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Immigration

Kate Hoey: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when a constituent of the hon. Member for Vauxhall, ref G306128, will be sent (a) his status documents confirming his indefinite leave to remain in the UK, as indicated in letters to the hon. Member dated 21 November 2002 and 19 March 2003, and (b) the documents which he submitted to the Home Office in support of his application. [111039]

Beverley Hughes: I am pleased to inform my hon. Friend that Mr. Grant was issued with a letter confirming his grant of indefinite leave to remain in the UK on 29 April 2003. The documents which he submitted in support of his application were returned with this letter.

Linda Perham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases were referred to the MPs' Hotline section of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in each of the last 12 months. [111770]

Beverley Hughes: The number of inquiries received (including faxes) and dealt with by the MPs' Hotline for each of the last 12 months is shown in the table:

May 2002	2,126
June 2002	2,184
July 2002	2,823
August 2002	2,872
September 2002	2,814
October 2002	2,294
November 2002	2,583
December 2002	2,237
January 2003	3,149
February 2003	3,017
March 2003	2,150
April 2003	2,055

Naturalisation

Fiona Mactaggart: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects the internal inquiries into naturalisation application B1090943, commenced on 21 September 2001, to be completed; and why these inquiries have been delayed. [111464]

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Beverley Hughes: The inquiries have now been completed and we should be in a position to reach a decision soon. There has been no avoidable delay. Some cases take longer to resolve than others, depending upon the particular features of the case.

Oakington Reception Centre

Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he plans to amend the security arrangements at the Immigration Reception Centre, Oakington. [112425]

Beverley Hughes: UK Immigration Service staff are working with the operators of the Oakington Reception Centre, to ensure that the security arrangements at the centre remain robust, while ensuring that the residents can continue to live in a decent relaxed regime.

Offence Categories

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in Home Office Statistical Bulletin 05/03, Table 2, in relation to the offence categories for which no adjusted figure is available, whether (a) the unadjusted figure is used to contribute to the adjusted totals and (b) the categories in question are excluded from the adjusted totals. [109563]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: In Table 2 of the Home Office Statistical Bulletin 05/03, recorded crime figures have been adjusted to take into account the impact of the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS), which was adopted across all forces from April 2002. The NCRS has been implemented to help police forces adopt a more consistent and victim-focused approach to recording crime.

It is important to note that the NCRS-adjusted figures for offence groups are estimates. These estimates have been calculated based on changes to the ratio of police recorded crimes and crime-related incidents brought to the attention of the police, before and after the introduction of the NCRS.

The adjusted total recorded crime figure, published in Table 2 of the Home Office Statistical Bulletin 05/03, is a total for all recorded crime offences. (It therefore includes all the categories for which no adjusted figure is available, i.e. sexual offences, other thefts and handling, fraud and forgery, drug offences and other offences). NCRS adjustments made to the total recorded crime figure have been calculated using exactly the same methodology as the adjustments for the other offence groups in Table 2. The data used to calculate the adjusted total recorded crime figure are therefore not a sum of all the figures for the offence groups, it is a separate calculation. The adjustment for the total recorded crime figure is based on a return from forces asking separately (from the other offence categories), for total recorded crime and total crime-related incident data.

The impact of the NCRS varies considerably across crime types. Currently, it is not possible to adjust the national data for the impact of the NCRS for certain crime types where police forces are unable to differentiate incidents, where numbers are too small, or where the nature of incident recording means that this

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measure is particularly unreliable as an indicator of underlying trends. However, these constraints do not apply when considering recorded crime as a whole.

Parenting Programmes

Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action his Department is taking to increase the availability of parenting classes in England and Wales. [110840]

Hilary Benn: Measures in the Criminal Justice Bill and the Anti-social Behaviour Bill will increase demand for parenting classes. Youth Offending Teams receive grants from the Youth Justice Board and prioritise in response to local demands. Parenting classes are delivered in response to parenting orders and on a voluntary basis. All Youth Offending Teams are expected to offer parenting classes or have plans for implementing a parenting service by April 2004. The Youth Justice Board is reviewing the provision of parenting programmes and this review will also extend to the Secure Estate where some parenting classes are already being delivered. The Home Office Family Support Grant provides £5.8 million a year to a range of voluntary organisations for parenting support, including parenting classes. Since 1999–2000 it has funded 108 organisations to deliver 182 different projects across England plus grants to the National Family and Parenting Institute, Parentline Plus, Home Start UK and the Parenting Education and Support Forum (which provides a range of services and support to other organisations that deliver parenting classes).

In the 2002 Spending Review, the Government announced the creation of a new Parenting Fund worth £25 million (£5/10/10 million) over three years from 2003–04 for delivery of parenting support through the voluntary sector.

Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many parenting programmes are being provided in England and Wales in each county; what the cost is of each place on a parenting programme; and how many additional places on parenting programmes are going to be funded in (a) 2003–04 and (b) 2004–05. [110841]

Hilary Benn: Figures are not available for the number of parenting programmes being provided by county in England and Wales.

The cost of each place on a parenting programme depends on various factors including the type of programme and the number of parents attending. The cost is currently estimated as approximately £750 per place on average but with expected increased volume of courses during next financial year this is estimated to fall to around £500 per place.

Figures are not available for the number of additional places which will be funded in 2003–04 and 2004–05. The Youth Justice Board makes a general grant available to Youth Offending Teams which have to prioritise in response to local demands some of which will be driven by parenting orders others will be interventions including parenting contracts on a voluntary basis.

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Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many parents in England and Wales who have been ordered to attend parenting programmes are awaiting places on such courses. [110842]

Hilary Benn: This information is not available centrally. The normal process is that when a court considers making a parenting order it consults the Youth Offending Team and makes an order only if there is a local parenting scheme available.

Mrs. Brooke: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many parenting orders have been issued in England and Wales in each year that they have been available. [110843]

Hilary Benn: Parenting orders were piloted between 30 September 1998 and 31 March 2000 during which 284 parenting orders were issued. Since then, the Youth Justice Board has been collating the figures by financial year, as shown in the table.

Parenting orders made since April 2000

April 2000 to March 2001	979
April 2001 to March 2002	1,216
April to December 2002 (latest available figures)	911

Police

Mr. Hunter: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria he takes into consideration when determining whether special circumstances under the Police Reform Act 2002 enable special priority payments to be paid to more than 30 per cent. of any force. [112435]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: The Special Priority Payment (SPP) Scheme was not introduced under the Police Reform Act 2002 but by agreement with all the main police organisations in the Police Negotiating Board (PNB). The Scheme was one of a number of ground-breaking reforms to police pay and conditions of service included in the PNB Agreement of 9 May 2002.

Under the Agreement, PNB expected that no more than 30 per cent. of force strength should qualify for a SPP save in exceptional circumstances. A number of forces in the south east made out a case to have schemes covering up to 40 per cent. of force strength due to the particularly acute difficulties they were experiencing in retaining officers. Not all forces in the south east are experiencing such difficulties.

Mr. Tom Watson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department from what sources of revenue the annual policing budget is drawn. [111162]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Policing revenue budgets are funded from the following sources:

(a) Home Office Police Grant.


(b) Revenue Support Grant and redistributed National Non Domestic Rates.


(c) Specific grants for particular initiatives.


(d) The element of local council tax raised through the police authority precept.


(e) Police authorities' reserves and locally generated income.

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