Today, the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) are launching a new strategy for workplace health and safety in Great Britain. We fully support this strategy, which is based on the experience of the last 30 years, evidence available now and extensive consultations with a wide range of stakeholders.The strategy represents a significant change of approach for the health and safety system as a whole and the role of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and local authorities within that system. It sets out HSE's ambition to be a modern regulator, responding to new issues in the changing world of work. It emphasises the focus on managing risks, not trying to eliminate them. The strategy also places a greater emphasis on seeking improvements in occupational health.To make the greatest impact, HSE and its partners will focus more resource on those areas of greatest need and less where the risks are well managed.The strategy recognises that HSE cannot achieve improvements on its own. The whole of the health and safety system needs to be involved. This means forming close partnerships with local authorities and other stakeholders.The strategy also recognises that the people best placed to make workplaces safe are the staff and managers who work in them. To support them there is a need to promote greater involvement of workers and to make accessible to them clearer and simpler advice and information.Over the last 30 years there have been significant improvements in workplace safety. We want to see similar improvements in occupational health. That will require working together with other health organisations.Improvements in occupational health have a close synergy with the wider Department for Work and Pensions agenda of preventing people from leaving work due to ill health and helping people move back into work. Preventing accidents and ill health at work plays a major role in this agenda, particularly in relation to occupational health issues such as stress and musculoskeletal disorders.The Government want to see occupational health and safety as a cornerstone of a civilised society and with that achieve a record of both health and safety that leads the world. Much has been done, but there is more to do. The strategy is needed to help us to tackle new issues, especially in occupational ill health and to ensure that workplace safety continues to improve.

I would like to update the House on the progress made on implementing the recommendations contained in the Government's statement on the historic environment, "A Force for Our Future", since March 2003.The statement, published in December 2001, articulates the Government's vision for the historic environment at the heart of national life and sets an agenda for unlocking its full potential. This programme of action emphasises the value of the historic environment as an educational resource, its relevance to all members of the community and how it can work as an economic and regenerative asset in urban and rural settings.The Government will continue to take this agenda forward in a number of ways, in particular through the review of heritage protection, English Heritage's annual state of the historic environment reports, the DCMS/ DfES Joint Committee on Built Environment Education and English Heritage's funding agreement, which is co-sponsored by DCMS, DEFRA and ODPM.Since March 2003 the following has been achieved:

On 12 February my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced that he would support the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS trust in its bid to be part of the first wave of NHS foundation trusts. The NHS trust can now apply to the office of the Independent Regulator, chaired by Bill Moyes, for authorisation as an NHS foundation trust, and set up new governance arrangements including recruiting members and holding elections to the Board of Governors.The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS trust is now working towards authorisation as an NHS foundation trust along with 24 other NHS trusts.

I have today made a technical amendment to the authorisation under section 19D of the Race Relations Act which enables immigration officers to prioritise arriving passengers for examination and immigration offenders for removal on the ground of nationality. The change is that nationalities will be prioritised if adverse decisions and immigration breaches reach more than 50 in total and five of every 1,000 admitted persons of a particular nationality.The change is necessary to keep the system of prioritisation manageable in the light of improvements to data collection. We do not anticipate that this will make a significant difference to the number of nationalities prioritised and decisions will continue to be made on the individual merits of each case.

I have today made an authorisation under section 19D of the Race Relations Act 1976 (as amended) which will enable immigration officers to prioritise the examination of passengers of Somali national origin. For a period of three months this will allow such people to be examined more rigorously than would otherwise be the case.The purpose of this measure is to enable the immigration service to obtain information on the number and profiles of Somali-born passengers entering the UK. The aim of this measure is to establish how the large numbers of in-country asylum applicants claiming as Somali, apparently without documentation, enter the UK.

I have today made an authorisation under section 19D of the Race Relations Act 1976 as amended which enables the Home Office to implement measures targeting the top five nationalities in terms of third country/Dublin cases for additional examination on the grounds of nationality.This change will enable officials to compare the fingerprints of asylum seekers of these five nationalities against other governments' fingerprint databases of asylum seekers, failed asylum seekers and those granted some form of leave to remain.This change also allows officials to compare the details of asylum seekers from the five prioritised nationalities with the details of individuals originally from those countries but now holding a form of immigration status elsewhere who have been granted a visa to travel to the UK.The purpose of these measures is to identify individuals who have claimed asylum, are failed asylum seekers or absconders, or who already have some form of status in another country and who subsequently claim asylum in the UK.Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Somalia and Sudan were the top five nationalities subject to third country/Dublin action in the last six months of 2003. This means that other EU member states are properly responsible to consider the asylum claim of the individuals concerned. Any individuals identified under these processes may be returned to the safe third country identified as responsible for them under existing immigration law.

The latest report on the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong was published today and copies have been placed in the Library of the House. A copy of the report is also available on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website www.fco.gove.uk. The report covers the period from 1 July to 31 December 2003 and includes a foreword by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. I commend the report to the House.

I have placed in the Libraries of both Houses a copy of DFID's interim country assistance plan for Iraq. It sets out how DFID aims to contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq in the period up to March 2006. I have also decided to make an initial contribution of £65 million-US$120 million—to the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq, managed by the World Bank and United Nations, out of the resources pledged by the United Kingdom for the reconstruction of Iraq at the Madrid donors conference in October 2003, which I outlined in my written statement of 14 October 2003, column 9-10 WS.Saddam Hussein's tyranny led to a significant increase in poverty and Iraq was isolated from the rest of the world, including its own region, for much of his rule. In many respects Iraq's social and economic indicators now resemble those of a low-income country rather than a major oil producer. But Iraq's abundant human and natural resources offer the potential for a rapid return to relative prosperity, if the right conditions are created in the short and medium term.Against this background, DFID's objectives for the next two years are to support: rapid, sustainable and equitable economic growth; effective and accountable governance; and social and political cohesion and stability.To work towards these goals DFID will focus on three levels:Internationally: by supporting the United Nations and World Bank International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq (IRFFI), assisting the Ministry of Planning and Development Co-operation, and continuing dialogue with other donors on the coordination and effectiveness of assistance to Iraq.

I am pleased to announce that Her Majesty has graciously approved the detailed qualifying criteria for the award of a Campaign Medal for recent operations in Iraq. I have laid the Command Paper instituting the Iraq Campaign Medal in Parliament today.