Legislation to prevent companies bringing forward tax relief for losses prior to transition to international accounting standards is to be included in the Finance Bill 2005. The legislation applies to losses arising on transactions that are designed to accelerate relief that would otherwise be deferred. The changes will have effect from today.

A copy of today's Inland Revenue news release giving the relevant background to this measure has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and is accessible on the Inland Revenue's website at: http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk.

The following statement has been made by my noble Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor

"The location and the setting for the UK Supreme Court should be a reflection of its importance and its place at the apex of the justice system, and the heart of the constitution. Providing the Supreme Court with its own building provides a physical demonstration of the separation between the judiciary and the legislature. Establishing the Supreme Court in the Palace of Westminster would be entirely inappropriate.

Following an extensive search and evaluation of potential sites in central London, I am today announcing that Middlesex Guildhall is my preferred option for housing the Supreme Court.

There are three key reasons for this decision:

its location on Parliament Square will mean that the judiciary, the legislature, the executive and the Church are each represented on the four sides of the square enhancing its position atthe heart of our capital;

it is able to provide all the key design requirements of a modern Supreme Court and therefore represents a significant improvement on the Law Lords' current accommodation; and

it will deliver this much improved accommodation at a reasonable cost, demonstrating good value for money.

At this stage, I should stress that Middlesex Guildhall is my preferred option. As the detailed designs are developed, I will need to remain satisfied that they fully meet the operational requirements of a modern Supreme Court. This will, of course, require the normal planning approvals and my officials are consulting with English Heritage and Westminster city council on the development of the designs. The Law Lords have continuing reservations as to the suitability of this building to house the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. I will continue to consult with them closely on the issues.

The Design Proposals

The building for the new Supreme Court needs to meet the statement of requirements that was agreed with Lord Bingham of Cornhill in August 2003 and subsequently developed in discussion with the Law Lords' Supreme Court Sub-Committee, chaired by Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead. The headline requirement is for a building that measures at least 3,500 square metres, including sufficient space to enable co-location with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (currently based in Downing Street).

My view is that Middlesex Guildhall meets the statement of requirements and would enable much better facilities to be provided than the current arrangements. The proposals for this self-contained and dedicated building include:

three large hearing rooms, measuring between 143 and 190 square metres. This compares with 94 square metres for House of Lords Committee Room One;

greatly improved public access: we will ensure that both UK citizens and visitors from overseas have the opportunity to see the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom at work. The hearing rooms will provide approximately twice the number of public seats currently available in the Appellate Committee;

an education suite enabling information to be disseminated on the Supreme Court and providing the possibility of a live feed from the hearing rooms;

improved infrastructure, including better IT;

accommodation for the staff of the Supreme Court and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. This includes space for additional research assistants and secretarial staff. This will enable greater support to be provided to the Supreme Court justices and improve case management;

14 large en-suite judicial chambers; and

a world-class law library with an area of approximately 250 square metres. Considerable additional space for library records and less used materials will be available in the basement.

We are developing these plans for the building in close consultation with the Law Lords, English Heritage and Westminster city council. We would of course need to apply for planning permission in the usual way. The city council is not in a position to accept the principle or the detail of the building scheme at this stage.

Delivering the Proposals

Providing the right building for the Supreme Court has financial implications. The cost of establishing the Supreme Court at Middlesex Guildhall will be approximately £30 million in current terms. This £30 million estimate contains two elements: base costs and optimism bias. The base costs are construction costs and statutory fees of £15 million; £2 million professional fees; and £3 million VAT. Those figures are then inflated by 50 per cent. optimism bias in accordance with HM Treasury guidance on financial appraisal and evaluation (the green book). The optimism bias is applied to building projects as a contingency to cover risks, unforeseen issues and changing project specifications.

But I also need to ensure that the criminal justice system is not adversely affected by the selection of Middlesex Guildhall. I have therefore considered a number of options for providing additional courtrooms and I am confident that the Middlesex work can be decanted while sustaining criminal justice performance. I will be discussing these decant plans in detail with the judiciary and criminal justice partners over the next few months. Provision of the additional courtrooms will cost a further £15 million in current terms (including optimism bias).

The approximate annual cash running costs following establishment of the Supreme Court would be £8.8 million (£8.4 million relating to the Supreme Court; the remainder being the ongoing costs from courtroom reprovision). This figure includes £2.1 million judicial remuneration; £1.1 million staff salaries; £1.0 million administrative costs; £0.4 million utilities and rates; and £3.8 million building costs (including capital charge/lease costs and building maintenance costs).

