Today I am delighted to announce that Her Majesty the Queen has approved the appointment of Andrew Bridges as HM Chief Inspector of Probation. Mr. Bridges' appointment will be for an initial period of 12 months. Through their expertise and rigour of approach the probation inspectorate have provided a major contribution to the national probation service. I am confident that Andrew Bridges will continue that tradition and that he will play a key role in monitoring the National Offender Management Service.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is a key institution of the Belfast agreement. We in Government want it to succeed and are committed to helping it to do so. It is in all our interests that we have a strong, independent and self-confident Commission, which draws support from all parts of the community. It is from this position that we are approaching the coming year.We have listened to the criticism of the Human Rights Commission. We have also listened to the other side, those who see the Commission doing the best job it can in difficult circumstances. We have thought carefully about the issues and how to address them.We will shortly begin a process to recruit a new chief commissioner and a full set of commissioners to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. We expect the process to take some months, with the new chief commissioner and commissioners being announced in the autumn. We propose to invite a number of those commissioners to take office soon after appointment. We will do this after discussion with the chief commissioner-designate, who will also be invited to join early. He or she will not become chief commissioner until the end of Brice Dickson's appointment. The remainder of the incoming commissioners will take office on 28 February 2005, at which point those who have served two terms will leave.We will begin this process shortly. In the meantime we will be working on the details of the process. We will use search consultants. An independent assessor will be involved throughout and there will be a human rights expert, alongside the independent assessor, on the panel that interviews candidates.

The Government are gravely concerned about the situation in Darfur, Western Sudan. The UN estimates that the fighting has led to the internal displacement of over 750,000 people, with about 130,000 refugees sheltering in Chad. The civilian population is in a precarious state. Humanitarian requirements for food, water and shelter are enormous, but access remains limited. Civilian protection is a major concern with reports of systematic attacks on civilians, including killings, rape, pillage and destruction of livelihoods. The approaching rainy season, due to start in mid-May, will add to the problems, increasing the risk of epidemics and hindering the movement of relief supplies.The humanitarian ceasefire agreement, signed on 8 April, is a welcome step forward in resolving the crisis in Darfur. The parties must now live up to those commitments and allow international monitoring with full access to the areas and people affected.James Morris, Head of the World Food Programme, has just returned from a mission to Sudan. I met him on 4 May and discussed the grave humanitarian situation and the need for the international community to do more.

The Chancellor confirmed in his pre-Budget report that we would be launching a consultation on developing measures to address diffuse water pollution from agriculture in the early part of this year.The synergies between agriculture and environment are key to sustainable development. Given our desire to gain maximum value from a wide-ranging consultation on how best to both increase the sustainability of English agriculture and ensure it plays its part in making water in England as clean and as healthy as practicable, we will now be publishing this consultation on 17 June.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) is today publishing its business plan for 2004–05. The DMO's targets for 2004–05 are set out in the business plan. A brief commentary on last year's outturn in relation to the comparable targets will be included in the DMO's report and accounts for 2003–04. A copy of the business plan has been placed in the Library of the House.

I am launching today a consultation on draft regulations for a statutory operating and financial review (OFR), following a recommendation of the company law review and proposals set out in the Government's White Paper "Modernising Company Law" of July 2002. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and the Vote Office.The OFR regulations will require quoted companies to provide a narrative report setting out the company's business objectives, its strategy for achieving them and the risks and uncertainties that might affect their achievement. It will require companies to report on other matters where these are necessary for an understanding of the business. These matters include employees, the envirc nment and social and community issues. It is proposed that where directors believe that they have nothing to report on those matters, they will have to state that fact. The OFR will represent a move from reporting on past performance to an assessment of the future prospects of the company in both the short and the long term. It will enable shareholders to judge whether the directors' view of the business meets their own long-term investment needs and their own expectations of the way good companies should perform—companies that understand the importance of human capital, open dealings with customers and suppliers, and their impact on the environment and on the wider community.

