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House adjourned at three minutes before seven o'clock.
Written Statements
Monday 13 February 2006
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Afghanistan: London Conference
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Triesman): I wish to inform the House that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, his Excellency Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opened the London Conference on Afghanistan on 31 January. My right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Jack Straw), the Secretary of State for Defence (Dr John Reid), the Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Hilary Benn) and my honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Dr Kim Howells) represented the UK at different sessions. The conference was attended by over 60 delegations.
The London conference successfully created the framework for the next phase of development in Afghanistan. It demonstrated the commitment of the Afghan Government and the international community to deepen their partnership, as we work together to build a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Afghanistan. The launch of the Afghanistan compact (a copy of which I have placed in the Library), and discussion of the interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy and of the revised National Drug Control Strategy, all contributed to a renewed sense of purpose and direction.
Many delegations made new financial pledges at the conference, making available over $10.5 billion for the implementation of Afghan Government priorities over the next five years. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister told the conference that for its part the UK would spend £500 million in assistance for Afghanistan over the next three years.
The conference recognised the interconnected nature of the challenges ahead, with progress on security, governance and development being mutually reinforcing. It recognised the cross-cutting nature and scale of the narcotics problem and the threat that this posed to Afghanistan's reconstruction. Delegates welcomed the newly updated National Drugs Control Strategy. On security issues, it was noted that Afghanistan continues to welcome assistance from international forces and supports the expansion of the NATO-led ISAF. On governance, there was broad support for sensitive handling of transitional justice
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issues and acknowledgement of the valuable role played by NGOs in Afghanistan's reconstruction. The conference welcomed the Afghan Government's plans for economic and social development by focusing on private sector development, investment in key infrastructural sectors such as power, water and roads, and by building human capacity. There was also useful discussion about improving aid effectiveness.
I am pleased that representatives of the Afghan National Assembly and of Afghanistan's civil society were able to attend the conference. Our partnership is both with the Government and the people of Afghanistan and their elected representatives. The challenge now is to build on the momentum created by the conference—to implement the compact so as to bring real improvements to the lives of people in Afghanistan. Early follow-up action will include establishing the new joint co-ordination and monitoring mechanism envisaged in the compact, to achieve greater coherence of effort between the Afghan Government and the international community, led for the latter by the UN.
I will set out the detail of UK support for the newly updated National Drug Control Strategy in a separate Written Ministerial Statement tomorrow.
Commission for Social Care Inspection: Fees
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Liam Byrne) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
In 2002 the Government stated their policy to move gradually to a position where the recurrent costs of regulation are fully recovered from service providers. This remains our policy.
Increased fees for registration and inspection will be charged therefore by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) from April 2006. These are set out in the table. The fees are subject to a 15 per cent increase over 2005-06 levels, except in relation to boarding schools and further education colleges whose fees already match the full cost of regulation.
In parallel, the Government will address the overall cost of regulation to limit what providers will pay in future. We are also working with the inspectorates, and have been for some time, to ensure regulatory services are provided as cost-effectively as possible, and working with public commissioners of care to ensure they understand that regulatory costs are a legitimate part of the cost of providing care and need to be reflected in commissioning fees.
Individual letters are being sent to all providers of care services regulated by CSCI to notify them about the increases.
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