asked Her Majesty's Government:What capital work is currently underway for Waterways Ireland; when contracts were sought; on what basis they were awarded and to whom; what are the related costs; and when the work will be completed. [HL2522]

Waterways Ireland is currently carrying out a number of capital projects by direct labour. Works include dredging, bank protection, access, Landscaping and the provision of additional jetties and moorings. No external firms are employed as main contractors on these projects.In addition two major supply contracts were awarded as follows:Supply and Installation of five floating jetties on the Lower Bann;

asked Her Majesty's Government:What is the projected underspend for each Northern Ireland Department for the year 2002–03. [HL2387]

Information on the extent of any underspend for the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Administration for the year 2002–03 will not be available until May 2003 and June 2003 respectively.

asked Her Majesty's Government:How they intend to trace all the current owners of self-contained air cartridge system air guns in the event of Parliament prohibiting the import, sale, transfer and manufacture of such weapons, whilst allowing the retention under licence by current owners. [HL2556]

It will be the responsibility of existing owners to apply for a licence if they wish to retain their firearm. Anybody who is subsequently found to be in possession of an unlicensed gun will be liable to prosecution. We are proposing to introduce a minimum sentence of five years for possessing a prohibited firearm.

asked Her Majesty's Government:How many of the estimated 70,000 current owners of self-contained air cartridge system air guns they envisage will apply for licences following prohibition. [HL2557]

It is envisaged that existing owners will be able to either dispose of their gun before any ban takes effect or apply for a licence for it. No estimate has been made as to how many will choose each option.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What new measures are being proposed in respect of immigration control for the UK. [HL2671]

The Government are firmly committed to maintaining effective immigration controls while at the same time ensuring that genuine passengers are able to pass through our ports with the least possible inconvenience.The number of Algerian nationals arriving at UK airports who are found to be inadmissible is unacceptably high. Although Algerian nationals must obtain a visa to enter the UK they may, in common with other nationalities, transit this country for up to 24 hours without a visa. However, this is a concession open to abuse by those who are intent on circumventing our immigration controls. A significant number of Algerian nationals who do not qualify for leave to enter or remain in the UK go on to make unfounded asylum claims, some 1,060 in 2002. Therefore from 00.01 hours on Friday, 2 May all Algerian nationals wishing to transit the UK will require a direct airside transit visa to do so.To avoid undue hardship for those who had already made their travel plans, we have agreed to operate a grace period. Until 23.59 hours on 6 May any transit passenger who bought their ticket on or before 1 May will not be refused transit solely on the basis of not holding a valid transit visa. Also, any person on the return leg of a journey they commenced before 1 May and who passed through the UK on the outward leg of their journey will be allowed to transit the UK without a visa.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they can explain why the number of United Kingdom passports reported stolen, lost or unavailable increased from 31,497 in 1998 to 114,624 in 2000 and to 166,358 in 2002; and whether they will give the comparable number for the first three months of 2003. [HL2476]

It is our view, subject to the results of ongoing work, that there are a number of factors which have contributed to the increase in the recorded figures for passports lost, stolen or unavailable since 1998. Key among these are likely to be an increase in identity fraud and an increase in the number of reports being made to and recorded by the United Kingdom Passport Service.As recognised by the Cabinet Office

asked Her Majesty's Government:What plans they have to amend the Social Security (Incapacity Benefit) (Her Majesty's Forces) (Amendment) Regulations 2003. [HL2672]

My honourable friend the Minister for Veterans (Dr Moonie) confirmed that on 14 April 2003 in another place the Department for Work and Pensions laid before the House the Social Security (Incapacity Benefit) (Her Majesty's Forces) (Amendment) Regulations 2003. The regulations provide that people discharged from the Armed Forces may in future count days of absence from duty on health grounds while in service towards the higher rates of incapacity benefit.For many years there have been special pay arrangements in place for members of the Armed Forces which recognise their unique position. Veterans with continuing health problems are able to make a claim for incapacity benefit immediately on discharge. However, until now, they were required to be in receipt of incapacity benefit for 28 weeks before qualifying for the higher rates. The new regulations, which take effect from 5 May, bring ex-members of the forces into line with civilian claimants who have been in receipt of statutory sick pay.We are grateful to DWP Ministers for making this change, which serves as an illustration of the power of the Veterans Initiative launched by the Prime Minister with the aim of joining up the Government's response to veterans' concerns. We would also like to pay tribute to ex-service organisations such as South Atlantic Medal Association (82), who first brought this matter to my attention, for the valuable work they do in the interests of ex-servicemen and women and their dependants.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will introduce legislation authorising United Kingdom courts to give direct effect to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights finding breaches by the United Kingdom of the European Convention on Human Rights; and if not, why not.[HL2497]

