asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they have any plans to reduce the total of unanswered items of post in income tax offices, which in April 1985 stood at 4,793,000 items, compared with 1,980,000 in April 1979.

Inland Revenue management is taking all possible measures to reduce the number of unworked papers and is monitoring the position closely. At present, however, there are a number of exceptional factors which make substantial progress difficult.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether in view of the 142 per cent. increase in the unanswered items of post in income tax offices since 1979, there are any plans to amend the targeted reduction in the number of staff employed in the Inland Revenue, which stood at 85,000 in 1979, is now 70,000 and is due to be reduced to 63,000 by 1988.

The Inland Revenue's manpower needs are kept under review. Within the overall resources available to the department, additional help has been given to tax offices to help improve the current workstate.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What proportion of unanswered post in income tax offices is (

Items of post needing a reply are not separately identified. In April 1985, 43 per cent. of all unworked papers were over 14 days old and 4 per cent. over two months old, (1983 36 per cent. and 1 per cent. and 1984 31 per cent. and 2 per cent. respectively).

asked Her Majesty's Government:How much money was spent by

The information is as follows:

	1984–85 Expenditure £000	1985–86 Projected Expenditure £000
i. Nature Conservancy Council in Great Britain
(a) Identification and notification of SSSIs	549	1,169
(b) Management agreements	1,145	2,250
(c)Grants to voluntary bodies for site purchase	475	900
ii. Department of Environment (Northern Ireland)
(a) Identification and notification of ASSIs	13	15
(b) Management agreements	NIL	NIL
(c) Grants to voluntary bodies for site purchase	NIL	NIL

Statutory provisions for the notification of ASSIs under the Nature Conservancy and Amenity Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 came into force on 14th April this year and formal notifications are planned to commence in November. This programme is unlikely to incur expenditure on management agreements or to give rise to grant applications from voluntary bodies until the 1986–87 financial year.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What is the cost of supplementary benefit single payments in the most recent year for which figures are available and how this compares with each year since 1979 in cash and in real terms.

The details requested are:

Year to	Actual expenditure on single payments(1)(to nearest £million)	Expressed in 1984/85 terms(2)(to nearest £million)
April 1980	40	60
April 1981	48	63
April 1982	57	67
April 1983	100	110
April 1984	174	183
April 1985	241	241
(1) Source: Management Information System returns, May-April each year.
(2) Based on the annual average of the retail price index (all items) derived from the monthly indices for each of the stated 12 month periods.

asked Her Majesty's Government:When they expect oxygen concentrators to be available through the family practitioner services.

New regulations have been laid today which will enable concentrators to be supplied through the family doctor service from 1st December. Tender documents have been issued today to all interested suppliers and we expect to be able to complete the selection of contractors in each of the nine regions of family practitioner committees by early September.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they recognise as having the force of law the licences issued by the United States Department of Commerce to various consortia for prospecting on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean, beyond zones of national jurisdiction as generally defined and accepted in international law, and whether any British firms are involved, and if so which.

We regard licences for exploration of the deep seabed issued by the United States as lawful and respect them in accordance with agreements between the two countries. One of the United States licences has been issued in favour of the Kennecott Consortium, in which British Petroleum, Consolidated Goldfields and Rio Tinto Zinc have an interest through subsidiaries.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What is the estimated annual cost to the taxpayer of the market information and export intelligence provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the British Overseas Trade Board, given that "the resources devoted to it amount to about 32 per cent. of our front line manpower deployed overseas". (Statement by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of

State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, House of Commons

Thirty-two per cent. of Diplomatic Service (excluding secretarial and clerical staff) and senior locally-engaged manpower overseas is devoted to commercial work (35 per cent. if economic work is also taken into account). The provision of market information and export intelligence to industry and commerce through the British Overseas Trade Board represents only one part of this work.In 1983–84, the last financial year for which we have breakdown by function, the cost of commercial and economic work undertaken by Diplomatic Service offices was £61 million, including local administration costs but excluding Foreign and Commonwealth Office headquarters costs. We are in the process of breaking this down further under the broad headings of export promotion, inward investment promotion, trade policy and relations, protection of commercial interests and economic reporting.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they consider that the Soviet Union has breached the terms of: (

The United Kingdom is not a party to either treaty, nor do we participate directly in discussion of compliance issues. Respect for obligations under exisiting arms control agreements is of great importance. The United States Administration has set out at length the issues where it believes Soviet compliance is in question. The Soviet record provides real cause for concern. It is now up to the Russians to produce convincing answers, particularly over the construction of a large new radar at Krasnoyarsk. Our own concern about the latter has been made clear to them.