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Mr. Nuredin Dalipi

Sir Teddy Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to announce a decision on the application of Mr. Nuredin Dalipi of Shoeburyness, Home Office Reference 0101 2951; and for what reason he has not been given a work permit. [36015]

Angela Eagle [holding answer 13 February 2002]: I wrote to the hon. Member on 4 March 2002.

Women Trafficking

Mr. Cox: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what police services exist between the UK and other European police forces to combat the trafficking of women from European countries into the UK. [37201]

Angela Eagle: The United Kingdom (UK) works with other law enforcement agencies in Europe with Europol to tackle people trafficking from Europe to the UK. Europol has no executive or operational powers and no capabilities to gather evidence. It is intelligence based and offers a range of products and services to operational law enforcement teams in the European Union. These include analytical support for both strategic and tactical developments and a forum to process requests for assistance in UK investigations with connections in other European Union member states and candidate countries. There is ongoing operational work which is supported by Europol.

Another link between UK law enforcement and overseas partners is through the establishment of Project Reflex, a practical multi-agency taskforce on organised immigration crime. Led by the National Crime Squad (NCS), Reflex was set up in March 2000 and brings together all the key agencies, including the Immigration Service, the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), the security and intelligence agencies and key police forces including the Metropolitan police, Kent and the British Transport police. Under Reflex, a central tasking forum has been established to plan and co-ordinate multi-agency operations. It is now well established and the NCS is currently co-operating with overseas law enforcement partners on the disruption of organised criminal groups intent on trafficking.

Anti-semitism

Mr. Jim Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on anti-semitism in the UK; and what action he has taken to combat it. [37457]

Angela Eagle: The Government are fully committed to tackling racism and anti-Semitism wherever it occurs. We have continued to strengthen our anti-discrimination laws and our criminal law to ensure that it continues to offer some of the most comprehensive protection against racism and anti-Semitism in Europe. In that regard we have

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introduced the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000; we are looking at ways to implement the European Union directives on race and discrimination in employment; strengthen the law on incitement to racial hatred by raising the maximum penalty to seven years' imprisonment and extending the scope to hatred directed against racial groups outside the United Kingdom and introduced religiously aggravated offences to add to the racially aggravated offences we introduced in 1998. We have asked the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to work together to pool knowledge and experience in the investigation and prosecution of race hate material.

We have also made significant changes to our laws countering the threat of terrorism, including the Terrorism Act 2000 and, in response to the events of September 11, the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The Government and the police continue to have a good working relationship with the Jewish community in Britain. The Government share the concern of the Jewish community that anti-Semitic incidents recorded by the community rose after September 11 but we welcome the co-operation and the experience of the Jewish community in security matters which has benefited all our communities over the last few months.

As a final example of the work that is ongoing, on 27 January 2002 the second Holocaust Memorial Day was commemorated. We established this event to educate people about and ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten. In doing so the day helps to counter anti-Semitism and other forms of racism and bigotry.

Drug Addicts

Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many treatment places for addicts of (a) heroin and (b) cocaine are available; how many are being used; and what estimate he makes of the total numbers of addicts of these substances. [36559]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) is the main source of information on people receiving drug treatment. 118,500 people were in treatment during 2000–2001—an eight per cent. increase over the last two years.

Information on the number of places provided specifically for heroin or cocaine users is not available, as all treatment places are for rehabilitation from all drug addictions.

Estimates from the British Crime Survey 2000 are that 4 million people use illicit drugs each year. Of the 1.8 million that use Class A drugs, 160,000–280,000 are problematic drug users.

Prison Estate

Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements he is making to ensure back-up of record keeping within the Prison Estate in the event of fire or other cause of destruction of files and nominal rolls. [38451]

Beverley Hughes [holding answer 28 February 2002]: Paper records relating to individual prisoners are kept in prisons, headquarters and the Prison Service Registry. Back up of manual files is not considered viable,

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instead reliance is placed on prevention techniques to safeguard the integrity of records from fire and other environmental threats.

Electronic prisoner records are stored on the Prison Service inmate system at each establishment with overnight back up to the headquarters system. The Prison Service headquarters computer records are backed up daily and are stored at a secure off-site location. Establishments computer records are backed-up daily and stored in fireproof safes and held securely remotely from the computer they relate to.

Minister for Women

Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the role of the Minister for Women in his Department. [37148]

Angela Eagle [holding answer 26 February 2002]: I am Minister for Women in the Home Office and its services—police, probation, prisons and the immigration service. The role of Minister for Women in the Home Office is to champion women's issues and promote gender as a core issue for the Department and its services.

Sex Offender Treatment Programmes

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) who is responsible for overseeing the quality and implementation of sex offender treatment programmes throughout the prison estate; and if he will make a statement; [37682]

(2) how many offenders have had places on sex offender treatment programmes in each of the last five years; what the target was for the number of offenders on these programmes in each year for which targets were set; what the estimate is of the total number of sex offenders in prison at any one time; what the total number of sex offenders who were on programmes in young offenders institutions was in each of the last five years; what the estimate is of the total number of young sex offenders in custody at any one time; and if he will make a statement. [37681]

Beverley Hughes: The Prison Service measures its performance in delivering the sex offender treatment programme by completions rather than by the number of participants, because some participants who start the programme may not complete it. The table sets out the targets, completions and completions adjusted in the light of audit quality markings awarded to each programme site (the latter figure representing the Service's final Key Performance Indicator score).

Year	Targets	Completions	Audit adjusted completions
1996–97	650	680	663
1997–98	670	736	671
1998–99	680	664	589
1999–2000	700	669	585
2001–01	1,020	851	783

The numbers of prisoners in custody for sexual offences over the past five years were as follows.

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Year	Sentenced male adult sex offenders in custody	Sentenced male young offenders in custody
1996–97	3,786	153
1997–98	3,903	166
1998–99	4,574	205
1999–2000	4,714	215
2000–01	4,854	216

The quality and implementation of the sex offender treatment programme is overseen by the Prison Service's Offending Behaviour Programmes Unit working to standards set and maintained by the independent Prison/ Probation Service Joint Accreditation Panel. The Unit develops the programmes, the implementation processes and the audit processes, all of which must then be accredited by the Panel. The Unit ensures that the standards demanded by those processes are maintained by training staff and by annual audits of implementation, carried out to the accredited standards. The Panel also conducts an annual moderating exercise on the audits conducted by the Unit.

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