Written Ministerial Statements
Thursday 25 March 2004
Environment, Food And Rural Affairs
Chemical, Biological, Radiological And Nuclear Decontamination
The strategic national guidance for the decontamination of the open environment exposed to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear substances or material has today been published on the DEFRA website www.defra.gov.uk and the UK resilience website www.ukresilience.info. The guidance may be downloaded from those sites and I am also placing a copy in the Library of the House.This guidance is designed to help local authorities, and others with responsibilities for protection of the public, to develop practical strategies for cleaning up the open environment in the event of the release of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) substances or materials. It also provides an agreed set of basic recovery principles and a shared understanding of the key issues that may need to be addressed. The guidance was recently finalised and is not a response to any new or recent threat of an incident. It is sensible contingency planning and does not mean there is a further threat from CBRN terrorism. Up till now, guidance to local authorities was published in October 2001 and a revised version in August last year. Strategic national guidance on the decontamination of people was published in February 2003.The guidance is part of a suite of CBRN documents developed under the CBRN resilience programme and led by the Home Office. It also refers to the Government's active consideration of establishment of a new service to be ready to provide advice and assistance in decontamination and clean-up after a CBRN incident. Further details will be given as soon as practicable.This guidance will be updated periodically and updates will be available on the DEFRA and UK resilience websites. We welcome feedback on the guidance, which can be sent to
cbrnenquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk.
Fisheries
The Prime Minister's Strategy Unit report "Net Benefits: A Sustainable and Profitable Future for UK Fishing" is published today.The report concludes that the UK fishing industry can be profitable and sustainable in the long term, provided that it modernises to meet global competition.
The report offers an extremely valuable and detached analysis of the situation in British fishing, which we believe offers the Government, the industry and everyone else with an interest the catalyst for moving forward. The report's broad conclusions are:
The Government should clearly define its economic, social, environmental and safety goals for the fishing industry and fishing communities.
The aim should be to foster and support a competitive, profitable and sustainable UK fleet.
Compliance with the rules by the UK fishing industry and other member states should be improved.
UK fisheries management should be further modernised and be more decentralised and flexible.
The fishing industry must be more fully incorporated into the broader marine management process, with a balanced set of rights and responsibilities.
We should actively encourage and support progressive regionalisation of EU management under the CFP.
Government policies should recognise and support vulnerable fishing dependent communities.
Fisheries management should play a full and equal role in wider systems of managing the marine environment.
These are underpinned by a large number of more specific recommendations. They all demand a more developed partnership approach with the industry if implementation is to be successful.
The Government welcome publication of the report, supports all the report's broad conclusions and will now explore and discuss the report in depth. It is important that this is a fully inclusive process. Our aim is for the fisheries departments in the UK to work closely in partnership with each other, and in collaboration with the industry and other stakeholders, to work up practicable and deliverable solutions, building on the proposals and recommendations in the report. Defra have already set up a team to take this process forward, which will be consulting actively with stakeholders over the coming months. A strategy, and a timetable for delivering it, will be agreed by the end of 2004.
Landfill
The landfill directive represents an important step change in the way we dispose of waste. It will encourage waste minimisation and increased levels of recycling and recovery.The council decision on waste acceptance criteria (WAC), agreed in Council in December 2002, sets out the standards that waste must meet to be accepted at one of the three classes of landfill—hazardous, non-hazardous or inert—prescribed by the landfill directive. It introduces criteria and sets limit values for a number of contaminants, so harmonising another aspect of landfill regulation across Europe. A consultation on how the WAC was to be implemented began on 24 September and closed on 17 December.Following consultation we have decided that the implementation date for the WAC will be 16 July 2005 with the "interim year" between July 2004–July 2005 being managed using a site specific approach based on loading rates of new wastes, the types of new waste and the types of waste already in the landfill. This site-specific approach will continue post-2005. The option of opening separate cells in hazardous sites for waste deposited after July 2005, which has been subject to the full WAC, will not be pursued.The limit values for cadmium and mercury will remain those contained in the Council decision. However, this position will be reviewed two years after implementation following discussions between DEFRA and the Environment Agency to determine whether compliance with the groundwater directive requires adoption of limit values lower than those required by the landfill directive. Furthermore, the Government have decided to extend the ban on disposing gypsum-based wastes with biodegradable wastes to include any high sulphate wastes.The risk assessment option will be adopted but given the difficulties for the agency in its regulation, the potential for greater environmental risk and the resultant risk of having to store hazardous waste pending agency checks, Government will restrict the option to only individual waste streams destined for specific mono-fill sites. While there will be no initial time limit to this approach, Government reserve the right to re-visit the issue within two years of implementation.The consultation outcome is available in full on
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/landfill-regs/index.htm
The Landfill (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations to implement these decisions will be laid before Parliament in April. In addition, we expect the landfill directive interpretive guidance to be available to operators also in April.
