On 11 October I chaired the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) in Luxembourg. The Paymaster General, right hon. Dawn Primarolo MP, represented the UK.

The Presidency expressed the Council's sympathy, solidarity and support to all those affected by the terrible earthquake which hit south Asia earlier this month, and the willingness as a community and as national Governments to provide assistance as required to alleviate the consequences of this humanitarian disaster and assist reconstruction.

The Council took note of the Commission's intention to propose the next step in Hungary's Excessive Deficit Procedure in due time for the 8 November ECOFIN meeting.

The Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) briefed the Council on progress in developing EU support for the economic regeneration of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in cooperation with other countries and institutions working in the region.

The Commission reported on progress towards the implementation of the June EU-US Summit Economic Declaration. The Presidency, supported by the forthcoming Austrian and Finnish Presidencies, concluded that there was broad support for closer EU-US economic cooperation and that ECOFIN would return to the issue ahead of the 2006 EU-US summit.

The Commission briefed the Council on its sectoral inquiries into possible obstacles to competition in the financial services and energy markets.

Council Conclusions were agreed on the Commission's Green Paper Financial Services Policy (2005–10). Member States reached consensus on the need for effective implementation and enforcement of current measures, the importance of recognising the global nature of financial markets, the need to embed better regulation principles into financial services policy moving forward, as well as the growing importance of non-legislative instruments, such as competition policy, in future policy-making.

The chairmen of the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR), the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pension Supervisors (CEIOPS) and the Committee of the European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), briefed the Council on the work they are undertaking to improve the quality of European financial legislation, and cooperation between supervisors, underlining their commitment to the better regulation agenda.

My noble Friend the Minister State (Lord Warner) has made the following written ministerial statement today.

I am today setting up a review aimed at helping the National Health Service plan and pay for specialised services which include some of the most expensive treatments and drugs provided in the NHS. Patients expect to experience equal access to specialised services in the NHS and it may be necessary to strengthen collective commissioning arrangements between primary care trusts.

The new taskforce, headed by Scotland's former Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir David Carter, will investigate how the NHS currently commissions specialised services and consider ways of tightening these commissioning arrangements so that there is greater consistency across the NHS. The review will also look at ways of ensuring primary care trusts work together to commission specialised services so that the financial risk is shared. It will consider whether the balance is right between PCT commissioning collaboration and a more national or regional commissioning approach. The review team will report to Ministers in Spring 2006.

The Department has started a wide-ranging review of the regulatory framework for the health and social care sector. This review was announced by the Chancellor in the Budget Report in March 2005, as part of the Government's overall strategy to rationalise the number of public services inspectorates.

The review will be conducted by officials from the Department, with external scrutiny and challenge provided by a regulation review panel, chaired by Lord Currie of Marylebone, Dr Dieter Helm of New College Oxford, and Mr Robert Chilton, acting chair of the National Consumers Council.

The terms of reference for the review are:

(a) to define our objectives for regulation and inspection in health and social care, striking the right balance between the need to streamline regulation, while ensuring proper stewardship of public funds, and quality and safety in services for patients, users and the public;

(b) to examine the functions needed to achieve these objectives, taking account of current and forthcoming changes in the health and social care sectors, including:

(i) changes in the role and organisations of local councils;

(ii) the streamlining of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts;

(iii) the provision of greater choice and plurality within health,

(iv) payment by results and the price tariff;

(v) the future direction of travel for policy on social care for adults.

(c) to review the experience here and in other sectors, and from abroad, and identify predictors of success for added value from regulatory systems

(d) to identify where changes might have the greatest impact on frontline staff; and improve the assurances for users and the general public;

(e) to put forward proposals for the form in which these functions can be mosteffectivelydischarged, taking account of the wider implications of the health and social care systems.

A further update on progress will be made early in the New Year.

Today the Chief Medical Officer has launched a revised contingency plan for dealing with a possible influenza pandemic. While it is not possible, to predict with any degree of certainty when the next influenza pandemic may happen, this plan outlines our updated strategy for dealing with it when it does. This plan will help to ensure that we have a coherent and joined up response once a pandemic unfolds.

The United Kingdom has had a plan for dealing with a flu pandemic in place since 1997. This plan has been regularly updated to reflect changing circumstances, and has been supported by practical action with the commitment of just under £200 million for the procurement of a stockpile of antiviral drugs, which will be complete by September 2006. We are also working closely with manufacturers to ensure that the UK will be able to obtain a pandemic vaccine when one becomes available.

The key objectives of the UK contingency plans are to ensure that the country is as prepared as possible to meet the threat of a pandemic through:

the establishment of a strong surveillance and alert system;

containing any incidence of infection in order to reduce illness and deaths, once a pandemic occurs;

ensuring the continuation of essential services to minimise social and economic disruption during a pandemic; and

ensuring that the public, health professionals and media have up-to-date, comprehensive information.

We are fortunate in having some of the best scientific and medical experts in the world leading our work on pandemic preparations, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has already identified the UK as one of the best prepared countries in the world. But we are not taking this for granted and have continued to work to ensure that our contingency planning is as up to date and comprehensive as possible.

