.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will make a statement on the latest position on London Underground's plans for the Jubilee line extension at Westminster.

I am pleased to be able to tell the House that London Underground has now produced a revised design for Westminster station which it believes would better meet the concerns expressed by the House Services Committee. In particular, its new proposal would enable it wholly to avoid using Parliament square as a work site, to reduce the impact upon traffic in the roads surrounding Parliament and to avoid elevated decking in Bridge street. London Underground will shortly be setting out these proposals in a report to the New Buildings Sub-Committee.

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the gross domestic product per capita in £ sterling in each of the member nations of the Council of Europe and the Warsaw pact.

Estimates of gross domestic product per capita for a number of countries are shown in table 1 of "National Accounts Statistics: Main Aggregates and Detailed Tables, 1987" issued by the United Nations earlier this year. Data are also given in the "World Bank Atlas, 1988". Both publications are available in the Library of the House. For the Warsaw pact economies, the information on economic activity is prepared in accordance with the United Nations system of material product balances which differs from the United Nations system of national accounts used to describe Council of Europe economies.

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the Official Report tables showing, for the latest years now available, identifiable general Government expenditure by function in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom expressed (a) in cash terms, (b) as a percentage of United Kingdom total identifiable general Government expenditure, (c) as an amount per capita and (d) as an amount per capita expressed as an index, United Kingdom identifiable general Government expenditure = 100.

Most public expenditure is planned on a national basis and there is no geographical disaggregation apart from expenditure which is the responsibility of the territorial Departments. However, in order to provide a more comprehensive breakdown of public expenditure within the four countries of the United Kingdom an additional analysis, covering outturn years, is carried out each year. This analysis allocates, where possible, general Government expenditure to England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and, therefore, includes within the territories a wider coverage of expenditure than that for which the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland are directly responsible.The analysis divides spending into "identifiable" and "non-identifiable" expenditure. The term "identifiable expenditure" refers to expenditure that can be identified from official records as having been incurred for the benefit of people in a particular country. The coverage of identifiable expenditure has been changed since last year's exercise to produce a greater consistency of treatment between different types of expenditure. In the following analyses of territorial spending all expenditure on common services—for example, revenue and tax collection, financial administration—has been treated as unidenti-fiable. In previous years this category of expenditure was not treated in a consistent manner. This change reduces identifiable expenditure by around £3 billion—2 per cent. —but does not appreciably affect the index of per capita expenditure between territories. Unidentifiable expen-diture mainly consists of expenditure deemed to have been

Table 1a
Identifiable general government expenditure 1985–86
	£ million					As a percentage of United Kingdom identifiable expenditure
	England	Scotland	Wales	Northern Ireland	United Kingdom	England	Scotland	Wales	Northern Ireland
Agriculture, fisheries, food and forestry	618·8	225·4	109·8	148·5	1,102·5	56·1	20·4	10·0	13·5
Trade, industry, energy and employment	3,509·2	664·5	340·3	375·4	4,889·4	71·8	13·6	7·0	7·7
Roads and transport	3,448·7	539·5	268·4	101·3	4,357·9	79·1	12·4	6·2	2·3
Housing	3,099·1	624·0	135·3	345·5	4,203·9	73·7	14·8	3·2	8·2
Other environmental services	3,662·1	501·2	282·4	196·7	4,642·4	78·9	10·8	6·1	4·2
Law, order and protective services	4,192·1	519·9	228·2	473·6	5,413·8	77·4	9·6	4·2	8·7
Education and science	13,562·9	2,052·6	838·2	636·0	17,089·7	79·4	12·0	4·9	3·7
Arts and Libraries	581·8	69·9	31·6	0·0	683·3	85·1	10·2	4·6	0·0
Health and personal social services	16,604·8	2,314·8	1,051·0	697·8	20,668·4	80·3	11·2	5·1	3·4
Social Security	35,311·3	4,072·6	2,245·7	1,310·0	42,939·6	82·2	9·5	5·2	3·1
Miscellaneous1	-33·8	97·3	34·5	33·3	131·3	-25·7	74·1	26·3	25·4
TOTAL	84,557·0	11,681·7	5,565·4	4,318·1	106,122·2	79·7	11·0	5·2	4·1

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish a table showing the amount spent in each of the last five years by his Department on (a) advertising in the press, (b) advertising on television and radio, (c) other advertising and promotion and (d) promotion videos and sound cassettes.

