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Circuit Judges
Mr. Denzil Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his estimate is of the reduction in the total number of circuit judges which will result from the anticipated reduction of cases held at Crown court following the implementation of the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill. [160404]
Mr. Charles Clarke: Any savings in Crown court resources, which would result from the proposals in the Bill, would be dedicated to cases which genuinely need to be tried in the Crown court. My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor therefore has no plans to reduce the number of circuit judges.
Illegal Entrants
Mr. Howard: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many illegal entrants to the United Kingdom were apprehended at the Eurotunnel terminal at Cheriton (a) in March, (b) in April and (c) since 1 January. [159681]
Mrs. Roche [holding answer 30 April 2001]: In March this year 528 stowaways were apprehended at Cheriton, having gained unauthorised access to the Eurotunnel terminal at Coquelles and then boarding the company's freight shuttles. Up to midnight on 25 April, 508 stowaways were apprehended. From 1 January to midnight on 25 April, the figure is 1,703.
Eurotunnel, who are responsible for security of the terminal and the trains at Coquelles, have commenced construction of an inner cordon of fencing around the platform and allocation areas where lorries wait to board the shuttles. This is scheduled to be completed by 31 May, however, the Immigration Service have asked for this to be accelerated.
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Entry Clearance
Ms Oona King: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the numbers who would benefit from the introduction of a concession to all those children who were wrongly refused entry clearance to join their families in the United Kingdom as a result of the ECO deciding that they were not related as claimed; and if he will explain how this figure has been arrived at. [159833]
Mrs. Roche: There is no reliable way of estimating the numbers who have been refused entry clearance on the basis that they were not related as claimed and where subsequent information proves that relationship. Neither can we reliably estimate the numbers who would benefit from the introduction of a concession to allow entry clearance in such cases.
What we do know is that, in those cases where applicants were refused entry clearance on the basis that they were not related to the sponsor, the decisions of entry clearance officers were taken in good faith on the best evidence available at the time. We also know that, if such a concession were introduced, the pool of potential reapplicants, refused entry clearance over many years, would be very large.
Family Visitor Appeals
Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the net income has been from fees for family visitor appeals since 1 April; and how much of this net income relates to appeals which are still outstanding. [160464]
Mrs. Roche: The figures are not available in the form the hon. Member seeks, because of the number of appeals outstanding from the end of the last period. We calculate that the net income from fees for family visitor appeals in the period 2 October to 3 May 2001 is about £65,000. Of this, 48 per cent. relates to appeals which are currently outstanding and which may result in further refunds.
Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the total net income was from fees for family visitor appeals between 2 October 2000 and 31 March; and how much of that net income relates to appeals which are still outstanding. [160465]
Mrs. Roche: We calculate that the net income from fees for family visitor appeals in the period 2 October to 31 March 2001 is about £60,000. Of this, 48 per cent. relates to appeals which were outstanding on 31 March and which may result in further refunds.
Immigration
Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) individuals and (b) organisations giving immigration advice for profit are registered with the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner; and how many such organisations are in the process of registering with the OISC. [160466]
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Mrs. Roche: I understand that as of 4 May 2001, the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) had received 89 registration applications from individuals providing immigration advice for profit and 49 such applications from organisations comprising two or more practitioners. Of these applications, 31 individuals and 16 organisations are now registered with the OISC; the remaining applications are under consideration.
Youth Offending Teams
Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 5 April 2001, Official Report, column 255W, when he intends to publish the inspection reports of the (a) Bournemouth and Poole and (b) Caernarfon youth offending teams; when inspection will commence on the other youth offending teams in the pilot; and if he will make a statement. [160458]
Mr. Charles Clarke: Two youth offending team inspections have been carried out by multi-disciplinary inspection teams who are considering their reports. They cover Bournemouth and Poole and Carmarthen, to which I assume the hon. Member is referring. The Carmarthen report will be published by the National Assembly for Wales in the summer. Publication arrangements are being made for the Bournemouth and Poole report, but the timing has yet to be decided. Decisions on which further areas to cover will be taken once the Youth Justice Board has completed its consideration of the future conduct of inspection and its own range of independent evaluation and monitoring of youth offending teams.
