To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what assumptions were made in the public expenditure survey figures published on 12 November 1992 for the average cost of criminal legal aid bills in the magistrates courts to be paid in 1993–94.

It is estimated that the average cost of criminal legal aid bills in the magistrates courts in 1993–94 would be £484 if the current rates and levels of fees were maintained.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will provide a detailed breakdown of savings to be achieved from his proposed changes to legal aid eligibility.

It is estimated that the measures announced by the Lord Chancellor on 12 November 1992 will reduce legal aid expenditure by £43 million in 1993–94, £110 million in 1994–95, and £173 million in 1995–96. It is not possible to provide separate figures for all the individual proposals, since most of them are interdependent and can only be costed together.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what is the estimate for the average cost of criminal legal aid bills in the magistrates courts paid in 1992–93.

On the latest information, the average cost of a criminal legal aid bill in the magistrates courts in 1992–93 is estimated to be £459.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what was the cost to legal aid in each case prosecuted by the Metropolitan police fraud investigation group in which the legal bills were determined after 1 April 1992;(2) what was the cost to legal aid for each case prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office in which the legal aid bills were paid after 1 April 1992.

It is not possible to identify individual cases prosecuted by the Metropolitan police fraud investigation group and the Serious Fraud Office from information held centrally by my Department. It is therefore not possible to identify the total amount paid from legal aid from 1 April 1992 in cases being brought by the Metropolitan police fraud investigation group or Serious Fraud Office.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will state for each magistrates court in England and Wales what percentage of applications for criminal legal aid was refused on merit in the latest year for which figures are available.

Information on the grant of criminal legal aid in magistrates courts for 1991, which is the latest year for which figures are available, was published on 4 August 1992. Copies are available in the Library. The figures do not distinguish between refusals on grounds of merits and on means.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what assessment he has made of the effect on costs to the court system of changes in the numbers of litigants in person appearing before the civil and criminal courts resulting from the proposed changes in arrangements in legal aid elegibility.

Very little effect is expected on criminal legal aid as a result of the eligibility changes. So far as civil legal aid is concerned, the Department does not envisage that there will be any significant increase in the number of unrepresented litigants.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will publish the advice tendered to the Lord Chancellor by his advisory committee on legal aid about the proposed changes to the arrangements for legal aid eligibility.

The legal aid advisory committee has already made public its advice to the Lord Chancellor on the proposed eligibility changes and the Lord, Chancellor's response to its advice. I have placed copies of the correspondence in the Library.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what was the number of grants of criminal legal aid for magistrates courts in (a) 1991 and (b) 1992;(2) how many legal aid orders were granted for each magistrates court for which information is available

The number of grants of criminal legal aid for magistrates courts in 1991, as published in the Lord Chancellor's Department "Judicial Statistics" (1991 edition, table 10.2), was 514,000. The figure for 1992 is not yet available, but is estimated to be 513,000.The number of legal aid orders granted for each magistrates' court for which information is available, from 355 courts, between October and December 1991 was as follows:

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what is his Department's estimate of the number of (a) contributory civil legal aid certificates and (b) non-contributory civil legal aid certificates to be issued in 1993–94 if (i) the financial conditions remain unchanged and (ii) the Lord Chancellor's proposals announced on 12 November are introduced.

It is estimated that in 1993–94 283,000 civil legal aid certificates will be issued of which 198,000 will be non-contributory and 85,000 contributory. If eligibility conditions had not been changed, it is estimated that 410,000 certificates would have been issued in 1993–94 of which about 330,000 would have been non-contributory and 80,000 contributory.

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many (a) Lords of Appeal, (b) heads of division, (c) High Court, for each of its three divisions, (d) Crown court, (e) circuit and (f) district judges and stipendiry magistrates there are in total; and how many in each category are women.

The total number and the number of women in these categories as at 1 February 1993 were as follows:

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what action he intends to take to ensure that more people from ethnic minority communities in the London borough of Waltham Forest are appointed to all tribunals under the independent tribunal service; and what is the present composition of all tribunals serving Waltham Forest.

To encourage more ethnic minority practitioners to come forward for consideration, the Lord Chancellor has made widely available to ethnic minority practitioners and representative groups the booklet which sets out the requirements for each appointment and describes the judicial appointments system generally.The Lord Chancellor's policy is to appoint to judicial office those best qualified, regardless of sex, ethnic origin, political affiliation or religion and appointments must be justified on merit. The Lord Chancellor appoints only the legal chairmen of the tribunals under the independent tribunal service.Information held on the ethnic origin of 18 members of the social security appeal tribunal in Walthamstow, which serves Waltham Forest, shows that three out of the 18 are from ethnic minorities.Figures are not kept separately for that area for the other tribunals under the service. For the whole South Eastern region, one out of 105 members of the medical appeal tribunals/vaccine damage tribunals and 66 out of 454 members of the disability appeal tribunals are from the ethnic minorities.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what, for the latest available year, was the cost to his Department of expenditure in support of the royal family in respect of publicity services.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers given on 11 December 1992, Official Report, column 801, and 14 January 1993, Official Report, columns 767–78. The cost of work undertaken for the royal household by the Central Office of Information in 1991–92 for press facilities totalled £318,260, excluding VAT.

To ask the Chairman of the Accommodation and Works Committee what proportion of waste from the Houses of Parliament is currently recycled; and what plans he has to improve that proportion.

It is not possible to say precisely what proportion of total waste from the Houses of Parliament, which includes kitchen refuse, is recycled, but all paper and glass is collected by a contractor and recycled. Arrangements have been made during the past year for metal cans to be collected and sorted off site so that they, too, can be recycled. The Parliamentary Works Department also retains reusable timber and metal from building projects. Proposals are currently being sought for the collection and recycling of plastics, although it is too early to say whether any of these will prove viable.

To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee what arrangements are in hand to secure the supply of stationery to hon. and right hon. Members following the receivership of one of the suppliers.

This is a matter for the Serjeant at Arms.

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what has been the expenditure on participants in (a) employment action and (b) employment training in each year of operation;(2) what has been the expenditure on providers in

The information is not available in the form requested. The Department contracts with training and enterprise councils (TECs) to provide agreed numbers of training weeks for employment action and employment training and outputs for employment training at agreed unit prices.Total expenditure on both programmes, excluding administrative costs, in each year of operation is shown in the following table. The Department does not record separate administrative costs on a programme basis.

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps her Department has taken to implement the recommendations of "Tourism in the United Kingdom: Realising the Potential" as it applies to her Department's responsibilities; and if she will make a statement.

A healthy tourism sector is vital to the United Kingdom economy. The Employment Department, TECs, industry training organisations and the National Council for Vocational Qualifications are working together to ensure that individuals have the necessary skills to support the industry's needs.National vocational qualifications and Scottish vocational qualifications are now available for most occupations in the tourism and leisure sector. Following the introduction of general national vocational qualifications (GNVQs) last year 56 centres are now offering the GNVQ in tourism and leisure with 19 per cent. of all candidates undertaking the Leisure and Tourism option. A tourism and leisure consortium was formed in April 1992 with representatives from a wide range of organisations and this group is considering industrywide approaches to qualifications in the sector and how their implementation might best be achieved.

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people have been employed in the voluntary sector in the United Kingdom in each year since 1979.

Neither the Employment Department nor the Home Office, which is generally responsible for liaison with the voluntary sector, records data on the number of waged people employed in voluntary organisations.