Items on the agenda are as follows:

Stability and Growth Pact

ECOFIN will adopt Council Opinions on the Stability Programmes of Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria and the Convergence Programmes of Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia;

Lisbon Agenda

Council will discuss the Commission Annual Progress Report on the Lisbon Agenda and will hold a first debate on the ECOFIN Key Issues Paper for Spring European Council;

European Investment Bank Contribution to Growth and Employment

ECOFIN will discuss the role the European Investment Bank can play in promoting jobs and growth;

Ageing Report

ECOFIN will consider a Report from the Economic Policy Committee on the impact of ageing populations on public spending;

Appointment to the European Central Bank Executive Board

Council will consider the appointment of a successor to Otmar Issing to the European Central Bank Executive Board;

Vienna VAT Fraud Conference

ECOFIN will be de-briefed on a Conference held on 6–7 February to discuss VAT fraud issues.

A secure, safe and strong Britain requires concerted action against global terrorism with all the means at our disposal: military, security, intelligence, economic and culture. To this end coordinating the way we address international terrorism will be a central feature of the coming Spending Review.

Just as there should be no safe haven for those who perpetrate terrorism, so there should be no hiding place for those who finance terrorism.

The Government will bring forward new measures to enhance the prevention, identification and disruption of terrorist financing.

First, in order to strengthen the prevention of terrorist financing, the Government will:

review how best to strengthen the safeguards to protect the charitable sector from terrorist abuse and protect donor confidence in so doing; and

publish proposals to strengthen safeguards for Money Service Businesses—and thereby protect the integrity of global remittances.

Secondly, in order to identify terrorist networks and strengthen the operation of counter-terrorist finance measures, the Government are approving the publication today of new guidance by the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group providing strategic advice to banks and financial institutions on targeting suspicious transactions; and will establish a new dedicated forum to bring them together with Government counter-terrorism agencies to formalise information sharing and take action when specific threats arrive.

Thirdly, in order to disrupt terrorist networks when they come to light, the Treasury will strengthen asset-freezing mechanisms to make them more proactive and pre-emptive. This will include a greater joint working between the Treasury and other Departments and agencies, both in respect of targeting and enforcement.

The Government will also seek to hold the Presidency of the Financial Action Task Force—to provide a platform to promote strong implementation of terrorist finance measures worldwide.

It is also fitting that we honour the contribution of those who fought in past conflicts.

In order to support the fundraising for the Armed Forces Memorial in Staffordshire, with the approval of Her Majesty the Queen, the Government will make available £1.5 million from the proceeds of a coin to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar towards the funding of this memorial.

I wish to inform the House that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, His Excellency Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, opened the London conference on Afghanistan on 31 January. My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Secretary of State for Defence, the Secretary of State for International Development and I represented the UK at different sessions. The conference was attended by over 60 delegations.

The London conference successfully created the framework for the next phase of development in Afghanistan. It demonstrated the commitment of the Afghan Government and the international community to deepen their partnership, as we work together to build a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Afghanistan. The launch of the "Afghanistan Compact" (a copy of which I have placed in the Library), and discussion of the interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy and of the revised National Drug Control Strategy, all contributed to a renewed sense of purpose and direction.

Many delegations made new financial pledges at the conference, making available over $10.5 billion for the implementation of Afghan Government priorities over the next five years. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the conference that for its part the UK would spend £500 million in assistance for Afghanistan over the next three years.

The conference recognised the interconnected nature of the challenges ahead, with progress on security, governance and development being mutually reinforcing. It recognised the cross-cutting nature and scale of the narcotics problem and the threat that this posed to Afghanistan's reconstruction. Delegates welcomed the newly updated National Drugs Control Strategy. On security issues, it was noted that Afghanistan continues to welcome assistance from international forces and supports the expansion of the NATO-led ISAF. On governance, there was broad support for sensitive handling of transitional justice issues and acknowledgement of the valuable role played by NGOs in Afghanistan's reconstruction. The conference welcomed the Afghan Government's plans for economic and social development by focusing on private sector development, investment in key infrastructural sectors such as power, water and roads, and by building human capacity. There was also useful discussion about improving aid effectiveness.

I am pleased that representatives of the Afghan National Assembly and of Afghanistan's Civil Society were able to attend the conference. Our partnership is both with the Government and the people of Afghanistan and their elected representatives.

The challenge now is to build on the momentum created by the conference—to implement the Compact so as to bring real improvements to the lives of people in Afghanistan. Early follow-up action will include establishing the new joint co-ordination and monitoring mechanism envisaged in the Compact, to achieve greater coherence of effort between the Afghan Government and the international community, led for the latter by the UN.

I will set out the detail of UK support for the newly updated National Drug Control Strategy in a separate written ministerial statement tomorrow.

In 2002 the Government stated their policy to move gradually to a position where the recurrent costs of regulation are fully recovered from service providers. This remains our policy.

Increased fees for registration and inspection will be charged therefore by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) from April 2006. These are set out in the table. The fees are subject to a 15 per cent. increase over 2005–06 levels, except in relation to boarding schools and further education colleges whose fees already match the full cost of regulation.

In parallel, the Government will address the overall cost of regulation to limit what providers will pay in future. We are also working with the inspectorates, and have been for some time, to ensure regulatory services are provided as cost effectively as possible, and working with public commissioners of care to ensure they understand regulatory costs are a legitimate part of the cost of providing care and need to be reflected in commissioning fees.