The Government recognise that implementation of the landfill directive will have a significant impact on the disposal of hazardous waste. They continue to work with the Environment Agency, waste producers and waste managers to ensure that the transition period is as smooth as possible and that the environment and human health are fully protected.
Albatrosses And Petrels
The agreement on the conservation of albatrosses and petrels (ACAP) is the key international treaty, concluded under the convention on migratory species, which deals with the conservation of albatrosses and petrels in the southern hemisphere. The UK played a leading role in drawing up the agreement and was amongst the first to sign it, in June 2001. The agreement entered into force on 1 February as a result of ratification by the fifth party, South Africa, in November 2003.In May 2003 I laid an explanatory memorandum before both Houses of Parliament relating to the ratification of ACAP (Command Paper no 5826) in respect of the UK and the British Antarctic territory.Some of the legal issues raised by the treaty have required further consideration and analysis and the Government did not in fact proceed to ratification last year. In the meantime I am pleased to say that more UK Overseas territories in the range of the species covered by the Agreement have indicated their wish to be included in the UK's ratification and have ensured that their legislation can meet the agreement's requirements. The Government recognises the urgent need to ratify this agreement as quickly as possible. We have long indicated our strong commitment to the conservation of these species, which are at serious risk from a range of human influences, and wish to play our full part in international efforts.I am therefore tabling a revised explanatory memorandum today indicating that we propose to ratify the Agreement, without reservations and without further delay, for the UK and the British Antarctic territory, the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. I intend that the instrument of ratification shall be deposited with the Australian Government on 2 April.As the Government takes these urgent steps, we are conscious that Parliament will have less time than convention normally allows to consider the revised memorandum. However, we believe this to be a special case on the grounds that the agreement itself has been available to both Houses since May 2003. In fact a number of hon. Members have urged the Government recently to take urgent steps to ratify the agreement in the light of the serious conservation issues it addresses. In these circumstances the Government considers that a shortening of the normal scrutiny period is reasonable.
Health
Standards Agency
The Food Standards Agency's annual report and accounts 2002–03 were laid before Parliament today.Copies will be placed in the Library.
Home Department
Immigration And Nationality Directorate
I have today placed in the Library several important documents on immigration and asylum matters:
a report of the investigation by Ken Sutton into how guidance was issued to staff in the Sheffield office of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) on the handling of applications under the European Communities Association Agreements (ECAA);
a response to the Home Affairs Select Committee report on "Asylum Applications";
Investigation of ECAA guidance:Mr. Sutton's main findings are that:the full text of last year's report of the independent review into the operation of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS).
two sets of guidance were developed in Sheffield, to reduce the extent of checking of ECAA applications, one set in September/October 2003, the other in January/February 2004;
the decision to proceed with the new guidance was taken by middle ranking managers in charge of the Sheffield team. It was not cleared with senior officials at IND head office in Croydon or with ministers;
together with the deployment of additional staff, the guidance was intended to clear a backlog of ECAA applications which had built up;
the guidance had nothing to do with attempting to reduce the number of people from EU Accession States who might appear in published statistics after 1 May.
The vast majority of those approved under this guidance were already lawfully in the country. From internal management information, we estimate that around 36,000 decisions in the ECAA category have been made in this financial year of which 29,000 were from people already in the UK.