It is not entirely straightforward to separate the administrative costs of the Appellate Committee from the generality of expenditure in the House of Lords, but the approximate annual cost to the public purse of the current arrangements are just over £3.2 million per annum. This figure includes judicial and staff remuneration, and general administrative costs. The table below compares the current and estimated running costs. Costs (£m)

This is a complex project which will require delivery in two key stages: the provision of additional courtrooms needs to be completed before refurbishment work can begin on Middlesex Guildhall itself. While I need to be satisfied that both stages are completed to a high standard, my aim is to establish the Supreme Court as soon as practicable. I would therefore hope that the court's first sitting would be in 2008.

The Supreme Court would not be established until the building was ready for operation.

The Search and Evaluation Process

The search for the Supreme Court has involved:

reviewing the DCA estate in London;

considering any suitable properties on the Greater London Magistrates' Court Authority estate;

advice from the Office of Government Commerce on availability of property on the wide Government estate in London;

contacting 17 Whitehall Departments to determine whether any of their buildings would be suitable; and

commissioning professional agents to search commercially available property.

The search generated a long-list of 48 properties, five of which merited further consideration after closer scrutiny against a number of criteria (size, operational efficiency, adaptability, suitability). After a full Treasury green book appraisal of these five options, two properties—Middlesex Guildhall and the new wing of Somerset House—remained under active consideration.

In order to finalise the evaluation of the two options, more work was undertaken to identify how the current layouts could be adapted in order to meet the specific requirements of the Supreme Court (including engagement with the Law Lords, English Heritage and Westminster city council).

Of these two strong options, my decision that Middlesex Guildhall should be the preferred option was based on the three key reasons set out above: its location on Parliament Square; its fit with the Supreme Court requirements; and its value for money."

Today, I am pleased to announce the allocation of Government funding for sport through my Department for the next three financial years.

In 2005–06 funding for sport from the Exchequer will be £126.208 million, in 2006–07 it will be £149,708 million, and I am also making an indicative allocation of £155.163 million in 2007–08.

The total breaks down over the three-year cycle as follows:

2005–06—£126.208 million

2006–07—£149.708 million

2007–08—£155.163 million

In that time Sport England will receive:

2005–06—£88.916 million

2006–07—£88.916 million

2007–08—£88.916 million

UK Sport will receive:

2005–06—£29.566 million

2006–07—£29.566 million

2007–08—£29.566 million

The Football Licensing Authority will receive:

2005–06—£1.264 million

2006–07—£1.264 million

2007–08—£1.264 million

An allocation has been made within the settlement for other sport initiatives, including a possible National Sports Foundation. Exactly how this funding is to be divided has yet to be determined but in general terms it will be used to support development in terms of volunteering, participation, facilities and the identification and nurture of talented athletes. Lord Carter is to publish his report in February.

This settlement represents a good result for sport. Overall, it will release over £431million for sport between 2005–06 and 2007–08 from the Exchequer, and will see annual funding rise 31 per cent. from some £118 million in 2004–05 to over £155 million in 2007–08. This will enable us both to strengthen the grass roots of sport, with a renewed emphasis on school and community sport, while also enabling us to identify and nurture a new generation of sporting champions as we build up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the possibility of a London Olympics in 2012.

I believe that this extra support will enable us to continue to progress towards our shared goal of creating an active and successful sporting nation.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), has also made a statement today, on behalf of the Prime Minister and me, announcing another great boost for school sport.

Of the £431 million announced for sport in this statement, approximately £133.5 million will be used to support the aims and objectives set out in the statement made by the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills.

I am announcing today that we will shortly begin mobilising approximately 900 reservists to replace the existing reservists serving in support of operations in Iraq. These reservists will be beginning their deployments from April 2005 onwards.

We currently have some 750 Army reservists carrying out a range of activities including medical support, force protection duties and providing individual reinforcements to units. We anticipate that most of these tasks will continue, but the forthcoming replacement of the regular field hospital with one staffed by reservists, along with the number of individual reinforcements required by regular units will slightly increase the total reserves requirement. These changes mean that the number of Army reservists in theatre will be about 1,000 in May 2005, before reducing over the following months.

