asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will state the waiting period for which those interviewed immediately before 31st December 1978 had waited, in the priority, main

settlement, husbands and fiancés immigration queues respectively, at Dacca, New Delhi, Bombay, Islamabad and Karachi respectively, and what interview dates are now being given to those now applying in each category at each post.

INTERVIEWED AT END DECEMBER 1978 (time in months)
				Priority queue	Main settlement queue	Husbands queue	Fiance's queue
Dacca	…	…	…	6	20	None interviewed	None interviewed
New Delhi	…	…	…	No delay	5	10½	10½
Bombay	…	…	…	No delay	4½	11¾	11¾
Islamabad	…	…	…	3½	19	19	21½
Karachi	…	…	…	3½	19	19	21½

APPLIED AT END DECEMBER 1978
				Priority queue	Main settlement queue	Husbands queue	Fiances queue
Dacca	…	…	…	7	22	22	24
New Delhi	…	…	…	No delay	9	19	19
Bombay	…	…	…	1½	5	11¾	11¾
Islamabad	…	…	…	2⅔	22	22	26
Karachi	…	…	…	2⅔	22	22	26

asked Her Majesty's Government:How many miles have been flown, by how many aircraft from the UK, using how much fuel, searching for vessels or persons at sea which or who are not equipped with transponders or other aids to the determination of their whereabouts.

Royal Naval and RAF aircraft flew 962 hours in 1978 in connection with 332 shipping incidents. It is estimated that of the total some 850 hours, involving the use of about 450,000 gallons of aviation fuel, may have been expended in searching forvesselsor persons not equipped with electronic location aids. In the case of unsuccessful searches it is often not possible to establish whether such aids were available. No record is kept of the number of air miles flown.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Why the application by Mr. Dansukhlal Thakerbhai Patel to the

The tables below show the time people interviewed at the end of December 1978 had waited, and how long those who applied at that time are expected to wait.British Embassy in Paris on 16th November 1977 for an entry certificate to come to the United Kingdom as the husband of a United Kingdom citizen was referred to Delhi, and what information, if any, was obtained from Delhi which had not already been supplied by Mr. Patel; on what date this application was referred to the Home Office; why it has been under consideration by them for so long and whether they will now instruct the British Embassy in Paris to issue an entry certificate forthwith.

It is customary to refer an application for entry clearance from someone in a country other than his own to the British post in his own country for background information. In this instance the post there had no knowledge of him. Mr. Patel's application was received by the Home Office early in May 1978. Mrs. Patel was interviewed on 25th August. I am sorry that the consideration of this application has taken so long, but instructions have now been given for the issue of an entry certificate to enable Mr. Patel to join his wife in the United Kingdom.

asked Her Majesty's Government:How many persons applied for entry certificates to come to the United Kingdom as husbands of United Kingdom citizens from Germany and France respectively in the year 1978; how many of these applications remained to be dealt with at the end of the year, and in the case of those granted what was the average time which elapsed between application and issue of the entry certificate, for each country.

The information requested is not available. If any such persons are citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany or of France they would not normally be required to obtain entry clearance certificates because they are nationals of the EEC. Information on those who do apply for admission as husbands do not distinguish the citizenship of the applicant's wife.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What progress they have made in finding a satisfactory way of giving prisoners who are refused parole an indication of the reasons for the decision; and whether they will say what further experiments remain to be conducted on this problem.

The feasibility of indicating reasons for the refusal of parole has been the subject of an experiment by a number of local review committees following the completion of a similar study by the Parole Board. The results are now being collated and analysed and the implications of giving reasons to prisoners and the resources which would be required will be assessed in conjunction with the Prison Service and the Parole Board.

asked Her Majesty's Government:How many civil servants were required to resign in the interests of the Public Service in each year since 1974.

"Reignation in the interests of the public service" is not a recognised term in the Civil Service. Civil servants may however be required to retire prematurely; that is, before the minimum retirement age, in the public interest on grounds of redundancy, on structural grounds or on grounds of limited efficiency. The numbers of non-industrial civil servants who were prematurely retired for these reasons in the period 1974 to 1978 are set out in the table below.

1974	1975*	1976	1977	1978†
248	323	453	1,018	757
*From 1975 the figures exclude those for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
†The figure for 1978 is that which is currently available: this may be updated as further details become available.

The corresponding figures of industrial civil servants, to whom premature retirement on grounds of redundancy only applies, arc not available centrally.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Which pharmaceutical firms are in the first six suppliers of drugs to the National Health Service in terms of cost, and which of them are British based companies.

Information about the value of sales of National Health Service medicines by individual companies is confidential between the Department and the company concerned and could not be divulged without a breach of confidence. If my noble friend has any particular matter in mind, perhaps he will write to me.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will update the Answer given to the Lord Cullen of Ashbourne (24th April 1978) on the cost of the Houses of Parliament.

The latest information is given in the following table:—

HOUSE OF LORDS	1978–79 Supply Estimates £m.
House of Lords Vote	2·9
Services provided by Department of the Environment*	1·8
Services provided by HMSO	1·6
Contribution in lieu of Rates	0·1
6·4

HOUSE OF COMMONS
House of Commons Vote	17·6
Services provided by Department of the Environment	3·6
Services provided by HMSO	7·6
Contribution in lieu of Rates	0·4
29·2
*Estimate.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What votes have taken place in the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations since January 1974, and with what result; and how the British representative voted on each occasion.

This information is available in the Library in the annual Command Papers reporting the proceedings of the General Assembly and of the Security Council. The 1978 report will be similarly available when published.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether British Embassies in the Member States of the EEC, and the Permanent Representation in Brussels, provide British regional cheeses as part of their hospitality.

It is left to Her Majesty's Ambassadors and their staffs abroad to decide what food to offer when giving official hospitality. But a good many make a practice of offering British cheeses, including staff in the posts mentioned.House adjourned at seven minutes before six o'clock.