Mr. Sutton has also referred to the relevance of more general working guidance for staff on the clearance of backlogs of older cases. The volume of applications for extensions of stay means that all Governments at least as far back as the late 1980s. have had to address this problem. Over the years, it has been accepted that making decisions on the basis of the information already available to the caseworker can sometimes be justified as a means of tackling backlogs. This is because long backlogs make immigration controls less effective, as it becomes more difficult to take action against people whose applications have been stuck in the system. They are also unfair to legitimate applicants, most of whom are already in the country legally.
Mr. Sutton has found that managers in Sheffield believed that the approach they took was consistent with general guidance on the clearance of backlogs, but he concludes that it went further in extending the procedure to a broader range of cases including new as well as old cases and that it led staff to going too far in easing the application of the checks.
Mr. Sutton's report shows that mistakes were made. There is no suggestion that these were deliberate or the result of lack of effort. Rather there was an excess of zeal in pursuing the common objective of reducing backlogs. Mr. Sutton's inquiry was not a disciplinary investigation. The Director General of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate has therefore now initiated a disciplinary investigation (with all the safeguards necessary to ensure fairness to members of staff) which will decide what management action is required and whether the management in Sheffield needs further strengthening beyond that already announced.
We are determined to learn from this episode. I have accepted all the recommendations made by Mr. Sutton to address the management and other weaknesses identified in his report. This will make it clear who is responsible for determining caseworking practice, their level in the organisation and the respective roles of Ministers and civil service managers. Staff have a right to expect such clarity and for managers to have a defined measure of authority to manage the business in a sensible way. As part of the follow-up to Mr. Sutton's report and as he has recommended, there will be a major effort to standardise guidance for staff in each operational area, ensure that appropriately senior managers are clearly responsible for authorising that guidance, and lay down clearly the circumstances in which Ministers must be consulted.
I have also instructed the Director General to draw up proposals for an off-line audit and inspection unit, reporting directly to me and the Director General, to undertake inspections of working practices and performance in all parts of IND's business.
It is important that these events should not overshadow the great strides that have been made by IND in recent years, including through the excellent work of caseworking staff in Sheffield. The introduction of charging in August has enabled us to invest in additional general caseworking staff. The number of staff deployed on such work in Croydon and Sheffield has increased by 67 per cent., from 780 at the end of 2002 to around 1,300 now. As a result, we have set and are meeting service standards for charged work under which 70 per cent. of cases are decided within three weeks and virtually all of the rest within 13 weeks. Backlogs are low, and special measures to deal with them are no longer necessary.
There are, however, other areas of IND's business where backlogs remain a problem, including a number of older cases where a decision has been taken, but other issues have been raised by the applicant. I have put in hand a full analysis of the extent of this and steps to be taken to deal with it. Mr. Moxon's actions raised the question of how employees can raise matters of concern within IND. Existing Home Office instructions say concerns should be raised either with the Head of the Department or confidentially with a nominated official outside their line management chain and if still unresolved can be raised with the Civil Service Commissioners. I have ordered these procedures should be re-published to every employee today so they can be clear of the avenues open to them if they are concerned about what they are being asked to do. Separately, the Permanent Secretary is taking steps to strengthen my Private Office to enable it to deal better with the large volume of correspondence it receives which includes around 2,000 e-mails a week.
Response to the Home Affairs Committee report on asylum applications:
Also published today is the Government's response to the Home Affairs Committee's recent report on asylum applications. Here too a history of applications exceeding the capacity to deal with them has been reversed, by reducing intake and investing in extra caseworkers about 2,000 more applications are now being decided each month than are being received. At the end of December 2003 the number of asylum applications awaiting an initial decision had fallen to 24,500, the lowest level for a decade.
This has been achieved by the hard work of IND staff, underpinned by considerable Government investment and clear political leadership. As a result, the work is under control and IND is in a better shape than it has been for many years. I am determined to build on this by targeted, enhanced checks in areas that still concern us, such as the investigation of doubtful marriages, students and colleges. The Home Secretary and I have already been considering steps we should take in all these areas, and we will make a separate announcement soon.
