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Oversight Commissioner
Mr. William Ross: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will place in the Library a copy of the programme of actions for the Commissioner appointed under section 67 of the Police Northern Ireland Act 2000 and his timetable for completing his task. [159472]
Mr. Ingram: The Oversight Commissioner's first report, which was placed in the Library of the House on 10 January 2001, laid out the Commissioner's programme of action.
Terrorist Offences
Mr. Donaldson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many members of the (a) Provisional IRA, (b) Real IRA, (c) Continuity IRA, (d) INLA, (e) UDA/UFF, (f) LVF, (g) Orange Volunteer Force and (h) Red Hand Defenders have been (i) charged with a terrorist-related offence and (ii) convicted of a terrorist- related offence in relation to crimes committed after 10 April 1998. [155469]
Mr. Ingram: The table details the number of persons charged with "terrorist-type" or serious public order offences since 10 April 1998. The following points should be noted about this information:
(a) Where a person has been charged with a number of different offences only the most serious is shown. It is not possible to attribute responsibility to specific groups as to do so would incur a disproportionate cost.
(b) Charges brought during this period may relate to offences committed prior to 10 April 1998.
(c) The "other" category includes a range of public order offences including, for example, riotous behaviour, possession or throwing of petrol bombs, assaulting police, hijacking and obstructing the highway. The offences of membership and withholding information are also included.
I regret that information concerning convictions is not available. The processing of court statistics on the court proceedings database was suspended in April 1998. Court data are therefore not available for 1998, 1999 and 2000. I understand that work to capture this missing data is at an advanced stage, but will be some time before this missing dat is at an advanced stage, but will be some time before this information becomes available.
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| Loyalist | Republican | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 April 1998-31 March 1999 | |||
| Murder | 4 | 1 | |
| Attempted Murder | 4 | 3 | |
| Firearms | 34 | 19 | |
| Explosives | 10 | 3 | |
| Armed Robbery | 17 | 10 | |
| Other | 263 | 67 | |
| Total | 332 | 103 | |
| 1 April 1999-31 March 2000 | |||
| Murder | 4 | 1 | |
| Attempted Murder | 6 | 0 | |
| Firearms | 43 | 23 | |
| Explosives | 9 | 7 | |
| Armed Robbery | 7 | 14 | |
| Other | 106 | 68 | |
| Total | 175 | 113 | |
| 1 April 2000-21 March 2001 | |||
| Murder | 5 | 1 | |
| Attempted Murder | 13 | 2 | |
| Firearms | 29 | 12 | |
| Explosives | 2 | 9 | |
| Armed Robbery | 8 | 7 | |
| Other | 142 | 34 | |
| Total | 199 | 65 | |
Public Order (Lurgan)
Mr. McNamara: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many individuals were charged with public order offences arising from events in and around Lurgan on (a) 10 July, (b) 11 July, (c) 12 July, (d) 13 July, (e) 14 July and (f) 15 July 2000; what the result of those prosecutions was; and what the breakdown by perceived community origin of those charged and convicted is. [158737]
Mr. Ingram: Charges relating to public order offences in Lurgan sub-division during July 2000 are set out in the table.
(11) 3 X Convictions:
(a) Sentenced in absence and bench warrant issued.
(b) Adjourned for pre-sentence reports.
(c) Convicted of riotous behaviour--fined £250; Convicted of resisting police--fined £100.
(12) Awaiting trial.
(13) Cases with Director of Public Prosecutions awaiting direction.
8 May 2001 : Column: 47W
Police Ombudsman
Mr. William Ross: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many complaints have been
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received by the office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland in each month from his appointment up to the latest available date; how many in each month were (a) rejected, (b) withdrawn, (c) under investigation, (d) had investigations completed, (e) resulted in disciplinary proceedings being taken, and by whom and (f) resulted in files being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. [159156]
Mr. Ingram: The make up and disposition of the complaints received by the Police Ombudsman from 6 November 2000 to 21 April 2001 are not available in the exact form requested. However, the figures that are available are listed in tabular form in the two charts.
| Number | ||
|---|---|---|
| Month received | Cases(14) | Complaints |
| November 2000 | 400 | 518 |
| December 2000 | 265 | 362 |
| January 2001 | 332 | 449 |
| February 2001 | 283 | 360 |
| March 2001 | 243 | 294 |
| April 2001 | 220 | 252 |
(14) Cases may involve more than one complaint
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| Month received | Case closed(15) | Withdrawn | Resolved | Awaiting resolution | Other status | Under investigation | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2000 | 174 | 25 | 16 | 23 | 12 | 150 | 400 |
| December 2000 | 120 | 14 | 15 | 19 | 17 | 80 | 265 |
| January 2001 | 117 | 18 | 13 | 39 | 5 | 134 | 332 |
| February 2001 | 67 | 16 | 1 | 28 | 35 | 136 | 283 |
| March 2001 | 22 | 8 | 0 | 58 | 46 | 109 | 243 |
| April 2001 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 9 | 121 | 85 | 220 |
(15) For various reasons
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Procedures for discipline and the sending of files to the Director of Public Prosecutions are currently being developed. Consequently, as at 21 April, no cases have resulted in disciplinary proceedings and no cases have resulted in files being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
However, the Police Ombudsman assumed responsibility for 2,396 cases under transitional arrangements from the Independent Commission for Police Complaints. Of these, five cases have resulted in disciplinary proceedings being taken and a total of 250 cases have been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
PRIME MINISTER
Global Health
Mr. Tom Clarke: To ask the Prime Minister when the Performance and Innovation Unit's report on global health will be published. [160722]
The Prime Minister: The PIU report "Tackling the Diseases of Poverty: A package to meet the Okinawa/ Millennium Targets for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria" is published today. The report sets out a range
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of options for tackling these three devastating diseases in developing countries as a contribution, both to the UK Government's thinking and to the international debate.
The report calls for a comprehensive global strategy to: improve and expand coverage of health systems and health promotion; make affordable for those that need them vaccines, drugs, and other products to prevent and treat the diseases; and provide incentives for research into new, more effective health products.
The PIU report proposes a series of measures including: a new Global Fund for Health to finance the purchase of existing health products to tackle the three diseases, substantially scaling up the provision of these products to those most in need but least able to afford them; binding advance purchase commitment to purchase new, more effective products as they become available, strengthening incentives to step up investment in R&D; a framework for tiered pricing and greater local production of patented products under voluntary licences to improve affordability; and clarification of the flexibilities in intellectual property protection under the WTO TRIPS agreement; targeted support including tax credits and public-private partnerships for R&D, and a new platform for clinical trials of new drugs and vaccines; and a scaled-up and better co-ordinated global partnership to halt and reverse the spread of disease.
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The report estimates that 50 million lives could be saved over the next 20 years if the global effort to tackle these diseases was better resourced and co-ordinated.
The UK is already fully committed to playing its part in a greater and better co-ordinated international effort to tackle communicable diseases in the developing world. The ideas in the PIU report will help the UK pursue this agenda internationally at the highest level.
Copies have been placed in the House Library.
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