The Government are bound by Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights to abide by any judgment of the European Court of Human Rights to which the United Kingdom is a party. Under Section 10(2) of the Human Rights Act 1998 if, after a finding of the European Court of Human Rights, it appears to a Minister that a provision of United Kingdom legislation is incompatible with the convention, then the Minister may make such amendments to the legislation as is considered necessary to remove the incompatibility. We see no reason to amend the arrangements made so recently by Parliament.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether recent reports suggesting that the budget of the Office of the e-Envoy is to be reduced by nearly 20 per cent in the coming year are accurate; and, if so, what are the implications of this for their e-government and e-commerce strategies. [HL2446]

As part of a Cabinet Office-wide budget review, the Office of the e-Envoy budget has been reduced on a level with the other Cabinet Office delivery and reform teams, returning the office to a similar level of budget and posts that it had before the specific increased amounts of the past two years.The Office of the e-Envoy will continue to play a central role in driving our e-government programme, and is responsible for delivering the Cabinet Office Public Service Agreement target for electronic service delivery: 100 per cent capability by 2005, with key services achieving high levels of use.The OeE will also continue to co-ordinate the UK's drive to maintain our position as one of the world's leading e-commerce environments.

asked Her Majesty's Government:How they respond to the suggestion from the Institute of Public Policy Research that their target of placing all government services online by 2005 should be scrapped because it comprises efforts aimed at improving delivery of services on a case by case basis. [HL2447]

We agree with the IPPR that blanket e-enablement of services would not by itself deliver public value. That is why our target to make all central government services available electronically by 2005—which has successfully galvanised much activity across government to offer citizens and businesses online services—was enhanced in the 2002 spending review to include achieving high levels of use for key services.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What methodology is in place to measure the levels of take-up of e-government services by the general public; what levels have been achieved to date; and what plans are in place to encourage further take-up. [HL2448]

Take up of e-government services is measured by the Office for National Statistics via the Internet access module of its Omnibus Survey. In October 2002, 16 per cent of adult internet users reported they had used e-government services.To encourage further take-up, the Office of the e-Envoy is working with departments to develop strategies for driving take up of key online services.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What plans they have to create a Board of Transport Accident Investigators. [HL2647]

The Secretary of State for Transport has recently announced the appointment of the chief inspector designate of Rail Accidents, and is now setting up a Board of Transport Accident Investigators. This will comprise the Chief Inspectors of the Air and Marine Accident Investigation Branches together with the Chief Inspector designate of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB). The board will initially support the chief inspector designate in her establishment of the RAIB and in the longer term will seek to identify areas where the accident investigation branches can cooperate and adopt best practice.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Further to a letter to the Lord Jenkin of Roding of 28 March from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science and Innovation, what are their plans for the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency and the Nuclear Liabilities Fund and related matters. [HL2461]

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is being set up to deal with the civil nuclear liabilities that relate to the public sector—specifically in relation to UKAEA, BNFL and Magnox sites. As explained in the White Paper, Managing the Nuclear Legacy, published in July 2002, the NDA (formerly referred to as the Liabilities Management Authority (LMA)) will be responsible for ensuring that these "legacy" sites are cleaned up safely, securely, cost effectively and in ways which protect the environment. Its role will be to develop an overall strategy for clean up of the sites for which it is responsible and to drive work forward.The NDA will be funded directly by government through a statutory segregated account. The energy Minister announced on 3 April that, following consideration of responses to the White Paper, the Government had concluded that this represented the best way of satisfying its funding objectives, which had received almost universal support. In particular, the Government are determined to establish funding arrangements that, subject to appropriate budgetary and public expenditure controls: underline the Government's commitment to clean up and help to build public confidence in the NDA; give the NDA the flexibility required to drive forward the clean-up process effectively; and encourage competition for clean-up contracts by giving the market confidence that funding will be available to support substantial work programmes over the long term.Legislation to set up the new authority will be brought forward at the earliest opportunity. As announced in the Queen's Speech last November, the draft Bill will be published in the course of the current Session.The term "Nuclear Liabilities Fund" (NLF) refers to a proposed new funding mechanism for the nuclear liabilities belonging to the private sector company, British Energy. This fund would be set up as part of the company's restructuring. The proposal to set up the NLF was first announced in BE's detailed statement on restructuring on 28 November 2002. The NLF and the statutory segregated account to be set up for the NDA will be quite separate—the former deals with BE's liabilities, and is paid into by the company; the latter is for public sector nuclear liabilities and will be funded by government.British Energy (BE) already pass into a ring-fenced fund, the "Nuclear Decommissioning Fund" (NDF), which was set up specifically as a means of funding the decommissioning of BE's nuclear stations once they have ceased generating electricity. The idea behind the NLF is to take the ring-fenced fund approach a step further to cover more of BE's nuclear liabilities, including their uncontracted nuclear fuel liabilities (such as dealing with spent PWR fuel at Sizewell B). The full details of how the NLF will work are still being drawn up, and it has not yet been decided whether the NLF will, in effect, be an extended and enlarged version of the NDF, or whether there will be a separate NLF running alongside the NDF. Either way, BE will make financial contributions towards meeting the cost of its own nuclear liabilities. The