Confidence in the immigration system is important so we can recognise the huge contribution legitimate migrants make to our economic prosperity and society. Migrants make up 8 per cent. of our population but generate 10 per cent. of our total wealth. They are net contributors to the Exchequer, and in all walks of life bring skills and energy that our society needs. I am today laying regulations in the House to give effect to the new workers registration scheme for nationals of eight EU accession countries. These will be debated in both Houses next month.
Independent Review of the National Asylum Support Service:
Also published today in response to a recommendation in the Home Affairs Committee's report is the Report of the independent review of the operation of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS). The review was established in March last year to consider the ways in which NASS operated at that time and provide me with recommendations to improve its performance. I have already published the review's key findings on 15 July last year, and provided the House with a further report on 9 February on the progress we are making in NASS. The review was established as an internal management tool to ensure improvements could be made but I have decided to also place a copy in the library of the House and on the Home Office website.
In addition:
Since last summer NASS has suspended processing of claims for back-payments of asylum support while we clarified the legal position. I can now confirm that we will only make back-payments where the missing payments result from an error on the part of NASS and the claimant is still supported by NASS. A dedicated team will work through the outstanding claims resulting from the suspension;
I am abolishing single additional payments to asylum seekers;
I am tightening up on processes for providing support to single failed asylum seekers under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 which provides for exceptional help to those asylum applicants whose claims have failed;
Iraqis will no longer be routinely eligible for section 4 support unless they are co-operating with voluntary returns. This is in line with our section 4 policy for other nationalities now that we will begin returning failed asylum seekers to Iraq from April, as previously announced;
Our contract with Landmark was terminated on 23 March this year. I am grateful to all our local authority and voluntary sector partners for working with us so closely to make this possible; and
I have laid draft Regulations to provide for routine annual increases in the levels of asylum support with effect from 12 April.
Finally, the Home Secretary has also today laid draft regulations to establish a workers' registration scheme for nationals of eight accession countries as the Home Secretary announced in his statement of 23 February.
Police Constable Gerald Walker
Today I am publishing and placing in the Library the report of the inquiry by Her Majesty's chief inspector of probation into the death of police constable Gerald Walker. In his report, the chief inspector makes a number of recommendations for changes to the way in which the probation, prison and police services manage the release on licence, supervision and revocation of licence of offenders who are serving part of their sentence under supervision in the community. The services have accepted those recommendations in full. I am therefore able to report that I am today also placing in the Library a copy of the detailed action plan which I have agreed with the key correctional services agencies to ensure that the lessons of PC Walker's tragic death are learned and appropriate changes are introduced.Police constable Walker was a serving officer of the Nottinghamshire constabulary at the time of his death at the hands of David Parfitt in Nottingham following the tragic events of 7 January last year. Parfitt had been convicted of robbery on 16 May 2002 and sentenced to two years imprisonment. He was released into the supervision of staff of the Nottinghamshire probation area on 11 September 2002. His licence, which in the normal way would have run until 13 March 2003 included among other conditions, a requirement that Parfitt undergo regular testing for the presence of class A drugs as arranged by the probation service. He was also subject for the first 60 days of his period in the community to an electronically monitored home detention curfew condition which required that he remain at his approved address between 7.15 pm and 7.15 am.At the time PC Walker was killed, Parfitt had completed his period of home detention curfew without breaking the conditions of that curfew, but had recorded a number of positive tests for the presence of class A drugs and had failed to attend a number of appointments with his supervising officer. As a consequence, his supervising officer had requested, and the Home Office approved, the revocation of Mr Parfitt's licence on 9 December 2002.Parfitt was unlawfully at large from that date until 8 January 2003, when he was arrested by the Nottinghamshire police. During that time, Parfitt caused the injuries to PC Walker from which he subsequently died when the officer fell from a vehicle in which Parfitt was seeking to escape. Parfitt was subsequently convicted of manslaughter for the death of PC Walker and was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.PC Gerald Walker's attempts to arrest David Parfitt were the actions of a brave man and a dedicated police officer. They deserve the unreserved commendation of the House. His death as a consequence of Parfitt's actions was an irreparable loss to the Nottinghamshire police service and the people of Nottingham, but even more a personal tragedy for his wife and family. I know that I speak for the whole House in expressing my deepest sympathy and