I wish to inform the House about the Government's decision on the future of special shares held in the British Energy Group, Nuclear Generation Decommissioning Fund Limited, National Grid Transco plc, Viridian, Phoenix Natural Gas, Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy.The Secretary of State for Scotland and I jointly hold a special share in British Energy plc. I hold a special share in British Energy's English operating subsidiary, British Energy Generation Limited, and the Secretary of State for Scotland holds a special share in the Scottish operating subsidiary, British Energy Generation (UK) Limited. I also hold a special share in the Nuclear Generation Decommissioning Fund Limited (NGDF) that would be subsumed into the new Nuclear Liabilities Fund (NLF) being created as part of the proposed restructuring of British Energy. In addition, I also hold a special share in National Grid Transco plc. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland holds special shares in Viridian and in Phoenix Natural Gas. The Secretary of State for Scotland holds special shares in Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy.Special shares in these companies require the consent of the relevant Minister for certain significant decisions affecting shareholdings, the structure of the company or disposal of certain assets. In particular, Government consent is required for any move that would allow a single person to own more than 15 per cent. in any of the companies.We have been considering carefully the future of these shares that date back to the original privatisation of the companies in the light of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgments on special shares (including BAA) on 13 May 2003, and, in the case of British Energy, the proposed restructuring of the company. The Government have concluded that the current legal and regulatory framework now provides adequate protection of the public policy objectives, which the special shares were initially set up to cover. We will maintain only those that can be justified and are necessary in the public interest.Taking account of the ECJ judgments, the Government have decided to redeem the special shares held in National Grid Transco plc, Viridian, Phoenix Natural Gas, Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy.The Government have decided, however, that it would be justifiable to retain two key provisions of the British Energy special share: first, to require anyone who has purchased more than 15 per cent. of the issued shares of British Energy to obtain the Government's consent; and, secondly, to require the consent of the appropriate Secretary of State for any disposal of a nuclear-station by British Energy. It is proposed that both provisions will be amended to provide that Government consent may be refused only on national security grounds. The nuclear security regime operated by the Department's Office for Civil Nuclear Security is robust and comprehensive, and is designed to prevent unauthorised access to nuclear stations or nuclear material falling into inappropriate hands. But in the context of nuclear energy we believe it is justified and proportionate to the risks involved to retain these two particular special share provisions in the companies of the British Energy Group.Other provisions of the special shares in the British Energy Group would be given up on the same basis as for the conventional electricity companies. In the light of the ECJ judgment in would not be justified to retain general powers over the commercial operations of the company. These rights have not protected, and will not protect, the Government's economic interest in British Energy. This interest arises from the Government's ultimate responsibility to ensure safe management and funding of BE's nuclear liabilities, which would always fall to the Government in the last resort given their duty to safeguard nuclear safety, security and environmental protection. For the future, it is the contractual arrangements we are putting in place as part of the restructuring that would compel British Energy to contribute to its liabilities and help minimise demands on the taxpayer, and enable us to monitor the performance of the company.The special share in the NGDF will be retained and carried forward into the NLF if British Energy's restructuring is successful. The special share contributes to the protection of the Government's significant interest in ensuring that the NGDF/NLF Company achieves its purpose of receiving, investing and ultimately paying out moneys for the decommissioning of British Energy's nuclear power stations.

The Ministry of Defence has approved the launch of a two-year assessment phase for the future rapid effect system (FRES). FRES is the most significant armoured vehicle project for the next decade. It is central to the Army's future force structure, providing a family of network-capable armoured vehicles as part of a coherent and highly deployable medium-weight force. It will deliver a step-change in the capability of our forces to meet the challenges of future expeditionary operations. FRES is also intended to meet the need to replace a number of in-service vehicles, such as SAXON, with modern, battle-winning equipment.The assessment phase will be led by a systems house, independent of product or manufacturing capability, selected for their programme management, risk management and systems engineering capabilities. The successful candidate will be selected via competition and a contract should be placed in late 2004. The systems house will provide an objective view of ideas and technologies, which may be applicable to FRES, and of the risks inherent in complex "system of systems" integration. It will exploit and build on previous work wherever possible. In addition, as part of an incremental acquisition approach, the assessment phase will include a range of risk reduction and technology demonstration work to examine the risks of relevant technologies and to determine if they are suitable for FRES, allowing the insertion of new technologies as they mature.The FRES project also provides excellent opportunities for UK defence industry to engage in the programme in line with defence industrial policy. The assessment phase will reach as wide and deep as possible to harness the broadest range of industrial capability, creativity and innovation. The systems house will therefore need to work closely with companies in the armoured fighting vehicle and other related sectors to draw on their expertise. There will also be opportunities for such companies to participate in the technology demonstration work during the assessment phase.

I am today announcing my approval to 58 new schemes that could release up to £3 billion more investment to tackle another 170,000 homes and further reduce the number of non-decent social homes. This adds to the considerable achievement of there already being 1 million fewer social homes below the decency standard than seven years ago.I am also announcing a new scheme which would enable proposed stock transfers with a funding gap to go ahead. This will ensure that the option of a stock transfer is available to those cases where the stock has a negative value.The new schemes draw on funding using our three designated routes for councils that need extra resources to make their stock decent:I have awarded 12 local authorities places on the fourth round of the Arm's-Length Management Programme. These are Bassetlaw, Brent, Ealing, Eastbourne, Hammersmith and Fulham, Newark and Sherwood, Nottingham, Rotherham, Sandwell, Sheffield (partial), Slough, and Wolverhampton. Together, the bids from these authorities are for over £1.8 billion and cover just under 114,000 non-decent homes.I have agreed nine new schemes under the private finance initiative. These are in Cheshire, Derby, Kent, Kirklees, the London Boroughs of Croydon, Islington and Lambeth, Manchester and West Wiltshire. We are making PFI credits of around £370 million available to tackle 5,300 non-decent homes as well as providing new and refurbished affordable housing and building new sheltered and supported housing.Thirty stock transfer schemes in 14 local authorities have been awarded places on the 2004 transfer programme: Broxbourne, Ellesmere Port and Neston, Halton, Hyndburn, Kings Lynn and West Norfolk, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Macclesfield, Mid-Devon, North Somerset, Sedgefield, Stafford, West Lancashire and Sheffield. Seven more in four local authorities have had places held open: Manchester, North Norfolk, Preston, Teesdale. Together they generate £1 billion of private sector investment to tackle 56,000 non-decent homes and keep the stock in good condition for 30 years.These announcements are a tremendous achievement which show that we are making great strides toward our aim, which I confirmed in the sustainable communities plan in March 2003, of making all social housing decent by 2010.