The UK contingency plan has been revised on the basis of comments received from international experts and health professionals and to bring it into line with recent developments nationally and internationally, for example developments in mathematical modelling, and the revised WHO pandemic phases.

To support these changes, operational guidance has been published to help NHS planners in preparing for a pandemic. Clinical management guidelines are being developed with the Health Protection Agency and the British Thoracic Society, and Infection control guidelines are also being finalised.

These latest revisions to the plan demonstrate that we are continuing to step up our preparations. While we cannot prevent a pandemic occurring, we are continuing to keep our contingency planning under review to consider what further measures should be taken in order to ensure that the country is as prepared as possible to meet it, when it does.

The Home Office Identity Cards Programme will publish today "Procurement Strategy Market Sounding" documents.

These documents support an exercise for gaining input and views from the supply market to validate the emerging procurement strategy for Identity Cards. This is to help ensure that once legislation has been passed, an effective and competitive procurement can be conducted.

This activity is in no way prejudging the outcome of the Parliamentary process. It is however right to conduct this exercise now so that the Home Office is prepared for the process of implementing Identity Cards without undue delay once Royal Assent is granted.

Copies will be available in the Libraries of the House and in electronic format on the Identity Cards Programme website www.identitycards.gov.uk.

The Government is laying the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime before Parliament today. The Code of Practice is part of the Government's programme of work to offer better support and advice to victims of crime and their families.

The Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 gave the Home Secretary the power to issue a Code of Practice setting out the minimum services victims of crime can expect to receive from each criminal justice agency. Following a consultation exercise earlier this year, a final version of the Code of Practice has been produced.

The Code of Practice is being published today and it will come into force in April 2006. After April 2006, victims will be able to appeal, ultimately to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, if they feel that they have not received the level of service set out in the Code.

Copies of the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime have been placed in the House Library.

I have received the Seventh Report of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC). This report has been made under Articles 4 and 7 of the International Agreement that established the Commission and it reports on levels of paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland. I have considered the content of the report and I am today bringing it before Parliament. I have placed copies in the Library of the House.

The report concludes that the PIRA statement, despite coming at a point when five sixths of the period under review had elapsed, is 'very significant'. The statement and the act of decommissioning reported by the IICD on 26 September have created a platform for future progress and 'initial signs following the PIRA statement are encouraging'. However, it is essential that the IMC, as they state, are able to observe 'cumulative changes in behaviour over a more sustained period of time . . . '. I await the next report of the Commission, due in January 2006.

In the meantime I have decided to restore Sinn Fein's Assembly allowances, with effect from 1 November, and will, in due course, recommend to the House that it lifts the suspension of allowances to Sinn Fein Members of Parliament, which took effect on 1 April this year.

The report also concludes that paramilitaries, especially Loyalists and dissident Republicans, continue to exert a malign influence over communities which has obstructed the development of a 'culture of lawfulness'. As I said in my Statement to Parliament on 14 October, it has taken a long time for the Republican movement to acknowledge that violence does not pay but it has now publicly done so. Loyalist paramilitaries must now also realise that exclusively peaceful and democratic means represent the sole way forward.

Once again, I am grateful to the Commission for their submission of this report and for its careful analysis.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and I have today published a paper "Health, Work and Wellbeing—Caring for our Future. A strategy for the health and wellbeing of working age people". The report has been placed in the Library and copies are available for hon. Members in the Vote Office.

With a 10 per cent. reduction in accidents at work since 1997, the UK today has one of the best health and safety records in the world. Yet 40 million working days are still lost every year to occupational ill health and injury, and a third of those coming onto incapacity benefit come from work.

In a modern world where rising dependency ratios and global market forces place an ever greater burden on those of working age in supporting others for the sake of the individual and their family, and for the well-being of our overall economy, we cannot afford to stand back and allow those with moderate health or disability challenges, to be written off.

This strategy is a crucial part of delivering on the Government's commitment to improving the health and well-being of the working age population. This is a central element of our wider welfare reform agenda and is set out in the White Paper: "Choosing Health: Making Healthier Choices Easier". It helps to make a reality of the Health and Safety Commission's Strategy for Workplace Health and Safety.

Underpinned by a ground-breaking partnership between my department (including the Health and Safety Commission/Executive) and the Department of Health—this strategy will enable us to work with all our partners across and outside Government to take the first steps in breaking the link between ill-health and inactivity. It will advance the prevention of ill-health and injury, encourage good management of occupational health, and transform opportunities for people to recover from illness while at work, maintaining their independence and their sense of worth.

This is an ambitious agenda—far more stretching than any commitments of previous Governments and more wide-ranging—placing responsibility not just in the hands of Government, but with employers, individuals, the healthcare profession and all our stakeholders. It will be led by a new national Director for Occupational Health and include the creation of a National Charter for Health, Work and Wellbeing, setting out the contribution of all stakeholders in delivering this transformation in occupational health.