condolences to Mrs. Tracy Walker for her loss.Following PC Walker's death, Mrs Walker was not satisfied that the correctional services agencies had been as open with her about the circumstances of her husband's death as they were required to be. She was concerned that failures in the way in which Parfitt's case had been handled had actually contributed to the situation which led to the death of her husband. She formally complained to the national probation service and on 13 December last year I, together with my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety, asked HM Chief Inspector of Probation, Professor Rod Morgan, to carry out an inquiry into the actions of the prison service, Nottinghamshire probation area and Nottinghamshire constabulary in relation to the events which culminated in and followed the death of PC Walker.I have now received the report of that inquiry. On behalf of myself and my hon. Friend I would like to take this opportunity to thank the chief inspector and his team for the scrupulous manner in which they have approached this important and sensitive inquiry.Professor Morgan's report covers issues at both the local, operational level and in respect of the national policy which informed local practice. He reports that he found a number of failings in the handling of Parfitt's case which, if carried out differently, could have resulted in the earlier revocation of his licence and the possibility of his earlier arrest. He makes a number of recommendations for changes affecting all three services which he believes will reduce the risk of similar failings arising in future and which will contribute to the greater safety of the public.Professor Morgan also identifies serious flaws in the way that the Probation Service dealt with Mrs Walker.Professor Morgan has identified a number of areas in which our present practice for the safe management of offenders in the community can and should be improved. The Government and services accept Professor Morgan's analysis and will implement the changes he proposes. The action plan I have today placed in the Library sets out how we propose to take forward the implementation of the key recommendations outlined by the inquiry report.
Money Laundering Reporting System
An important asset in our fight against crime is the system under which businesses report money laundering to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and that information is analysed for use in investigations. I am therefore pleased to report that substantial improvements to that system have been achieved over recent months. The reforms must continue and be built on but it is clear that new arrangements are being developed which have the potential to have a greater impact on crime.The setting up of the Money Laundering Reporting Taskforce:
In September 2003, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary set up a Taskforce to follow up the findings of a review by the consultants KPMG, commissioned by the Home Office, on the regime for handling reports relating to money laundering. The Taskforce's membership is drawn from key interested parties in the public and private sectors and the Financial Services Authority. It has given me an interim report on the progress of follow-up and the key challenges which remain in delivering a better system.
Summary of the key findings of the Taskforce:
The view of the Taskforce is that the money laundering reporting regime has an important role to play in the fight against crime and terrorism, but equally that the burden the system places on reporting institutions and the public purse must be proportionate. This requires a system that delivers, and is seen to deliver, value to law enforcement, and which must be robust from end to end (from reporting institution via NCIS to law enforcement and the criminal justice system). Considerable progress has been nude since the publication in July 2003 of the KPMG report, but these improvements must be sustained and much still remains to be done. The Taskforce believes the Government should keep the reporting regime under review to ensure it is, and remains, effective and proportionate and that better systems are needed to measure its costs and benefits.
Key challenges identified by the Taskforce:
The Taskforce considered that the key challenges over the system are:
All those involved in the reporting regime need to turn the closer co-operation of recent months into effective action and the system must be developed, not in isolation, but as a key element of the UK's wider anti- money laundering policy;
NCIS need to ensure they can respond to the further increase in reports expected with the widening from 1 March of the range of institutions covered by the Money Laundering Regulations and related reporting obligations. A key element in this is successful operation of the new, differential, reporting system just introduced by NCIS which covers activities that will be of little intelligence value;
NCIS and law enforcement agencies need to provide more support to those institutions reporting on money laundering, so as to improve the quality of those reports;
Disclosing institutions need to continue to work to improve their staffs awareness of reporting obligations, compliance with the law and the production of good quality reports;
The public sector needs to communicate better with disclosing institutions about the reporting regime and to recognise the diverse nature of the businesses in the regulated sector and the money laundering risks they face. To address this issue, the Taskforce has been working on developing and implementing a short-term and long-term communications strategy;
The Taskforce identified the limited capacity of police forces to follow up the intelligence derived from reports on money laundering as one of the main barriers to an effective system.
