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Working Time Directive

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what monitoring will be undertaken by his Department on the impact of the European working time directive on   emergency medical transfers at night between hospitals. [166405]

Mr. Hutton: Performance management of the implementation of the working time directive is the responsibility of strategic health authorities, as part of mainstream national health service performance management.
 
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CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

BACS

Brian White: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what progress his Department has made to manage the changeover from the Bank Automated Clearing System to the new BACSTEL-iP system for electronic payments. [164319]

Mr. Lammy: The Department's outsourced banking function (Liberata) have obtained costs for the new hardware and software required for the upgrade and made plans for the migration to BACSTEL-iP. The migration timetable is driven by our sponsoring bank, the Bank of England, which is in the process of drawing up a timetable for implementation by December 2005.

Immigration Control (Lawyers)

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how many lawyers have been (a) prosecuted, (b) convicted and (c) struck off for offences related to the evasion of immigration control by their clients in each year since 1997. [165462]

Mr. Lammy: The complaints handling arm of the Law Society, the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors, have provided numbers of cases which resulted in solicitors being subject to disciplinary action, in relation to the provision of immigration advice since 1997.

1997

No cases

1998

1—subject to a section 43 Order (preventing a legal executive or a legal clerk from working in a firm of solicitors)

1—struck off

1999

1—fined

1—reprimanded

2000

1—struck off

3—fined

2001

1—struck off

1—subject to a section 43 Order

1—fined and suspended

1—suspended

2—fined

2002

No cases

2003

1—struck off

1—indefinite suspension

1—fined

Legal Aid

Mr. Roger Williams: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how many people (a) applied for and (b) received legal aid in England and Wales since 2000; and how many people had an application rejected. [165844]

 
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Mr. Lammy: The Legal Services Commission is unable to provide figures for criminal and civil Legal Help because decisions about whether to take on a case are made by the supplier and not referred to the Commission on a case-by-case basis.

The Commission can however provide figures for civil representation on the basis of the number of applications for funding certificates received, granted and rejected; the figures are not necessarily reflective of the number of individuals involved.

The figures for civil representation from 2000–01 are in table A. The number of applications received and dealt with by the Crown Courts are in table B. The number of applications received and dealt with by the magistrates' courts are in table C.

The number of applications rejected does not equate to the difference between the number of applications received and the number of applications granted because other outcomes are possible including abandonment or withdrawal of an application, or an offer of contributory funding that the applicant decides not to progress.
Table A—Civil applications

	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03	Total
Funding applications       received	226,104	205,821	211,723	643,648
Funding applications       granted	174,017	161,988	164,096	500,101
Funding applications       rejected	24,353	20,347	22,904	67,604

Table B—Crown court applications⁽¹⁰¹⁾

	2000	2001	2002	Total
Funding applications       received	13,494	12,073	11,080	36,647
Funding applications       granted	13,279	11,909	10,890	36,078
Funding applications       rejected	264	204	190	672

⁽¹⁰¹⁾ Information is available by calendar year only.



Table C—Magistrates' court applications

	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03	Total
Funding applications       received	477,307	627,215	662,847	1,767,369
Funding applications       granted	449,632	598,422	632,057	1,680,111
Funding applications       rejected	23,566	27,797	29,886	81,249

Legal Services

Geraldine Smith: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what plans he has to review the financial eligibility limits for publicly funded legal help. [165408]

Mr. Lammy: No decision has yet been taken on the eligibility uprating. We will inform the House as soon as a decision has been taken.
 
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Geraldine Smith: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what steps he is taking to improve access to community legal services. [165409]

Mr. Lammy: The Community Legal Service (CLS) aims to improve access to quality legal and advice services for all. Regional Legal Service Committees and CLS Partnerships are responsible for co-ordinating the delivery of legal and advice services in their area and through an analysis of local legal needs, can ensure that resources are more effectively targeted to those most in need. A number of initiatives have been put in place to improve access to advice, including the Just Ask! website. A national telephone advice service will be available nationally from summer 2004 following a successful pilot. CLS leaflets provide information on legal rights and details of local service providers can be found in the CLS Directory, available at a number of public locations and online. The Constitutional Affairs Select Committee's current inquiry into the adequacy of civil legal aid provision is considering access to civil legal and advice services. An independent review is also evaluating the effectiveness of the CLS and is due to report in late April 2004.

Legal Services Commission

Mr. Roger Williams: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs (1) how many new solicitors firms have undertaken contracts with the Legal Services Commission in England and Wales since 2000; [165842]

(2) how many solicitors firms, in England and Wales have withdrawn from a Legal Services Commission contract in each year since 2000. [165843]

Mr. Lammy: I shall reply to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

Press Officers

Mr. Laws: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how many press officers were employed in the Department in each year from 1990–91 to 2003–04; what the total cost was in each year; and if he will make a statement. [162858]

Mr. Lammy: The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) was created in June 2003. Since its inception the DCA, which includes its agencies—the Court Service and the Public Guardianship Office (PGO) has employed:

	2003–04
	Number	Paybill (£)
Press Officers	14	384,661
Support Staff	6	140,963

The Directors of Communications of the DCA and PGO, the DCA Deputy Director of Communications, and the DCA Head of News also deal with the media within their wider responsibilities.
 
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