arrangements for these financial contributions are set out in the 28 November statement and are summarised in the following table:

	Financial Contributions
NDF value	The existing value of the NDF (valued at £332 million in BE's September interim accounts) will remain available to the NDF or new merged NDF/NLF.
New Bonds	At the point of restructuring, BE will issue £275 million of bonds to the NDF/NLF.
Decommissioning Payments	Each year BE will make a payment of £20 million towards decommissioning costs (but this payment will taper off as stations close).
PWR Fuel	BE will contribute £150,000 to the funds for every tonne of Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) fuel loaded into Sizewell B. This is in line with the principle that BE should pay its own way going forwards.
Cash Sweep	BE will have to pay 65 per cent of available cash into the fund, subject to conditions.

In return, government will agree to underwrite the cost of BE's nuclear liabilities, to the extent that the funding of the NLF/NDF is not sufficient to cover these. The Government have already made clear that they wish to protect taxpayers' interests and avoid handing BE a "blank cheque". As part of this, the Government propose to put in place a series of controls and incentives to ensure that British Energy runs its nuclear power stations as though it were exclusively responsible for the discharge of its nuclear liabilities.As the centre of public sector expertise on nuclear decommissioning, we would expect the Government to seek the NDA's advice on issues relating to BE's nuclear liabilities—particularly in the context of the controls on BE mentioned above.

asked Her Majesty's Government:In the light of the reported transfusion-related acute lung injury case settled out of court by the National Blood Service, whether they plan to provide alternative transfusion plasma which does not cause transfusion-related acute lung injury more widely to avoid further compensation claims by affected patients; and [HL2551]In the light of the reported transfusion-related acute lung injury case settled out of court by the National Blood Service, whether they will now give the risk of transfusion-related acute lung injury from blood transfusion a higher priority and take action to protect patients against the risk of transfusion-related acute lung injury. [HL2552]

asked Her Majesty's Government:In light of the report by the Serious Hazards of Transfusion Scheme of 18 fatal transfusion-related acute lung injury cases over recent years and the potential for compensation for transfusion patients, what steps are currently being taken to protect transfusion patients from this danger. [HL2517]

The reduction of incidents of transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) continues to be a high priority for the National Blood Service's (NBS), Blood and Tissue Safety Assurance Group. An NBS project team is carrying out an option appraisal to assess ways of reducing TRALI, working with the Department of Health's Economic and Operational Research Branch. Options under active consideration include sourcing fresh frozen plasma (FFP) exclusively from male donors and the use of an additive solution to reduce the volume of plasma used to suspend pooled platelets. Decisions will be taken later this year. In addition, the criteria in the NBS specification for imported FFP for neonates and children born after 1 January 1996 includes a preference for male donors.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Following the recent publication in

In July 2002 the Department of Health published Health Service Circular 2002/009 Better Blood Transfusion—Appropriate Use of Blood(www.doh.gov.uk/publications/coinh.html). The circular asks all National Health Service trusts to ensure participation in the Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) scheme by December 2002. We will be carrying out an audit to review the implementation of this guidance later this year. From the start of the current reporting year, participation in the SHOT scheme by NHS Trusts will be verified by means of a confidential personal identification number. SHOT also encourages awareness of reporting all adverse events, including transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), by holding an annual educational symposium. The SHOT annual report is also widely circulated and available on the SHOT Website (www.SHOT.demon.co.uk).

