Written Statement of 17 March 2004

TREASURY

  Debt and Reserves Management Report 2004–05
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Ruth Kelly)
  I am pleased to announce to the House that the Debt and Reserves Management Report 2004–05 is being published today. Copies will be available in the House Library at the conclusion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget Statement.

  Housing
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown)
  Kate Barker's report Review of Housing Supply, Final Report and Recommendations, is published today. Copies are available in the Vote Office.

DEFENCE

  Service Personnel Process Review
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin)
  With effect from 1 April 2004 the three single service personnel agencies will cease to have agency status. This decision resulted from the service personnel process review that was conducted last year and referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) on 17 July 2002,Official Report, column 277–78W.

  The review also identified the fact that the career management and manpower planning work of the three service manning agencies did not wholly suit agency status, because they performed primarily support and enabling functions rather than being concerned with the provision of a clear and discrete deliverable service. I therefore concluded that agency status for the agencies (Naval Manning, Army Personnel and RAF Personnel Management Agency) should cease.

  I am pleased to tell the House that a considerable amount of work continues in many other areas. It includes further reviews of tri-service recruiting and welfare and many of the review recommendations have been swept into a service personnel plan, parallel with and linked to the equipment programme and within the framework of the defence White Paper published last December.

  I intend to report on further progress to the House later in the year.

  Referendum Guidance
  Lord Bassam of Brighton
  My right honourable friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office (Douglas Alexander) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
  WS 24
  The Government have published guidance to civil servants and NDPB board members and staff on their role and conduct during the referendum campaigns for elected regional assemblies and the accompanying referendums on local government structures.

  The Government believe that people who serve in public life as members of public bodies should not be precluded from taking part in the referendum campaigns—whether for a "Yes" or "No" vote—in their capacity as private citizens. However, where they decide to participate in such activity they should do so in accordance with the requirements of this guidance.

  Copies of the guidance have been placed in the Libraries of the House.