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1 May 2003 : Column 523W—continued

Community Punishment Orders

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what funding is available for community punishment orders in each probation service area; and if he will make a statement. [109593]

Hilary Benn: The budget for each probation area for 2003–04 is set out in the table.

The budget given to each area is a general grant and is not hypothecated for community punishment orders nor any other activity.

The National Probation Service (NPS) has been piloting an enhanced community punishment scheme. Plans are in place for this to be rolled out to all probation areas in 2003–04. The national budget settlement for 2003–04 included an additional £9 million to support the implementation of Enhanced Community Punishment (ECP).

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Probation areas showing main service budgets for 2003–04

	£000
Avon and Somerset	13,613
Bedfordshire	5,440
Cambridgeshire	5,760
Cheshire	10,393
Cumbria	5,290
Derbyshire	9,120
Devon and Cornwall	13,670
Dorset	5,620
Durham	7,460
Essex	13,381
Gloucestershire	5,080
Hampshire	15,560
Hertfordshire	7,797
Humberside	10,620
Kent	14,620
Lancashire	16,410
Leicestershire	9,350
Lincolnshire	6,200
Norfolk	7,139
Northamptonshire	5,820
North Yorkshire	6,603
Nottinghamshire	12,120
Staffordshire	9,610
Suffolk	6,031
Surrey	6,910
Sussex	11,546
Teeside	8,420
Thames Valley	16,915
Warwickshire	4,220
West Mercia	9,880
Wiltshire	5,293
Greater Manchester	33,980
Merseyside	20,250
Northumbria	19,969
South Yorkshire	16,956
West Midlands	35,050
West Yorkshire	27,280
Greater London	96,690
Dyfed-Powys	5,572
Gwent	7,723
North Wales	7,666
South Wales	16,990
Total	574,017

DNA Profiles

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of people who will be affected each year by his policy to permit the retention of DNA information from people who are arrested and then released without charge. [108555]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: It is currently estimated that in the region of 300,000 arrestees will be affected by this change in sampling policy. However, fewer than this will require DNA sampling, as some people will already have profiles on the database, and prolific offenders are likely to be arrested more than once in a year.

Drugs

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many items of drug equipment were found in prisons in England and Wales in the last year for which figures are available. [109575]

Hilary Benn: There were 438 reported finds of drug implements in the financial year 2001–02. The provisional figure for 2002–03 is 360 finds.

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Firearms Certificates

Lembit Öpik: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people hold (a) a firearms certificate, (b) a shotgun certificate and (c) both of the above together; and if he will make a statement. [110037]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Information in the form requested is not kept centrally. However, available statistics show that on 31 December 2001, the latest date for which figures are available, there were 119,560 firearm certificates on issue covering 301,000 firearms and 577,171 shot gun certificates covering 1,307,576 shot guns.

This represents a decrease of five per cent. for firearm certificates and four per cent. for shot gun certificates compared with 31 December 2000.

There is no record of how many people hold both firearm and shot gun certificates but many will do so.

Hemsworth Crime

Jon Trickett: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many incidents of (a) violent crime, (b) burglary and (c) vandalism in the Hemsworth constituency were reported to the police in 2001–02; and how many investigations resulted in a conviction. [109904]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The requested details are not collected centrally. Details of some offences recorded by the police have been collected by police Basic Command Unit (BCU) since 1 April 1999. The table gives details of numbers of offences and detections for the Wakefield BCU. Details of criminal damage offences are not available at BCU level.

Numbers of offences and detections—Wakefield BCU 2001–02

Violent crime(9):
Offences	3,029
Offences detected	2,235
Burglary in a dwelling:
Offences	3,454
Offences detected	526

⁽⁹⁾ Violent crime is comprised of the violence against the person, sexual offences and robbery offence groups.

Details of convictions specifically relating to offences in the Wakefield BCU are not available.

Immigration

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has collated from the study to estimate the size and characteristics of the population of people with irregular immigration status. [110483]

Beverley Hughes: Estimating the numbers entering Britain illegally is difficult because illegal migrants, by definition, put themselves outside of official statistics. Illegal migrants are motivated to ensure they remain hidden, and this is a challenge to conducting research.

At present there is no defined method for estimating the size of the illegally resident population in the UK and therefore no official estimate is available.

1 May 2003 : Column 526W

The Home Office has commissioned a review of methods used in other countries to estimate the size of their illegal populations. The research was commissioned in order to help define methods appropriate for the UK. On the basis of this information and the likely sources of UK information we will actively consider our next steps.

The research is currently being finalised and the Home Office anticipate publishing the results, assuming the research is deemed to be of sufficient quality. Hard copies of research publications are placed in the Library. However, the research may be published as an online report, in which case it will be accessible and downloadable from the Home Office, Research Development and Statistics website.

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has collated on the number of people with irregular immigration status who have children born in the UK, and the status of those children. [110485]

Beverley Hughes: There is no information available on the numbers or status of children of irregular migrants in the UK.

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the backlog of correspondence from hon. Members is at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. [109608]

Beverley Hughes: The Immigration and Nationality Directorate receive approximately 15,000 letters from Members of Parliament each year. Over 1,600 letters were cleared in a recent exercise to reduce correspondence backlogs. Of those still outstanding there are only a very small number with a target date before 1 April 2003.

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many detainees have (a) committed suicide and (b) been self-injured in each immigration removal centre in the UK in each of the last five years. [109509]

Beverley Hughes: There have been two apparent self-inflicted deaths in immigration removal centres in the last five years. Records of incidents of self-harm are not kept centrally and the requested information is not therefore available.

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of those who are detained under immigration rules have been held in more than one removal centre. [109511]

Beverley Hughes: The latest available information on those in detention shows that at 28 December 2002, 1,145 people were detained solely under Immigration Act powers. The number of these who had been detained in more than one removal centre is not available and could be obtained only by examination of individual case-files at disproportionate cost.

Information on Immigration Act detainees as at 29 March 2003 is due to be published at the end of May 2003 on the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate website at: http://www. homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.html

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Penal System

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has commissioned an inquiry into the operation and cost effectiveness of the prison and correctional system; and if he will make a statement. [109524]

Hilary Benn: A Review of Correctional Services was announced in July 2002 in the white paper "Justice for All".

The first phase of the review has concentrated on the short term demands on the correctional services and was carried out by the Home Office. The second phase of the review is being led by Patrick Carter and will consider a strategy for correctional services over the Spending Review (SR) 2004 period to meet the Government's objectives of protecting the public, reducing crime and sustaining public confidence, in ways which are cost effective and financially sustainable.

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