asked Her Majesty's Government:What action has been taken with reference to an alleged incident of violence on the part of a prison officer which, it is alleged, took place during the time when HM Inspector of Prisons was visiting Usk Detention Centre and which was witnessed by a member of the Inspectorate.

The Regional Director has carried out an investigation. My right honourable friend, the Home Secretary, expects to receive a report shortly.

asked Her Majesty's Government:How many persons were convicted of a terrorist offence as a result of being apprehended at a port of entry into or out of the United Kingdom during each of the years 1981–84 and how many persons were convicted of terrorist-related offences overall in each of these years.

The information requested is not available. However, information is published in quarterly statistical bulletins on those detained in Great Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974, 1976 and 1984, distinguishing detentions at a port or airport from those elsewhere. Information on those charged with criminal offences following all such detentions is shown in Tables 6 and 7 of Home Office Statistical Bulletin No. 1/85, but provision of separate figures for detentions at a port or airport would involve disproportionate cost. Corresponding records for Northern Ireland are not maintained in a way that would allow detentions at ports of entry, and convictions for terrorist-related offences resulting from those detentions to be separately identified. Some relevant information is included in quarterly bulletins on the operation of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts issued by the Northern Ireland Office, and the total number of convictions in Northern Ireland for terrorist-related offences are given in the table below. Also, for England and Wales, homicides attributable to acts of terrorism are identified; in the period 1981 to 1984 there were 27 such homicides, for four of which four persons were subsequently convicted: a further three persons were convicted of other offences related to these incidents of homicide.Convictions for offences specified in Schedule 4 to the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978.

asked Her Majesty's Government:If they will give details of their pilot schemes of time limits in criminal proceedings.

Field trials are now beginning in the four areas served by the Crown Court centres at Birmingham, Bristol, Maidstone and Southwark. Test limits will apply to cases from 25th November in magistrates' courts and from January in the Crown Court. For this stage of the trials, the prosecution has been encouraged to act as if the time limits had statutory force, but the statutory procedures for seeking extensions and the consequences of breaching limits will not apply. The courts will have regard to the limits on the prosecution in arranging their business.Where the accused is in custody the test limits are 56 days to summary trial, 70 days to committal for trial (or beginning of committal proceedings), and 112 days from committal to arraignment, except at Southwark, where this limit will be 182 days. The overall test limits which apply whether the accused is in custody or on bail are 20 weeks to summary trial or committal, and at Birmingham and Bristol 26 weeks from committal to arraignment.The longer custody limit at Southwark and the lack of overall limits there or at Maidstone reflect current circumstances in the Crown Court in London and the South East, where too high a proportion of cases would inevitably overrun limits which were achievable elsewhere. The test limits are intended to be realistic initial targets for improvement on current performance.We shall study the effects of the test limits over about six months. We have it in mind thereafter to make regulations to apply statutory limits in the trial areas only in order to conduct a more lifelike test before wider implementation.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What action, if any, they propose to take regarding the finding of the inquiry into the condition of local authority housing stock in England in 1985.

I refer the noble Lord to the answers given on 12th November in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to the honourable member for Mid Staffordshire (Vol 86, cols. 113–117).

asked Her Majesty's Government:Since when the number of Soviet intrusions into the United Kingdom air defence region has been classified; how many such intrusions there were per week on the last occasion that the Government gave the figures; and whether the current figure is higher or lower.

The precise number of penetrations of the United Kingdom Air Defence Region by Warsaw Pact aircraft is not, and never has been, published for reasons of security. It is possible to give a figure in general terms and the most recent was three to four a week, rising significantly during periods of major Soviet exercise activity. (Official Report (Commons), 25/10/85; col. W276/7). This compares with the figure of four that I gave the noble Lord when I wrote to him on 31st October 1983.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What they mean by the phrase "European Architecture Studies" in the draft outline agreement with the United States on British participation in the SDI research programme.

The question of British participation in SDI research is still under consideration by the Government. In this context, the phrase "European Architecture Study" relates to the prospect of undertaking a purely theoretical research study of the systems necessary for the integrated defence of Europe within the context of a strategic defence system for the defence of the continental United States and its allies against ballistic missiles.

asked Her Majesty's Government:On what grounds it was decided to omit offshore installations including pipelines from among the "vital installations" the defence of which against attack by enemy special forces and conventional air attack was practised in the recent exercise Brave Defender.

Exercise Brave Defender was not designed to practise all of our contingency arrangements for a period of tension or war. The ground defence plans tested in the exercise apply only to installations within the United Kingdom itself.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether it is the normal practice for service personnel charged with an offence to have their pay docked before they are convicted of any offence whether or not they are arrested in the course of the charges brought against them.

Service personnel held in custody awaiting trial by court martial do not have their pay withheld. Neither do they forfeit their pay unless their term in custody forms part of a sentence of detention or imprisonment subsequently awarded. In certain circumstances issues of pay to Service personnel held in civil custody may be withheld or restricted as a temporary administrative arrangement, but in general may only be forfeited if the period of custody subsequently forms part of a sentence of detention or imprisonment.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will be implementing the proposals of the Law Commission for public inspection of the register of titles to property, and, if so, when legislation will be introduced.

The Government have not yet made a decision as to whether to implement the proposals in this Law Commission Report, which was published at the end of July 1985.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What changes are proposed regarding the entitlement of married women to invalid care allowance.

We have no plans to extend invalid care allowance to married women. The cost of such an extension is estimated to be £85 million a year net of savings on other benefits, and such a proposal must therefore be seen as one of a number of competing priorities for what is available for social security spending as a whole.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they are now able to make a statement about the future of the Eggs Authority.

Yes. When we announced publication of the report of the review committee under the chairmanship of my right honourable friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil, we said that we should be giving the egg industry an opportunity to consider and comment on the committee's commendation that the authority should be dissolved.We have taken careful note of the many representations we have received, which revealed differences of view within the egg industry. We do not consider that we should be justified in retaining a statutory body which does not command the widespread support of the industry concerned. We have accordingly decided to bring the authority to an end and propose to introduce a clause into the Agriculture Bill for this purpose.The review committee was impressed by the potential of the British Egg Industry Council, which already brings together, on a voluntary basis, all the major associations in the egg industry. We agree that the council provides scope for the industry to consider collectively its needs of the future and how these can best be met. This will include the means by which the egg industry would raise any funds it wished to devote to research and development in the light of the Government's recently announced policy of looking to the agricultural sector to shoulder some part of this cost. We shall be ready to hold discussions with the industry and BEIC about these matters. We shall consider sympathetically whatever arrangements the egg industry works out. One possibility would be to use the Industrial Organisation and Development Act 1947 to set up a development council. On the other hand, the industry might prefer voluntary arrangements.