The Government's response to the interim report:
The Government welcome the improvements made to date to the reporting system to help fight crime. The Taskforce has found that information from reports on money laundering is now being analysed better and sent on to law enforcement agencies much more quickly; but also stressed that these improvements must be sustained and much still remains to be done. I have therefore asked for a further report in early summer, at which point I will consider how best we can continue to drive forward and monitor progress on this important task.
The reporting system is a key element in the United Kingdom's defences against money laundering and an important source of intelligence on all types of acquisitive crime (drugs trafficking, theft, fraud, and all other types of crime committed for financial gain). So it is crucial to ensure that it is effective but that the costs it imposes on the private sector are proportionate.
The Government recognise that the whole system is built on the work of the institutions making reports. It relies heavily on the part that the private sector play in this partnership to fight crime, and I would like here to pay tribute to the money laundering reporting officers and all the others in the private sector involved in the making of these reports.
The fight against money laundering is one element in the Government's wider strategy to take the profit out of crime. As part of this strategy I was delighted to announce on 24 February a new incentive scheme for the police. The scheme will give the police a direct financial incentive to recover even more criminally acquired wealth, by giving them a stake in the assets they recover. They will receive a third of all assets above £40 million recovered next year, increasing to 50 per cent. in 2005–06. The maximum benefit available to the police will be £43 million in 2004–05, rising to 65 million in 2005–06.
I acknowledge that the Association of Chief Police Officers have expressly requested that money under the incentive scheme should not be ring-fenced for specific purposes and we have therefore not done that. However, at a time when police numbers in England and Wales have reached a record level and we are giving extra funding through the incentive scheme, I hope that the police will be investing more effort in working on intelligence derived from reports of money laundering. This would be in line with the National Policing Plan 2004–07, which encourages police forces to ensure that intelligence from the reporting system is used to the full.
The intelligence from the money laundering reporting system can be of great value in fighting all manner of acquisitive crime. The reporting system is a key element in our strategy, and it is crucial to ensure that we use the information from reports as effectively as possible to detect and deter criminals.
International Development
Iraq (Reconstruction)
I visited Iraq from 22–23 March. In Baghdad I met the Iraqi Governing Council, Ministers and representatives of non-Government organisations, as well as Ambassador Bremer and other staff from the Coalition Provisional Authority. In Basra I visited two development projects, met leaders of women's groups and held discussions with CPA South staff.Significant progress is being made. Iraq's economy is recovering with oil output now over 2.5 million barrels per day, and reconstruction projects are bringing results. I visited Al Faw, to see the installation of 5 x 2MW diesel generators, funded by DFID, which should provide the 45,000 citizens of Al Faw with 24 hours of electricity every day.In Basra I visited the Rzero Water Treatment Plant. This is part of a major programme to renew the Basra water supply. The USA is providing most of the capital investment, alongside some money provided by the Development Fund for Iraq, to extend new water mains to the poorest areas of Basra, and in doing so create up to 2,000 jobs. The DFID-financed team in CPA South helps to coordinate the whole programme. It should provide a good model for future collaboration.Successful reconstruction is bringing new challenges. Sustaining the improvements in infrastructure will require difficult political decisions by the new Iraqi Government about charging customers realistic rates for services such as electricity and water, and strengthening the Iraqi institutions that run these utilities. the public distribution system for food and Iraq's state owned enterprises will also need reform. The IMF and World Bank will have a significant role to play in this. Security remains a major concern for the Iraqis and those who are helping them. But encouraging progress is being made in recruiting for the new Iraqi security forces, and training programmes are underway.The transitional administrative law is a significant development in the political process. At the Governing Council's invitation the UN has agreed to play a major role in facilitating the formation of the interim Government and the preparation for elections. The handover on 30 June will be a big step. From 1 July Iraqis will have to address their concerns to their own Government. However, donors will still have a significant role, and we are working to make the transition as smooth as possible and to ensure that donors coordinate their programmes effectively.The Minister for Municipalities and Public Works, Mrs Nasreen Berwari joined me in Baghdad to launch DFID's interim Country Assistance Plan for Iraq, which I announced to the House in a written statement on 23 February (Col: 7WS), Copies of the plan are in the Libraries of both Houses. At the same time I was able to confirm that DFID is making an initial contribution of £70 million to the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq: £40 million of this will be spent through the World Bank's Trust Fund and £30 million through the UN's, We are also providing £8.5 million to the International Finance Corporation for its programme for small and medium enterprises in Iraq, which will enable it to start promoting much needed business activity and employment.Recent events remind us to take nothing for granted in Iraq, but overall reconstruction is going better than many predicted. However, it will require a sustained effort from the Iraqis, with support from the international community, to ensure that it succeeds.
