Earlier today, the Government published Command Paper 6288, entitled Cutting Crime—Delivering Justice: Strategic Plan for Criminal Justice 2004–08. Copies of the paper have been placed in the Library of the House.The strategic plan for criminal justice sets out the Government's vision for the criminal justice system (CJS) and how we aim to achieve it, combining forces across the Home Office, the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the law officers' departments.The plan focuses on how we will provide a better service to victims and witnesses of crime, increase the number of offences brought to justice, tackle offenders who fail to comply with court dates, fines and sentences and improve the way criminal justice agencies work together. This is closely linked to our overall approach to preventing crime and reducing reoffending, which is set out in a parallel document, the Home Office strategic plan.The Government are committed to ongoing reform of the criminal justice system. The CJS strategic plan explains how much has already been achieved: huge steps have been made to establish joint working across the CJS—largely through the success of the 42 local criminal justice boards across England and Wales and the strong leadership of the National Criminal Justice Board. We know these changes are working because we are seeing improvements on the ground. Overall, crime is down by 25 per cent since 1997. Seven per cent more offences are being brought to justice in the past two years. The number of Crown Court trials that fail to go ahead on the day scheduled has fallen by 25 per cent. The number of assets recovered in the past three years has doubled. Public confidence in criminal justice was falling sharply: we have turned this around.We have achieved a great deal, but there are still some real issues to tackle. The CJS strategic plan outlines our key objectives for reform, structured around a vision of the delivery of criminal justice in 2008. To achieve this vision, we need to improve the way agencies work together to support and protect victims and witnesses; we need to increase further the number of offenders brought to justice; we need to tackle offenders who fail to comply with court dates, fines and sentences; and we need to continue progress towards fully joined-up working, including providing the CJS with the information technology it needs to work effectively.The goal of these reforms is to deliver a service that responds better to the needs of the communities it is there to serve.

The annual report of the Serious Fraud Office has today been published and laid before Parliament. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Geoffrey Hoon) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.I am pleased to announce that we have decided to extend the future aircraft carrier (CVF) programme assessment phase. This extension will enable us to carry out further risk reduction work and increase the maturity of the design prior to making our main investment decision on demonstration and manufacture (D&M). In line with Smart acquisition principles by spending the right amount of time and money in the assessment phase, we will gain a better understanding of the technical and supply-side risks before we make any major commitments. We had planned to complete this risk reduction work within the original demonstration phase. The underlying programme has not been adjusted, but rather the point at which we make the main investment decision has shifted.We anticipate moving into the D&M phase during 2005, following the main gate decision. At this point we intend to finalise performance, time and cost parameters of the carriers. These will continue to be refined during the remainder of the assessment phase. Our target in-service dates (ISD) for the CVF remain 2012 and 2015. When built, the two vessels will be

My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ivor Caplin) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.As part of the Government's continuing commitment to investigate Gulf veterans' illnesses openly and honestly, data on the mortality of veterans of the 1990–91 Gulf conflict are regularly published. The most recent figures for the period 1 April 1991 to 30 June 2004, were published on 14 July 2004. The tables from that publication are set out below. Table 1 gives the causes of death to UK Gulf veterans over that period; table 2 shows the deaths due to malignant cancers among Gulf veterans. As with previous information, the data for Gulf veterans are compared with those of a control group known as the era cohort which is made up of Armed Forces personnel of a similar age, gender, service, regular/reservist status and rank who were not deployed to the Gulf.Key points to note are:

My right honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.I have today laid before the House a copy of the Planning Inspectorate's annual report and accounts for 2003–04.The report gives an overview of the performance of the inspectorate and highlights the ways in which it is contributing to the Government's planning reform agenda. It demonstrates the importance of a credible, accessible planning tribunal service which is open, transparent and impartial.Copies of the Report have been made available in the Library of the House.

My right honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.My right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister is today publishing the alterations to chapter 12 of the regional planning guidance for the south-east on the Ashford growth area. This follows the public examination into the draft alterations in December 2003, the panel report in February 2004 and the consultation on the Secretary of State's proposed changes that closed on 17 June 2004.The alterations represent a revision to the regional planning guidance for the south-east (RPG9), as published in March 2001. On commencement of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act the alterations will be part of a statutory regional special strategy (RSS).The alterations aim to achieve sustainable growth in Ashford, which was identified as a growth area in RPG9. They set out the scale and form of development at Ashford to 2016, and form a special framework for the preparation of local planning documents and other relevant policy documents.The consultation period for the proposed changes to the draft alterations ended on the 17 June with 40 responses from individuals or organisations. These mainly related to issues which had already been raised at the public examination and therefore only minor changes to the proposed alterations have been made.

I am pleased to inform the House that the Government are setting up a creative industries forum on intellectual property. This will be a cross-governmental body, with ministerial representation, and jointly chaired by me and my right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts (Estelle Morris), who is making a similar Statement to the House of Commons. I am pleased to say that there will also be strong representation from the private sector, both from the creative industries themselves and from other key industry stakeholders such as Internet service providers and hardware manufacturers. Consumers will also be represented.The forum will be a chance for a dialogue on intellectual property issues, such as business models, education and awareness raising, strategies for maximising the opportunities for the creative industries in a digital environment, while also addressing the challenges such as file-sharing and piracy.The launch and first meeting of the forum is taking place on 19 July at the London College of Communication, Elephant and Castle. Industry has warmly welcomed the initiative.It is anticipated that the forum will work through meetings that will set tasks and objectives to be taken forward. There is intended to be a focus on outputs and deliverables, and I am confident that this will represent a significant development in an area crucial to the UK's future competitiveness.Terms of reference and membership of the forum will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses shortly.

My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.The department will be placing the figures for the United Kingdom's stocks of civil plutonium and uranium as at 31 December 2003 in the Library of the House. In accordance with our commitment under the