§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what additional expenditure has been incurred by the Health Protection Agency on(a) counter-terrorism and (b) civil protection since 11 September 2001. [46615]
§ Mr. Hutton[holding answer 26 March 2002]: The Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) and the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR), which will be incorporated into the Health Protection Agency from April 2003, have incurred £1,176,000 of additional expenditure since 11 September 2001 on counter-terrorism and civil protection work. These sums are in addition to programmes of related work which were in place prior to 11 September. It has not been possible to divide these figures up between counter-terrorism and civil protection as the two areas involve overlapping work. No additional expenditure has been incurred by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) and the National Focus for Chemical Incidents (NFCI).
The Chief Medical Officer's strategy, "Getting Ahead of the Curve", proposes the creation of a Health Protection Agency which will take over functions currently performed by the PHLS, CAMR, NRPB and the NFCI. We aim to establish the new agency by 1 April 2003.