We aim to issue the call-out notices in phases following this announcement and plan on giving reserve personnel 28 days' notice of call-up (a minimum of 21 days). Mobilisation will be followed by a period of individual, pre-deployment and collective training, integration into receiving units, and then a short period of pre-deployment leave. The majority of those called-out can expect a deployed tour of six months and a total period of mobilisation, including post-tour leave, of about nine months, though for a few it may be slightly longer.

Between now and March we aim to identify those reservists who are believed to be fit and available for deployment. As is customary, to ensure that we successfully mobilise the required number, we will need to issue a greater number of call-out notices than the actual requirement.

This further call-up is fully consistent with the Government's stated policy of employing the reserves as an integral component of the armed forces.

The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and I are today announcing another boost for school sport.

In 2002 the Government launched the first ever comprehensive national physical education (PE), school sport and club links strategy with an investment of £459 million for delivery between 2003 and 2006. The aim—a public service agreement (PSA) target shared by the Departments for Education and Skills and for Culture, Media and Sport—is to:

Enhance the take up of sporting opportunities by five to 16 year olds by increasing the percentage of school children who spend a minimum of two hours each week on high quality PE and school sport, within and beyond the curriculum, from 25 per cent. in 2002 to 75 per cent. by 2006 and to 85 per cent. by 2008, and to at least 75 per cent. in each school sport partnership by 2008.

Spearheading action is the creation of a national network of at least 400 specialist sports colleges and school sport partnerships. There are now 291 colleges—including four academies with a sports focus and 54 per cent. of schools in England are within one of the 313 school sport partnerships, benefiting 3.5 million pupils in over 12,000 schools. All schools will be within a school sport partnership by 2006.

We are well on the way to delivering the PSA target. The 2003–04 survey of school sport partnerships found that 62 per cent. of pupils were spending two hours in a typical week on high quality PE and school sport. It also showed a 16 percentage point difference in take up of the two hour entitlement between pupils in the longest established partnerships and those newer to the programme. The results of the survey were published on 29 April and copies of the report—"The Impact of School Sport Partnerships"—are available in the Libraries of both Houses and at www.teachernet.gov._uk/pe.

This is good progress, but we want to do more. By 2010 our ambition is for all children to be offered at least four hours of sport every week, comprising at least two hours high quality PE and sport at school and the opportunity for at least a further two to three hours beyond the school day (delivered by a range of school, community and club providers). A further £519 million has been allocated—combined funding from the Departments for Education and Skills and for Culture, Media and Sport—to continue work on the national strategy from 2006–07 to 2007–08 to take us towards this ambition. That means in the five years up to 2008, including £686 million of dedicated lottery funding, Government investment in PE and school sport will have totalled over £l.5 billion.

Many of our 2012 Olympic and Paralympic medal winners are at school today. We are determined to make the pathway from playground to podium a reality for these young people. As part of the additional investment, new competition managers will be put in place to work with school sport partnerships. These managers will strengthen the ladder of sporting opportunity by creating a competition structure across all ages, ranging from school based festivals to national competitions, this will give all children the chance to play competitive sport—whatever their age or ability. Our ultimate aim is to have one in each of our school sport partnerships by 2010.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is today announcing the allocation of Government funding for sport over the next three financial years. This money, together with the measures we have announced today, represents the best ever deal for sport in schools and will help us to achieve our goal of becoming a nation of sporting excellence.

The Amendment to the 1958 Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the United States of America for Co-operation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes (Cm 6261), which was laid before the House on 21 June 2004, entered into force on 9 December 2004. The Amendment extends the application of Article III (bis) of the Agreement for a further 10 years, until 2014.

Today I announce the publication of the Department of Health's 2004 autumn performance report (Cm 6417). Copies have been placed in the Library. It shows the progress my Department has made towards achieving its public service agreement targets.

The autumn performance report shows that there have been significant further improvements in access to services. The number of national health service patients waiting longer than 13 weeks for an outpatient appointment has fallen from 160,745 to 77,503 over the past year. In addition, the number of people waiting more than six months for an inpatient appointment fell from 163,230 to 69,638. During October 2004, 96.4 per cent. of all accident and emergency attenders were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival. It is now possible to offer over 99 per cent. of patients a general practitioner appointment within two working days or a primary care professional appointment within one working day.

Patient satisfaction is increasing; the 2003–04 patient survey results showed that 98 per cent. of patients rated the care they received from ambulance trusts as excellent, very good or good, and the number of adult inpatients rating their care as excellent has increased by four percentage points since 2001–02.

