While most York residents settle down to enjoy their New Year's Eve parties, the city's MP Hugh Bayley will be on a special Millennium watch as the last hours of the century tick by.

Mr Bayley is part of a team of Ministers who have been chosen to monitor the effects of the Millennium Bug as clocks turn midnight across the world.

He will be part of a cabinet committee, chaired by Home Secretary Jack Straw, and will be responsible for keeping an eye on computer systems across the world on behalf of the Department of Social Security.

"Around midday on the 31st the first reports should start coming through from New Zealand and Australia, then as the dateline moves round the world we will keep looking at computer systems in each country as it comes," said Mr Bayley.

He added that the department made cheque transfers to almost every country in the world, because of people's pensions.

On January 1, staff would start re-testing the Government's own mainframe systems and on January 2 they will be going into local DSS offices to check routine things like heating systems are working.

As for how he would be marking midnight on New Year's Eve, Mr Bayley said he had a meeting scheduled in the early evening with the committee and would have to wait and see how things went.

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