Individual letters are being sent to all providers of care services regulated by CSCI to notify them about the increases.

Fees for registration and inspection 2006–07 (2005–06 in brackets) Commission for Social Care Inspection

Fees for registration and inspection 2006–07 (2005–06 in brackets) -- Commission for Social Care Inspection

Annual Fees

I have, as of 12 February, made changes to the immigration rules regarding children coming to the United Kingdom with a visa or entry clearance issued for the purpose of a visit. Some of these are accompanied by adults; many are not accompanied by an adult even though it has in the past been possible to obtain a visa without declaring that this will be the nature of the journey made. These changes will, therefore, provide further safeguards for children when entering the UK as visitors.

We will require that a child seeking to visit the UK in their own right, i.e. unaccompanied, must demonstrate that there are adequate arrangements for their care here and that they identify a person in their home country who is responsible for them.

Where a visa national child is seeking entry to the UK as a visitor in the company of an adult, that adult must be identified, and the child's visa must identify the adult with whom they seek to enter.

At present a child can apply for entry clearance at the same time as other close family members, be granted an entry clearance, and then travel to the UK either alone or in the company of an adult other than one of those who applied for a visa along with them. This can allow children to enter the UK in the company of an adult who is either unrelated or with whom they have little connection. By doing this they can evade the extra scrutiny of the reception and care arrangements awaiting the child in the UK which is given to children who travel unaccompanied. Some instances can be well intentioned but highly irregular, but in others the child is used to facilitate fraud, and can endure serious physical harm. However, the main cause of concern is the subsequent difficulty in tracing these children.

The Rules will now contain additional requirements for visa national children coming to the UK for a visit, be they travelling alone or with an adult. Each child will be issued with a separate entry clearance vignette. When applying for a visa for a child, the parent or guardian will be required to indicate whether the child will travel to the UK alone or with a nominated adult. The child's entry clearance will be endorsed to indicate the adult who will accompany the child. The entry clearance will not be valid for travel other than when accompanied by the identified adult. The visitor rules have been amended to reflect this (at Paragraphs 41–46F of the Immigration Rules).

The changes will create an official and accessible record which is not there at the moment. These measures are aimed at tackling some of the problems associated with unaccompanied minors arriving in the United Kingdom, chief of which is the lack of information about their circumstances in their home country. They will contribute to the ability to act, where necessary, when individual children come to attention after arrival for welfare and other reasons. They will ensure that children who enter the UK in the company of an adult do so in a recorded way, with a specific destination for their future care, and with a record of their parents' details in the place where the entry clearance was issued. The records which this provision will allow us to keep will be a deterrent to abuse, as all of those involved in the child's travel will be traceable.

I am today announcing 32 locations around the UK coast that have been identified as Marine Environmental High Risk Areas (MEHRAs). The locations of these areas have been identified after taking into account shipping risk, environmental sensitivity and other environmental protection measures already in place at each location and follow recommendations made by the late Lord Donaldson in his report "Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas".

MEHRAs will be an essential aid to passage planning since their primary purpose is to inform ships' masters of areas where they need to exercise even more caution than usual. This is just part of the information available to mariners to enable them to navigate UK waters safely.

MEHRAs will now be notified by a Marine Guidance Note to mariners who will be expected to exercise an even higher degree of care than usual when passing through them. They will also be marked on Admiralty charts.

Paper copies of the full MEHRAs report are available in the Libraries of both Houses and it is also published at www.dft.gov.uk.

The Wales departmental expenditure limit will be increased by £244,298,000 from £12,243,494,000 to £12,487,792,000. The increase is a result of:

(a) An EYF allocation of £1,168,000 from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Counter Terrorism.

(b) An allocation of £1,234,000 from the 2005 Pre Budget Report

(c) A take up of £70,329,000 EYF—Near cash

(d) A take up of £61,211,000 EYF—Capital

(e) A take up of £97,000,000 EYF for Non cash—Depreciation and Cost of Capital

(f) Net transfers from other Government Departments to the National Assembly for Wales of £13,356,000.

These transfers are as follows:

(i) £110,000 from DEFRA for Animal Health powers

(ii) £84,000 from DFES for the Open University Fees Waiver Scheme

(iii) £4,533,000 from DFES for Welsh students studying at the Open University

(iv) £3,336,000 from the Department of Health for Out of Area Treatments

(v) £2,132,000 from the Department of Health for Cross Border Patients

(vi) £202,000 from the Department of Health for High Security psychiatric Services

(vii) £14,000 from the Department of Health for Dental SIFT

(viii) £2,476,000 from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for the purchase of Fire and Rescue equipment.

(ix) £681,000 from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for purchase of Fire and Rescue equipment

(x) £8,000 from Northern Ireland for Out of Area Treatments

(xi) £220,000 to the Wales Office

These changes will result in an increase of £227,023,000 in the grant payable to the National Assembly for Wales.

The increase in DEL will be offset by transfers from other Departments and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.

Provision for the Wales Office is increased by £606,000 as a result of :

A transfer from the Parliamentary Counsel Office of £57,000.

A transfer from the Welsh Assembly Government of £220,000.

Take up of End Year Flexibility of £329,000.

Wales Office spending is contained within single Department of Constitutional Affairs departmental expenditure limit and administration costs limit.

Reconciliation of grant payable to National Assembly for Wales with TME in Wales 2005–06