Premature death rates from heart disease amongst people under 75 have fallen by 27.1 per cent. since the baseline of 1995–97; premature deaths from cancer have fallen by 12.2 per cent. over the same period. Suicide rates in England are now at their lowest level on record.

These are just some of the recent achievements of the NHS. These improvements have been made in a demanding year through the hard work, skills and passion of hundreds of thousands of staff in the NHS and its partner organisations, and the increased funding the Government are investing in the NHS.

The measures designed to stop "sham marriages" contained in sections 19–25 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004 will be introduced on 1 February 2005.

We will be designating 76 register offices in England and Wales under section 19(2) of the Act. These will be the register offices that everyone subject to immigration control will have to attend with their prospective spouse to give notice of marriage. A list of the offices can be found below.

Every registration office in Scotland and Northern Ireland will be a designated register office for this purpose.

From the same date, any person subject to immigration control will not be able to give notice of intention to marry unless:

they have an entry clearance granted expressly for the purpose of marriage in the UK;

or they have the written permission of the Secretary of State to marry in the UK—this will take the form of acertificate of approval which can be obtained from the Immigration and Nationality Department;

or they fall within a class of persons specified by the Secretary of State.

Further details about the certificate of approval and the class of persons who will be exempt from these provisions will be available shortly.

List of designated offices in England and Wales

North East

Middlesbrough

Newcastle upon Tyne

North West

Blackburn with Darwen

Kendal

Carlisle

Manchester

Liverpool

Yorkshire and Humber

Hull

Leeds

Sheffield

East Midlands

Leicester

Lincolnshire (Lincoln)

Northampton

Nottingham

West Midlands

Birmingham

Coventry

Shrewsbury

Stoke on Trent

East England

Bury St Edmunds

Cambridge

Colchester

Dacorum (Hemel Hempstead)

Luton

Norwich

Peterborough

Greater London—Inner

Camden

Hackney

Hammersmith and Fulham

Haringey

Islington

Kensington and Chelsea

Lambeth

Lewisham

Newham

Southwark

Tower Hamlets

Wandsworth

Westminster

Greater London—Outer

Barking and Dagenham

Barnet

Brent

Croydon

Ealing

Enfield

Greenwich

Harrow

Havering

Hillingdon

Hounslow

Kingston upon Thames

Merton

Redbridge

Waltham Forest

South East

Brighton and Hove

Crawley

Hampshire North (Basingstoke)

Kent (Maidstone)

Milton Keynes

Oxfordshire (Oxford)

North Surrey (Weybridge)

Reading

Slough

Southampton

South West

Bristol

Exeter

Gloucester

Plymouth

Swindon

Truro

Wales

Aberconwy (Llandudno)

Cardiff

Cardiganshire North (Aberystwyth)

Mid Powys (Llandrindod Wells)

Pembrokeshire (Haverfordwest)

Swansea

Wrexham

I have today laid before the House a copy of the oversight commissioner's Third Statutory Report for the year 2004 which is being published today, in accordance with Section 68(4)(a) of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000.

This is the third report compiled by Al Hutchinson as oversight commissioner and the twelfth in the series of oversight reports published since 2001.

): I have published the reported mid year tier three outputs for April to September 2004 for England's regional development agencies (RDAs). The RDAs have advised that they are broadly on track to achieve the annual targets set for 2004–05 in their corporate plans.

The figures cover the creation and safeguarding of jobs, the amount of brownfield land brought back into use, the number of businesses added to the regional economies, the number of learning opportunities created and the amount of private sector investment attracted benefiting deprived areas, all as a result of RDA activity.

Copies of the mid-year output results have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and the results have also been placed on the DTI website at www.dti.gov.uk/rda/info/.

Today my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and I are announcing how we will be implementing the age discrimination strand of the European Employment Directive (Council Directive 2000/78/EC) in relation to retirement age.

The Government have made it clear that we are strongly committed to tackling unjustified age discrimination in employment and vocational training. We believe that employees, and potential employees, must be judged on the talents and skills they bring to the workplace, and not on assumptions or stereotyped views based on their age, or apparent age. During the last few years, we have turned the tide on a trend that was seeing people drop out of the labour market before state pension age, and we have also seen increasing numbers working beyond this age. These are welcome developments that must continue.

