I have decided that the shortened form of birth certificate, which omits names of parents, will no longer be acceptable evidence of nationality for the purpose of applying for a British passport in the United Kingdom. This will help with our aims of combating identity fraud and in ensuring the integrity of the British passport. It will also bring practice in the UK into line with that at British consular posts overseas, the Channel Islands and Isle of Man.Since the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force on 1 January 1983, British nationality has not automatically been acquired by the fact of birth in the UK or a British Overseas Territory. The Act provides that a child born in the UK will be a British citizen if one of the parents is a British citizen or is settled in the UK. Equivalent provisions apply to the overseas territories. A short birth certificate, which establishes only the place and date of birth, is therefore not sufficient to establish eligibility for a passport. The practice introduced on 1 January 1983 was to accept the passport applicant's own declaration on the application form as to the identity and nationality of the parents upon whom the child's British nationality depended. This was a satisfactory interim measure, but is no longer appropriate over 20 years after the change in the law.The new requirement will introduce an important safeguard against false claims of British nationality and will make identity fraud more difficult. I am aware that although over 75 per cent. of new parents obtain a full standard certificate when registering a birth, many people only have a short birth certificate and will therefore face a small additional expense in obtaining a passport. However it is in everyone's interest that British passports are issued only on production of adequate evidence of British nationality. The change, which will normally affect only those applying for their first passport, will be implemented on 4 May 2004.

Her Majesty the Queen has been graciously pleased to approve my recommendation that a commemorative crown should be issued in 2004 to mark the 100th anniversary of the entente cordiale between Britain and France.

I have today granted consent under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to Rugeley Power Limited for the construction of flue gas desulphurisation plant at the 1,000 MW coal-fired power station at Rugeley in Staffordshire. Planning permission for the plant has also been deemed to be granted, subject to 47 planning conditions agreed with the Staffordshire County Council, the Cannock Chase District Council and the Lichfield District Council.Copies of the press notice and decision letter are being placed in the Library of the House.

I am pleased to announce that, after a two year period of consultation and consideration, we propose to seek Parliament's approval for regulations, under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, to enable people conceived by donated sperm, eggs or embryos in future to know the identity of their donor.We propose that donors who donate from 1 April 2005 will do so on the understanding that any child born as a result of their donation will be able to obtain from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority identifying details about them when the child reaches the age of 18. This will not apply to people who have donated before that time. It means that the first donor-conceived people to receive identifying information about their donors would do so in 2023.I must stress that removal of anonymity will not lead to the donor having any responsibility, parental, financial or otherwise, for the child.In addition, as we announced on 28 January 2003, the regulations will provide for non-identifying information about donors to be given, on request, to donor-conceived people who were born after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's register came into effect in 1991. This will be available to 18 year olds in 2010. The non-identifying information will be standardised so that, from 2022, all donor-conceived people who request it will be able to receive the same categories of information.

I am pleased to announce today the results of the 2003 rural bus challenge competition. A total of £20 million pounds has been awarded to 33 local authorities for 42 schemes which will provide improved local transport in rural areas.This announcement brings to £110 million the sum awarded under the rural bus challenge scheme, supporting a total of 300 projects. A list of the 2003 awards will be deposited in the Library of the House.

I have decided to allow robust details, as developed by the House Builders Federation (HBF), to be used as an alternative to pre-completion testing to demonstrate compliance with Part E of the Building Regulations. This applies only to the sound insulation between new houses and flats. The HBF's proposals have been subjected to public consultation with a generally favourable response. They have also been considered by the Building Regulations Advisory Committee (BRAC) who have recommended acceptance, subject to a monitoring procedure, and a review of the situation in three years. I anticipate that the option to use robust details will come into force on 1 July 2004, and I propose to publish amendment regulations before then.Future development, maintenance and monitoring of the robust details will be carried out by an independent company set up for the purpose called Robust Details Ltd. This company will be run by a management board whose members represent industry (building and product manufacturers), building control, and consumer interests. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will be represented by an Observer.I am confident that use of robust details will result in significantly improved standards of sound insulation, while imposing much less of a burden on industry than pre-completion testing.

Hon. Members will wish to be aware of the outcome of the plenary of the Wassenaar arrangement on export controls for conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies which took place in Vienna on 10–12 December 2003.The arrangement is the only multilateral export control forum dealing with conventional arms. Its purpose is to prevent de-stabilising accumulations of conventional weapons in sensitive parts of the world by promoting transparency and responsibility in transfers of arms and dual-use goods. The Government believe the arrangement has an important role to play in improving arms exporting practices amongst its current participating states, and can help to spread good practice to other countries.The plenary meeting concluded a year-long review of the arrangement, which has agreed a number of important changes to its operations, including:

In December it was announced that, subject to the European Parliamentary and Local Elections Pilot Bill achieving Royal Assent, the north-east and east midlands regions would pilot all postal voting at the combined European Parliamentary and local elections in June 2004. I can today announce it is our intention that two further regions will also hold all-postal pilots. These regions will be Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west.I am pleased to be able to announce these further regions so that the important work of preparing for the pilot elections can begin in earnest. We have identified Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west after discussion with electoral administrators and look forward to those regions, alongside the north-east and east midlands, helping us to progress our electoral modernisation agenda.

As part of the Government's commitment to investigate Gulf veterans' illnesses openly and honestly, data on mortality of veterans of the 1990–91 Gulf conflict are regularly published. The most recent figures, for the period 1 April 1991 to 31 December 2003, were published on 15 January 2004. The key tables from that publication are set out below. Table 1 gives the causes of death to UK Gulf veterans over that period; table 2 shows the deaths due to malignant neoplasms among UK Gulf veterans. As with previous information, the data for Gulf veterans are compared to that of a control group, known as the Era cohort, which is made up of armed forces personnel of a similar age, gender, service, regular/reservist status and rank who were not deployed.