Foreign And Commonwealth Affairs
Liberia
With the support of Her Majesty's Government, the United Nations Security Council on 12 March unanimously adopted UN Security Council Resolution 1532(2004). The resolution imposes an asset freeze against Charles Taylor former President of Liberia, his wife Jewell Howard Taylor and his son Charles Taylor Jr. The asset freeze will also target senior officials of the former Taylor regime, and other close allies and associates of Taylor, as designated by the Committee established by UN Security Council Resolution 1521 (2004). The legal basis for the asset freeze is that Charles Taylor and others continue to use misappropriated funds to undermine peace and stability in Liberia and the region. The resolution includes humanitarian and other exemptions to the freeze, and states the intention to consider whether and how to make frozen assets available to the Government of Liberia.
Zimbabwe
With the support of Her Majesty's Government, Common Position 2002/145/CFSP and EC Regulation 310/2002 imposing EU sanctions against Zimbabwe were renewed and replaced by Common Position 2004/161/CFSP and EC Regulation 314/2004 on 19 February 2004. The measures include an arms embargo and ban on related technical assistance, with specific exemptions; an embargo on equipment that might be used for internal repression; a travel ban on listed Zimbabwean officials, who are undermining democracy, human rights and the rule of law, preventing them from entering the EU, with standard criteria for exemptions; and an assets freeze against the listed officials, with certain specific exemptions. The list of officials (in the Annex to the Common Position) has been increased from 79 to 95. The measures in the new Common Position and Regulation follow the EU Guidelines on Implementation and Evaluation of Restrictive Measures (Sanctions) in the Framework of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, which were adopted on 8 December 2003. The measures apply for 12 months from 21 February 2004. Amendments or renewal of the measures will be made if their stated objective has not been met.
Transport
Central Railway
I have today written to the Chairman of Central Railway declining the company's request for the Government to promote a Hybrid Bill to seek powers for Central Railway's proposal to build a wholly privately financed dedicated rail freight line from North-West England to the Channel Tunnel.The Government have carefully considered Central's proposals and has held extensive and constructive discussions with the company. While such a scheme could make a contribution to increasing the carriage of freight by rail, Central Railway has not substantiated the likely financeability of the proposals. The Government also have concerns about the operational effects on the existing rail network and on the capacity of the construction and financial markets, and the mitigation of the adverse environmental impacts.The promoters have received expressions of interest from a number of possible debt providers but these are generally substantially caveated. Neither have they demonstrated that the significant amount of equity finance would be forthcoming.Central Railway has claimed that no call would be made on the public purse. However, once the Government have agreed to promote a Bill, inescapably they would be taken to be backing the project. Should initial finance not be raised, or the project run into financial difficulty once work was under way, the Government of the day could not escape intense pressure to intervene. The Government have therefore concluded that it cannot promote a Bill against such risks.The Government are supporting investment in enhancing the rail network, including capacity for rail freight, through other projects. In particular, the west coast main line upgrade and the channel tunnel rail link, together costing over £12 billion, will provide substantial extra capacity, including for freight.