§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, in constant prices, the amounts of housing subsidies for the city of Manchester for each of the calendar years from 1975 to 1981 inclusive.
§ Mr. StanleyFigures are not available for calendar years. The city of Manchester's claims for housing subsidies for the relevant financial years in 1981–82 prices are as follows. Rent rebates paid to recipients of supplementary benefit and supplementary pensions—indirect rebates—are now funded through DHSS programmes. The 1981–82 figures for rent rebates and allowances are therefore not comparable with the figures for earlier years.
passport; what information will be on it; what machine readability is incorporated and for what purpose; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. LuceWe intend to introduce the common format passport at the same time as we adopt the International Civil Aviation Organisation recommendations for a simplified standardised international format with machine 423W readable capability. A considerable amount of work remains to be done to assess the costs and the technical problems and, until this has been completed, the Government cannot set a date for its introduction. Machine readability will be incorporated in the form of a laminated page with a machine readable margin. All the information contained on the card will be visible to the eye and it will include no information that does not appear in the existing United Kingdom passport.
Our introduction of machine readable passports will speed the passage of travellers through controls, particularly at busy airports, and will encourage the development of automated port procedures world wide.