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Illegal Entrants

Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 8 May 2000, Official Report, columns 310-11W, on persons served with notice as clandestine illegal entrants, if he will indicate in each case how many of such persons have claimed asylum. [121572]

Mrs. Roche: Precise information on the numbers of those persons issued with notice of illegal entry as clandestine entrants who had also claimed asylum is not contained in the central records and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

However, it is possible to deduce from the available data that at least 81 per cent. of those clandestine illegal entrants who were issued with a notice of illegal entry between 1 April 1999 and 31 March 2000 had also applied for asylum. It should be noted that this is a bare minimum and the actual percentage may well be higher than this.

Rape and Sexual Assault

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 21 December 2000, Official Report, column 416W, on

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rape and sexual assault, when the Sexual Offences Review will report; and when the proposals will be published for consultation. [121694]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The sexual offences review has completed its work and reported to Ministers. I hope that its proposals will be published for consultation shortly.

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 21 December 1999, Official Report, column 478W, on rape and sexual assault, what organisations have provided submissions to the Review of Sexual Offences relating to the law and rape including psychological and physical impact of rape on victims. [121695]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The following organisations provided submissions and evidence to the review in relation to the law on rape and sexual assault:





























In addition the review received many submissions from individuals on the subject of rape and sexual assault.

Domestic Violence

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 21 December 1999, Official Report, column 484W, on domestic violence, if the improvements in systems which will allow the information on domestic assaults to be collated have been made; and if the Office Court Proceedings Database is available on line or in a format available to the public. [121696]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The improvements referred to in the reply were with respect to police systems for recording domestic assaults. These have not yet been made and will be undertaken as part of the work associated with implementation of the National Strategy for Police Information Systems.

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Aggregated data from the Court Proceedings Database are published annually in the command paper "Criminal statistics, England and Wales" together with four supplementary volumes. Copies of these publications are available in the Library. Some aggregated data can be found on the Home Office website and more will appear in the future. Detailed information is available on floppy disk in Excel format, this being known as the Home Office Court Appearances System (HOCAS). Copies of the relevant disks are available in the Library.

Corpus Juris

Mr. Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his policy is regarding Corpus Juris; and if he will make a statement. [121670]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The House of Lords European Union Committee's inquiry into Corpus Juris concluded in May last year that the Corpus Juris proposals do not offer an acceptable way forward. The Government share that view. Although we fully share the objective of the Corpus Juris paper to provide more effective remedies against fraud affecting the European Community budget, the Government do not agree that this should be done by "unifying" the laws and procedures of all member states. We believe that the aims of Corpus Juris can best be achieved by improvements in judicial co-operation between member states as agreed at the Tampere European Council, including mutual recognition of judicial decisions and the creation of Eurojust.

Mr. Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on mutual recognition in relation to Corpus Juris. [121666]

Mr. Charles Clarke: On the basis of a United Kingdom initiative, European Union Heads of Government at the Tampere European Council endorsed the concept of mutual recognition of judicial decisions and stated that it


Unlike Corpus Juris, mutual recognition does not involve "unifying" the laws and procedures of the member states of the Union. Decisions taken in other European Union jurisdictions could be recognised and enforced despite the differences in the member states' legal systems.

The Government have made it clear that some agreed safeguards would be necessary in order to protect civil rights; for example for any changes to extradition arrangements between member states. The need for common minimum standards, respecting the fundamental legal principles of member states, was also recognised at Tampere.

Macpherson Report

Ms Kingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action his Department has taken to ensure that policies regarding Roma, gipsies and travellers are included in action plans following the Macpherson report. [121518]

Mr. Straw: In March 1999, I published an Action Plan detailing the Government's response to all 70 recommendations of Sir William Macpherson's Report on

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the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Details of progress on these recommendations can be found in my First Annual Report on Progress on this Action Plan, published in February this year, a copy of which is in the Library. None of the recommendations of the report were specific to particular ethnic or cultural groups, and the action taken has accordingly been targeted equally at all minority ethnic communities.

Roma

Ms Kingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what mechanism he has established to collect data concerning human rights abuses documented against Roma, by country; how many Roma (a) sought asylum in the United Kingdom, by country of origin and (b) had their asylum claims (i) upheld and (ii) denied in the United Kingdom in the last five years. [121519]

Mrs. Roche: The Country Information and Policy Unit in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate obtains from a wide variety of sources information on issues which are raised in the asylum process, including the question of human rights abuses against Roma. Country assessments based on this information are published on the top 35 asylum-producing countries. The assessments are revised and updated every six months.

The majority of Roma asylum seekers in the United Kingdom come from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. During the period January 1995 to January 1999, there were 2,600 asylum applications from nationals of the Czech Republic. 6,110 asylum applications were received from nationals of Poland and 1,250 received from Slovakia. A visa regime was introduced on 8 October 1998 in respect of Slovakia. During the period January 1995 to May 1999, 490 Czech and 910 Slovak asylum applications were refused. There were no grants of asylum during this period. During the same period 3,355 Polish asylum applications were refused. One or two Polish applicants were granted asylum in each of the years 1996, 1997 and 1998 although our information does not show on what basis asylum was granted. It is not possible to give decisions with a nationality breakdown after May 1999.

Schengen Information System

Mr. Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 4 May 2000, Official Report, column 209W, on the Schengen Information System, what part that system can play in the fight against crime, fraud and drug trafficking in the European Union; and what constraints exist in the use of this system by member states not within the Schengen arrangements. [121639]

Mrs. Roche: The Schengen Information System exists to support the substantive provisions of the Schengen Implementing Convention, which include police and judicial co-operation between participating member states.

Only those member states which have acceded to the Schengen acquis have access to the Schengen Information System. In accordance with separate arrangements with the European Union member states, Norway and Iceland are also associated with Schengen co-operation, including access to the Schengen Information System.

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In line with its application to participate in parts of the Schengen acquis relating to law enforcement and judicial co-operation, the United Kingdom would have access to the corresponding parts of the Schengen Information System database.

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