I am pleased to be able to announce that we will be buying 64 Tomahawk land attack missiles from the United States under the terms of a foreign military sales case. These are conventionally armed land attack missiles. These new missiles will be to higher—Block IV—specification than our existing Block III missiles. As such, they will provide the ability to retarget or abort a mission in flight and will also provide battle damage indication. They will be capable of being fired from our current Trafalgar Class submarines as well as from our new Astute Class submarines when they enter service.This decision shows our continued commitment to enabling precision attack at long range against selected targets.

I am pleased to announce that the Northern Ireland discretionary social fund budget for 2004–05 will be £58.25 million; £12.64 million will be allocated to grants, £45.51 million to loans and £0.1 million will be held as a contingency reserve. The new allocations represent an increase of £1.65 million over the initial gross budget set at April 2004. This increase will be funded through higher loan recoveries, plus an increase in net treasury finding of £0.94 million for this year. This £0.94 million is the second of three annual increases from a £8.2 million boost for the discretionary social fund announced in the autumn 2002 pre-Budget report.The community care grant budget has been increased by £0.94 million to £12.64 million. This will provide more help to customers, in particular families with children and the disabled.The loans budget has been increased to £45.51 million, an increase of £0.71 million on the initial 2003–04 loans budget. To improve the fairness of the scheme, budgets will be allocated in a way that will over time achieve greater consistency of outcome for customers wherever they live.Details of the budget allocations, together with a note explaining the basis on which they have been made, have been placed in the House of Commons Library today.

I have placed copies of the Youth Justice Agency's Corporate Plan for 2004–07 and Business Plan for 2004–05 in the Libraries of both Houses.Business Plan contains eight key performance targets I have set for the Service for 2004–05. These are:

The Government have today issued guidance to civil servants on the principles which they should observe in relation to the conduct of Government business in the period before the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament, Greater London Authority and to local authorities in England and Wales.The guidance stresses that civil servants should conduct themselves in accordance with the civil service code and is based on the need to maintain the political impartiality of the civil service and the need to ensure that public resources are not used for party political purposes.The guidance will come into force on Thursday 20 May 2004, ahead of the elections on Thursday 10 June 2004.Copies of the guidance have been placed in the Library.

I am delighted to announce that the consultation "Taking it on: Developing UK Sustainable Development Strategy" was launched today.The UK Government, together with the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and Northern Ireland are consulting to develop new sustainable strategy for the UK. The consultation will include local and regional events and an online consultation facility, and will provide a strong basis for renewed action to deliver sustainable development.The consultation will close on 31 July. We aim to publish the new UK strategic framework, and the UK Government's strategy, in spring 2005.The consultation document will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses, and is also available on the UK Government's sustainable development website.

The new arrangements for child support came into operation for new cases and some linked old scheme cases from 3 March 2003. Progress has been slower than anticipated, chiefly due to problems with the new computer and telephony systems. However, over the course of the first year of operation of the new scheme, progress in performance has grown steadily. For example, more than a third of all maintenance

I can now provide latest monthly progress report on the take-up of pension credit, which became payable on 6 October 2003.There are now 2.40 million pensioner households (2.91 million individuals) being paid pension credit, including 138,000 pension credit households (176,000 individuals) added in March. This is the greatest monthly increase in the number of pension credit households (so far to date) and a means that we have met our published target for the end of March. As at 31 March, there are 1.74 million households (2.09 million individuals) now receiving more money as a result of the introduction of pension credit. The pension credit application line, at our four sites across the country, has received millions of calls since it became operational on 7 April 2003 and 95 per cent. of calls have been answered within 30 seconds. The average pension credit award is £41.34 per week.Our direct mail campaign is continuing, supported by a major advertising campaign on TV and in the press. By the end of this month we will have written to every pensioner household in the country to tell them about pension credit. We are continuing to work with organisations such as Help The Aged, Age Concern and Citizens Advice, among others, both at national and local level, to encourage eligible people to take up their entitlement. In particular, the pension service is focusing on those customers who are less likely to take up their entitlement.There is plenty of time for pensioners to apply for pension credit. To ensure that pensioners do not lose out there is a twelve-month backdating provision, as announced in the Budget statement. This will allow applications to be backdated for a year, or to the date entitlement begins if this is later.I am placing in the Library a report showing progress so far, including regional breakdowns of the number of pension credit households and numbers of pension credit cards in parliamentary constituencies in Great Britain. Copies of the report are also available for hon. Members in the Vote Office.