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will invest to prevent up to 70.000 transfusion patients each year from continuing to be put at risk from United Kingdom-sourced, non-virally inactivated transfusion plasma; and [HL2553]In the light of the £88 million spent to secure safer products for haemophiliacs, and the £55 million to secure the supply of United States-sourced plasma for certain patients, whether they will consider an additional £9.6 million to supply a United States-sourced, virally-inactivated transfusion plasma for the 70,000 patients who undergo plasma transfusions each year. [HL2555]

To date there is no evidence worldwide that variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has ever been transmitted through blood. As a precautionary measure all fresh frozen plasma (FFP) produced by the United Kingdom blood services uses single unit plasma from UK blood donors which has been leucodepleted to remove the white cells which evidence suggests may carry the greatest risk of transmitting variant CJD. Although most UK F'FP is not virally inactivated, high levels of safety are achieved by using single unit, as opposed to pooled plasma, by screening out potential high risk donors and by testing every unit of donated blood for the presence of infections such as HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C before it is released to hospitals.The decision taken to import FFP from the United States for young babies and children born after 1 January 1996 will provide additional protection to the most vulnerable group who will not have been exposed to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy through the food chain. The National Blood Service is currently involved in negotiating for supplies of FFP for this group of patients and plans to have it available later this year. A commercially produced FFP product, sourced from the United States, is also available for the National Health Service to purchase.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether, in considering the Office of Fair Trading report on the location of pharmacies, they will accept that the presence of a neighbourhood pharmacy has an importance, especially to the elderly and the disabled, which cannot be adequately measured in market terms. [HL2545]

As the Government made clear on 26 March, we are taking into account wider policy objectives in responding to the OFT report.The OFT report argues for abolition of entry controls on the grounds that there would be consequent benefits for consumers in terms of reduced prices, improved quality of services and better access. The Government strongly support these objectives. We want to improve access and choice (including improving out-of-hours access for NHS patients) so that more NHS patients can use the skills of community pharmacists, who are trained clinicians, for advice, information and services.The OFT report also noted that in a more competitive environment problems could arise through the possible effect of deregulation on the ability of patients in some areas to access high quality pharmacy services, and that these problems could be addressed through targeted measures. It was not in the OFT's remit to examine how mechanisms such as the Essential Small Pharmacies Scheme could be developed to address a more competitive environment, and we therefore propose to examine these issues further before reaching a final decision on a balanced package which most effectively promotes competition, new entry and increased choice alongside our wider social and health objectives.We therefore favour change to open up the market and improve quality and access without diminishing the crucial role that pharmacies play, especially in poorer and rural areas. The Government intend to come forward with proposals before the Summer Recess and will publish a progress report at the end of June. All changes will then be the subject of a full consultation.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What transitional measures they have requested from the European Union in connection with the Animal By-Products Regulation due to take effect on 1 May 2003 so as to take account of the English and Welsh requirements. [HL2487]

The UK has applied for the following transitional measures, to apply throughout the UK until the dates shown: the use of small (less than 50 kg/ hour) incinerators which do not burn specified risk material (UK), until 30 December 2004; the use in animal feed of used cooking oils, until 30 October 2004; the separation at oleochemical plants which process tallow derived from category 2 and 3 material, until 30 October 2005; the rendering of mammalian blood at atmospheric pressure, until 30 December 2004; the collection and disposal of waste food from retail outlets, until 30 December 2005; and the feeding of processed animal protein from all fish to farmed fish, until 30 December 2003.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they intend to apply the European Union Animal By-Products Regulation to waste from fish and shellfish products; if so, to what shellfish products the regulation will apply; when shellfish processors were notified of the change; and whether they will make transitional arrangements so that the processors have sufficient time to make alternative arrangements to replace landfill disposal. [HL2501]

Council Directive 90/667/EEC (the Animal Waste Directive) already classifies shellfish and fish waste as an animal by-product and applies to all member states. The directive will be replaced by Regulation 1774/2002 (the Animal By-Products Regulation) which maintains the same principle. The regulation will be applying to all shellfish products which are not intended for human consumption.The Sea Fish Industry Authority was consulted during negotiations on the regulation and a number of other fish and shellfish industries were sent the consultation document of 27 January 2003 on enforcing the regulation. As landfill is not currently a permitted disposal route for most shellfish waste, we have not asked the Commission for a transition period to allow that practice to continue.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they issue guidance for Ministers and Officials on overseas visits with regard to the consumption at official occasions of species which are on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species lists. [HL2488]

Specific guidance is not provided to Ministers and officials on such matters, although advice on the rules and procedures relating to the operation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is available on the DEFRA website at www.ukcites.gov.uk. It should be noted that a number of CITES species are traded quite legitimately for human consumption and it is the responsibility of the host's officials to ensure that such products are legally obtained from a sustainable source.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

The question covered various policy areas spanning organisational units in more than one government department. It took longer than is usual to publish because we wanted to ensure that the answer given was full, accurate and up to date. There is nothing further to add to the previous Answer.