This country cannot afford to squander the skills and experience workers of any age have to offer, and demographic changes mean that employers who cut themselves off from a proportion of the skills pool on the basis of prejudice will lose out. We want to give individuals more choices about how long they work and when they retire. We have made these points in the pensions Green Paper "Simplicity, Security and Choice: Working and Saving for Retirement" (December 2002) and in the "Age Matters" consultation document on implementing the age discrimination strand of the directive (published in 2003), and elsewhere. Our age positive campaign has been working towards this since 1997, and increasingly employers themselves are realising the benefits of an age diverse workforce.

Arrangements are already in place, or will soon be in place, that facilitate more flexible approaches to retirement. With the abolition of the earnings rule in October 1989, the link between retirement and entitlement to the state pension was removed, and so people can continue working beyond state pension age and still receive their state pension. Individuals can also choose to continue working and defer their state pension, and the recent Pensions Act contains more generous options for deferral, to be introduced by 2005, including for the first time, the option of taking a lump sum. In April 2006, tax rules preventing people from drawing their occupational pension while continuing to work for the same employer will be abolished.

The age discrimination strand of the employment directive is due to be implemented by autumn 2006 and is an important part of this process. It will protect individuals against unfair discrimination when looking for work or in employment terms such as promotion arrangements, just because they are considered too young or too old.

The treatment of retirement age is an important aspect of the implementation of this legislation. We have consulted widely on this issue, both formally and informally, and have listened to a range of strongly held views. We have carefully balanced the arguments on all sides, and have decided that the legislation, which will come into force in autumn 2006, will provide for a national default retirement age of 65 and a right for employees to request working beyond the set retirement age. The decision to have a national default retirement age will be reviewed after five years.

In setting the default age, we have taken careful note of a number of representations we received in the course of consultations which made it clear that significant numbers of employers use a set retirement age as a necessary part of their workforce planning. While an increasing number of employers are able to organise their business around the best practice of having no set retirement age for all or particular groups of their workforce, some nevertheless still rely on it heavily.

Furthermore, our consultations have demonstrated that if all employers only had the option of individually justified retirement ages at the time the legislation was introduced, this could risk adverse consequences for occupational pension schemes and other work related benefits. Some employers would instead simply reduce or remove benefits they offer to employees to offset the increase in costs.

Until now, companies have been able to set the age at which their employees retire without any need to justify their choice. So employees may have had to retire at age 60 or even younger, whether or not they wished to continue working. Currently only 30 per cent. of people are in employment by the age of 65 and a major part of the response to the ageing society will be for more people to choose to work to that age.

Following the implementation of this decision, employers will only be able to set their own retirement age for all or some of their workforce below 65 where they can objectively justify this. They would be subject to challenge and would have to show that it was appropriate and necessary to do so.

The default age is not a compulsory retirement age. Employees will be able to work beyond that age wherever they and their employers agree. Indeed, the Government welcome such agreement, and through the right to request is actively encouraging it.

This decision on retirement age has no direct implications for occupational or state pension arrangements. The Government have emphasised that it has no plans to change the state pension age once it has been equalised for men and women at 65, and we shall continue to provide for pension schemes to set normal retirement ages if they need to.

The default age will be accompanied by a right for employees who want to continue to work beyond the default age or their employer's own justified retirement age to have their request considered seriously by their employer. This right will follow the model of the right to request flexible working for parents with young children, where it has been successful in changing the culture towards more family friendly working. This policy will ensure that employers listen to employees who want to keep working and think about whether they can agree. In doing so, it will help promote a culture change including on workforce planning and the design of employee benefits, and move towards a position where fixed retirement ages are relied on only where they can be objectively justified by the employer.

We will monitor the impact of the default age from the outset. Five years from implementation we will subject to formal review the question of whether this remains appropriate. The review will be firmly grounded in evidence, and amongst other things it will look at relevant data on trends in life expectancy; the number of individuals working beyond 65; and the impact of the regulations on business, including the evolution of business practice with respect to the degree of reliance on retirement ages for workforce planning. If at the point of the review the evidence suggested that we no longer needed the default retirement age at 65, we would abolish it.

In reaching this decision, we have taken into account the responses to age matters consultation. An analysis of those responses is available on the DTI website at: www.dti.gov.uk/er/equality/age. We have also undertaken extensive consultation with key stakeholders.

We shall consult in summer 2005 on draft regulations covering the full rights against discrimination on grounds of age in employment and vocational training. This will include details of the provisions on retirement age as well as how we propose to tackle the whole range of issues around age discrimination in recruitment, employment and vocational training. Subject to that consultation and the approval of Parliament, we will bring the legislation into force on 1 October 2006.