Chief Probation Officer for London
Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many civil servants have transferred to the office of the Chief Probation Officer for London; what their functions are; what the total cost to the Probation Service is; and if he will make a statement. [160473]
Mr. Boateng: This is a matter for the Board and the Chief Officer of the London Probation Area who arranged for the secondment of two Home Office civil servants to assist the Area through a period of considerable change. Their role and cost to the London Probation Area are matters for the Board and Chief Officer.
Parliamentary Questions
Mr. Kaufman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was of answering parliamentary question (Ref 159969) from the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). [160501]
Mr. Charles Clarke: Answering this parliamentary question is estimated to have cost the Home Office less than £25. Exact records of the time taken were not kept.
Stop and Search
Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many stops and searches were conducted (a) in total and (b) per 1,000 population, and
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what percentage resulted in an arrest, in each police force area in England and Wales in 2000-01 broken down by ethnic origin of those stopped and searched. [160459]
Mr. Charles Clarke: Such information for 2000-01 is not yet available centrally. The latest information available on the ethnic appearance of persons stopped and searched relates to 1999-2000 and was published by the Home Office in "Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System", a copy of which is in the Library.
Departmental Policies (Vale of Clwyd)
Mr. Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set out, with statistical information, the effects of his Department's policies and actions in relation to animal welfare since 2 May 1997, for the Vale of Clwyd. [160615]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The Home Office has put in place a number of measures affecting animal welfare throughout Great Britain since 1997. I do not have separate information on the Vale of Clwyd, but I am able to provide details of what the Home Office has achieved at a national level since 1997.
We are continuing to work to ensure that the highest possible standards of welfare are applied to animals used in scientific procedures and that they are used only where it is fully justified--where the benefits outweigh the costs and where there are no suitable alternatives. To this end, we are promoting the fullest application of the 3Rs--the replacement of procedures with others which do not use animals, the reduction of the number of animals used and the refinement of procedures to minimise pain and suffering.
In addition to our commitment to the 3Rs, the other main individual measures this Government have introduced since the election to ensure that animals are used only where fully justified are as follows. We have:
- secured a voluntary ban on testing cosmetic finished products on animals;
- increased the budget made available to the Animal Procedures Committee to sponsor research on alternatives by 45 per cent. to £265,000 for 2000-01;
banned the use of animals to test alcohol and tobacco products;
increased the size of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Inspectorate from 18 to 21, and recruited seven new inspectors to fill these and other vacancies and recently announced plans to further increase numbers to 33 over the next three years;
introduced a requirement that all establishments licensed under the 1986 Act have local ethical review processes as a complement to the existing controls under the Act. We are now reviewing those processes to ensure dissemination of best practice;
announced our intention never to allow the use of Great Apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, pygmy chimpanzees and orang-utans);
announced that licenses for monoclonal antibody production by the ascites method will not be granted other than in exceptional circumstances; and
ended the licensing of the LD50 test and of tests for skin corrosivity and phototoxic potential where valid alternatives exist.
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The overall reduction in the use of animals reflects the Government's commitment to applying the principles of the 3Rs to all animal testing in the United Kingdom. However, it is very difficult to project the number of animals to be used in future years. Numbers depend on the type of project licence applications that will be made and progress on current project licences, as well as global trends in scientific endeavour.
Other support given to animal welfare includes:
- backing a private Member's Bill which became the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act 1999, a measure aimed at tightening regulation of commercial dog breeding establishments, and issue to local authorities of related detailed guidance;
preparation, with the Association of Circus Proprietors, of a code of practice on the care and welfare of animals in travelling circuses; and
making an Order that allows for an indefinite prohibition of the culling of seals on the east coast of England, which has assisted in the recovery of common seals to pre-1988 numbers when a virus decimated their population--by 1999 their number had risen to 3,600 just 400 down on 1988 numbers.
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