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Immigration: Charges

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): My honourable friend the Minister of State for Borders and Immigration and Minister for the West Midlands (Liam Byrne) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

The chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency has published proposals for charging to support the new points-based system and biometric ID cards. Copies of this consultation letter have been placed in the House Library and are available in the Vote Office.

Middle East Peace Process

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown): Following my closing speech at the debate on the Middle East and Afghanistan on 23 October, (Official Report, col. 1068), I would like to clarify to the House the Government’s policy on contacts with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Our policy on Hamas has not changed. We do not have a political dialogue with Hamas. We continue to expect it to adhere to the quartet principles of January 2006. These principles remain the fundamental conditions for a viable peace process. We hope that Hamas will accept the principles and grasp the opportunity for dialogue and progress. We had contact with Hamas following the kidnapping of Alan Johnston. The contact was purely on the kidnapping and fulfilled our consular responsibility to do all we could for Alan.

Currently we have no contact with Hezbollah. Our objective remains to encourage it to participate in Lebanese politics as a fully democratic political party. We also want Hezbollah to comply with relevant UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs), including UNSCRs 1559, 1680 and 1701, which call for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon. The UK's policy on contacts with Hezbollah’s political wing has been based on our assessment of its behaviour, and our judgment of whether such contacts would encourage it to move away from violence and play a constructive role in Lebanese politics. We continue to call on Hezbollah to end terrorist activity, abandon its status as an armed group and participate in the democratic process on the same terms as other political parties.

Ministry of Defence: Defence Training

The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence & Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Lord Drayson): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Derek Twigg) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

This Statement updates the House on the Defence Training Rationalisation Programme following the announcement made on 17 January 2007 (Official Report, col. 787-789).

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We continue to make progress on package 1, which aims to deliver training for engineering and communications and information systems. We have now let a risk reduction contract with Metrix which seeks to increase confidence in our ability to amend training courses quickly and efficiently over the life of the main contract in response to changes in training needs. It is anticipated that we will be in a position to commit to the final developmental phase of the project in the spring of next year with a view to signing the main contract within a further year. Construction at the St Athan site would then start in 2009, with the aim of completing the final phase by 2013.

The work to explore possible synergies and economies of scale across the programme as a whole has concluded that there are insufficient efficiencies to move forward on this basis. We therefore continue to consider a range of options for package 2, which aims to provide training for logistics and personnel administration, police and guarding, security, languages, intelligence and photography. These options vary from adaptations to Metrix's original PFI proposals through to a full conventional procurement. The work to develop an affordable project will continue to focus on how best to improve our accommodation and training facilities, and meet our commitments following the review by Nicholas Blake QC to improve the support, welfare and well-being of our trainees.

We continue to manage the implications for our people sensitively and in full consultation with trade unions and staff. For package 1, our civilian staff in scope will continue to be required to transfer to the new partner, although no moves will take place before 2011. For package 2, training will continue to be delivered at the package 2 sites under current arrangements for at least the foreseeable future. We now plan to take forward more detailed negotiations with the Metrix consortium to press ahead with package 1. The work on package 2 will be conducted in parallel and a further update on both packages will be provided next year.

NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency: Annual Business Plan and Accounts

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham): My honourable friend the Minister of State, Department of Health (Ben Bradshaw) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

The NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency's annual business plan has been published today.

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The business plan sets out the key tasks and targets for the coming year and sets out how the agency will monitor and measures its successes in:

delivering greater value in NHS expenditure;developing best practice for procurement and commercial management across the NHS; andensuring procurement can be used as a lever to deliver better patient care and sustainability.

The business plan has been placed in the Library.

Pensions

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): My honourable friend the Minister of State for Pensions Reform (Mike O’Brien) has made the following Statement.

In the consultation on the calculation of pensions transfer values, a number of respondents asked for more time to get ready before the new regulations take effect. The Government have considered the arguments carefully and have decided to delay bringing the new regulations into force until 1 October 2008.

The existing arrangements for the calculation of pensions transfer values will therefore remain in force until that time.

Roads: Traffic Management

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport (Ruth Kelly) has made the following Ministerial Statement.

Since September 2006, the Highways Agency has been trialling active traffic management (ATM) techniques on the M42 in the West Midlands, which have proved successful in reducing congestion and improving journey time reliability. Therefore, we are today announcing the extension of the scheme to improve the M6 round Birmingham and the M6 Toll, at a cost of £150 million, scheduled for completion by summer 2011.

I have also commissioned a study into the feasibility, benefits and costs of extending advanced signalling and traffic management systems, including hard shoulder running, more widely across the motorway network. The study will report to me in spring 2008.

I am placing the M42 trial report and the terms of reference of the feasibility study in the Library of the House.

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