§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when audited attendance figures for the Millennium Dome will be available; and if he will publish them. [145386]
§ Janet Anderson[holding answer 16 January 2001]Total visitor attendance at the Dome was 6,517,116 million as announced by the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) on 3 January 2001. In terms of the breakdown of that total (for example tickets sold and free entry) NMEC is in the process of reconciling ticket sales data across the various outlets (including train operating companies and river boat services), and visitor attendance data. The external audit of NMEC's operational year finances and ticket sales data are intended to commence in February and should be concluded by the end of March. The audited information will be incorporated in the company's next annual report and financial statements covering the period 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2000 which, under non-departmental public body requirements, will be published within six months of 31 December 2000.
§ Mr. GrieveTo ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many tickets for the Millennium Experience had been sold in(a) Wales, (b) Scotland and (c) Northern Ireland by 1 December 2000. [145893]
§ Janet Anderson[holding answer 16 January 2001]The New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) has advised that the information sought is not available in the format requested. The nature of NMEC's ticket sales channels and the data arising from them do not allow definitive regional breakdowns covering all tickets sold. While postcode identification data are available from the call centre and national lottery outlets (which indicates that by 1 December 2000, 13,934 tickets had been sold in Northern Ireland, 52,053 in Scotland, 50,283 in Wales, and 3,634,272 in England), these figures do not include tickets purchased at the gate on the day of visits, nor do they include tickets sold as part of travel/visit packages by train operating companies or one-off coach company bookings.
Also, not included in the call centre and national lottery statistics are those Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish schools who enjoyed visits to the Dome as part of the free school programme, and those schools and communities from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who visited the Dome as part of the "Our Town" story initiative. In addition, many of the other outreach initiatives (under the national programme and the learning experience), developed and implemented by NMEC as an integral 592W part of the millennium experience, involved schools and communities across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
§ Jean CorstonTo ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to his oral answer of 22 January 2001,Official Report, column 646, if he will make a statement on the involvement of Ministers in the sponsorship of the Faith Zone at the Millennium Dome by the Hinduja brothers. [147442]
§ Mr. Chris SmithIn reply to the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) on 22 January 2001,Official Report, columns 645–46, I stated that the sole involvement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) in Mr. S. Hinduja's application for British citizenship was for his then Parliamentary Private Secretary to inform Mr. Hinduja that his application would be dealt with in the normal way.
As has now been made clear publicly, my right hon. Friend made inquiries about how an application might be viewed given the Government's wider policy of encouraging citizenship from long-standing residents who fulfilled the criteria, but did not make representations that an application be granted.