[holding answer 11 December 1990]: Expenditure by the Treasury on promotional advertising is as follows:

1988–89 (Actual)	1989–90 (Actual)	1990–91 (Budget/Provision)
£49,310	£52,568	£52,800

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the change in Treasury income during the 1991–92 financial year resulting from confining all income tax exemptions to an upper limit of 20 per cent.

Thousands
Standard Region	Latest OPCS estimate of resident population June 1989	Number on Community Charges Register on 10 September 1990 subject to a personal charge on
		1 June 1990 Students	10 September 1990 Others1
Northern	2,376	34	2,300
North West	4,889	71	4,631
Yorkshire and Humberside	3,805	70	3,643
East Midlands	3,084	38	2,981
West Midlands	4,000	53	3,842
East Anglia	1,577	23	1,521
South West	3,643	40	3,511
South East	8,219	105	7,915
Greater London	5,246	93	5,078
1 including full year equivalent of number contributing to collective community charge in 1990–91.

The difference between the OPCS figures, which are estimates based on the 1981 population census, and the numbers on the registers subject to a personal community charge may not equal the number of exemptions due to the different sources used to derive the figures and the different reference dates used.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will review his decision not to take account of the use of balances to support revenue expenditure in 1990–91 in making his decisions on poll tax capping in 1991–92.

As I told the House on 3 December, the intentions for criteria announced on 31 October remain the Government's intended criteria for 1991–92. When my right hon. Friend comes to make his decisions on capping he will take into account all appropriate considerations.

[holding answer 10 December 1990]: It is estimated that at 1991–92 levels of income the revenue yield in a full year from restricting income tax reliefs to an upper limit of 20 per cent. of gross income less personal allowances would be about £2¼ billion and some 6½ million taxpayers, of whom almost all currently pay at the basic rate, would pay more tax. These estimates are based on projections from the 1987–88 survey of personal incomes and are therefore provisional. They are based on an increase in personal allowances and the basic rate threshold of 10½ per cent. in 1991–92 in line with the illustrative rates published in the 1990 autumn statement and do not take account of any behavioural changes that might result from the new regime.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will publish in the Official Report a table showing the number of adults in each standard region together with the number of persons liable for the payment of poll tax at (a) the minimum rate, (b) a reduced rate and (c) the full rate.

The available information is as follows:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to adhere to the conditions of the Berne convention by protecting the habitat of small cetaceans, and in particular the dolphin populations in the Moray firth and Cardigan bay; and if he will make a statement.

The Government fulfil their obligations under the Berne convention principally through the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The 1981 Act, as subsequently amended, prohibits the deliberate killing, injuring or taking of all small cetacean species.The Government's strategy for protection of the marine environment was set out in the environment White Paper—Cm. 1200. In accordance with the wildlife initiatives agreed in the ministerial declaration of the third North sea conference in March this year, new research is being commissioned to improve knowledge of cetacean behaviour and to analyse tissue samples from stranded animals. Good progress is also being made on the preparation of an agreement on the conservation of small cetaceans in the Baltic and North seas under the Bonn convention on migratory species.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the number of homeless persons aged 16 and 17 years.

Local authorities report the number of households for whom they accept responsibility to secure accommodation under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Act 1985. Information on age is not collected and the Department has no such estimates.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when The Mall in London SW1 was first closed to traffic on Sundays; and what arrangements have been made since then to facilitate the flow of traffic which has to use other roads.

The Mall was first closed to motor traffic on Sundays on 28 July 1968 for an experimental period.

Housing and construction statistics (Tables 6.1 and 6.7)
Numbers of dwellings (England): Starts
	Wheelchair		Mobility
	Housing Association	Local Authority or New Town	Housing Association	Local Authority or New Town	Total disabled dwellings	Total Housing Association/Local Authority or New Town
1979	129	576	2,316	5,950	8,971	68,972
1980	85	488	3,347	4,733	8,653	46,564
1981	16	256	40	1,926	2,238	78,136
1982	32	296	135	2,594	3,057	43,836
1983	31	357	53	2,639	3,080	42,259
1984	89	333	262	1,369	2,053	35,001
1985	34	263	125	1,420	3,895	28,980
1986	33	207	85	1,114	1,439	27,745
1987	27	165	121	947	1,260	25,052
1988	60	244	235	950	1,489	23,383
1989	42	188	328	543	1,101	22,588
19901	67	69	102	469	723	15,295
1 To third quarter.