---

20 Apr 2004 : Column 429W—continued

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Possession Orders

Mr. Willis: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many possession orders have been issued in each year since 1997 to (a) elderly and (b) vulnerable people. [166519]

Mr. Hill: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister does not currently collect data on numbers of possession orders issued. Data collected by the Department for Constitutional Affairs and held by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on the number of possession orders issued each year since 1997 does not give a breakdown of specified groups of tenants.

Communications Masts

Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what discussions he and his officials had with (a) Airwave and (b) O2 prior to the setting of the UK's safety limit on Tetra radiation. [161611]

Yvette Cooper: None. The Government set up the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (chaired by Sir William Stewart) to consider the health effects of mobile phones, base stations and transmitters. They conducted a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of existing research and gathered a wide range of views and published their report in May 2000. In respect of base stations, the report concludes that "the balance of evidence indicates that there is no general risk to the health of people living near to base stations on the basis that exposures are expected to be small fractions of the guidelines". However, gaps in scientific knowledge led Stewart to recommend a precautionary approach comprising a series of specific measures. The Government accepted the recommended precautionary approach and is taking forward a range of precautionary actions. These include ensuring all base stations meet the international guidelines on public exposure set by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).

Following a request to the NRPB by the Home Office, the issue of possible health effects caused by signals from TETRA base stations was comprehensively addressed in a report by NRPB's independent Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation (AGNIR), chaired by Sir Richard Doll. The report on Possible Health Effects from Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) was published in 2002 in the Documents of NRPB (Volume 12 No 2, 2001) and is also available on the NRPB web site: www.nrpb.org. The report noted that the signals
 
20 Apr 2004 : Column 430W
 
from TETRA base stations, like their mobile phone counterparts, are not pulsed. NRPB advise that there is no reason to believe that signals from TETRA base stations should be treated differently from other base stations.

HOME DEPARTMENT

Serious Organised Crime Agency

Mr. Brady: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers currently seconded to the National Criminal Intelligence Service will be transferred to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. [166602]

Caroline Flint: Staffing levels in the Serious Organised Crime Agency will be determined by the operational outcomes it is funded to deliver; no decisions have yet been taken on the requirements for particular groups of staff, but the overall objective is to enhance the effectiveness of our response to serious organised crime.

Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what role the Serious Organised Crime Agency will have in (a) drugs enforcement and (b) drugs policy; [166103]

(2)   what former HM Customs and Excise function he expects the Serious Organised Crime Agency to undertake; [166104]

(3)   how many personnel involved in (a) drug enforcement and (b) drugs policy he expects to be transferred from HM Customs and Excise to the Serious Organised Crime Agency; [166105]

(4)   how many personnel he expects to work on (a) drugs enforcement and (b) drugs policy in the Serious Organised Crime Agency. [166106]

Caroline Flint [holiding answer 19 April 2004]: Proposals for the Serious Organised Crime Agency were set out in the white paper "One Step Ahead: A 21st century strategy to defeat organised crime" (CM6167), published on 29 March. A project team is now working on the detailed arrangements, but it is not intended that the new agency will have responsibility for drugs policy.

Race Hate Websites

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what action he will take to (a) close down race hate websites and (b) protect named journalists who are being targeted by these sites. [160802]

Fiona MacTaggart: Websites of this kind are objectionable and I can understand why journalists and other persons identified on them might feel concern.

Whilst we are keeping the legislative position under review, existing laws already provide a level of protection.

It is an offence to assault people or damage their property, and a person who behaves in that way or takes active steps to commit those offences is liable to prosecution, regardless of how or where, or on what website he came to identify his victim.
 
20 Apr 2004 : Column 431W
 

It is also an offence to incite another person to commit a criminal offence. While it might not be possible to take action against a foreign-based internet service provider for disseminating the incitement, that would not in itself prevent prosecution of a person in this country who had been responsible for the content of the website. There is, of course, a question about what constitutes incitement. Publishing information such as names and addresses of those belonging to an identified organisation or espousing a particular view may not necessarily be enough in itself to constitute incitement but it is for the police and prosecutors to decide in all the circumstances of a particular case and on the available evidence whether an offence has been committed.

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 makes provision that a person may be guilty of an offence if he engages in a course of conduct which he knows or ought to know causes harassment. The Act is concerned with the effect of the behaviour rather than the type of conduct—any actions that foreseeably cause distress may amount to harassment. The Act also provides, as a civil remedy, the opportunity to apply to the High Court for an injunction. Victims of harassment by animal rights extremists have successfully used the Act to secure orders which, among other things, have required the removal of their personal details from websites. In these cases however acts of harassment beyond identifying persons on a website were proved.

The internet service provider industry itself is sometimes able and willing to refuse to carry objectionable material on websites. In the UK, most service providers have acceptable use policies, under which they reserve the right to remove a customer's material, or refuse to carry it, not only if it is illegal but also in certain other circumstances, which can include where material causes concern or needless anxiety to others or publishes details of individuals without their consent. The UK's Internet Watch Foundation encourages service providers to refuse to handle sites which violate their acceptable use policies. The great majority of UK service providers operate responsibly. The government has also discussed with other governments how we can co-operate to tackle this problem, given that it raises issues of cross-national jurisdication.

It is important that those with concerns should make them known to the police and to the Internet Watch Foundation.

Probation Hostels

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average percentage change in costs was for each probation hostel following the decision to award the contract for hostel facilities to the private sector between the last and current financial years. [160808]

Paul Goggins: Prior to the award of the approved premises (previously known as hostels) facilities management contract no consistent data on the cost of running each premises was held. Therefore, it is not possible to accurately compare current costs to historic costs.
 
20 Apr 2004 : Column 432W
 

Reflecting the enhanced specification, and the intention to improve the quality of the approved premises estate, including staff security and health and safety, funding for premises was increased by 10 per cent. for financial year 2003–04.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

"Choosing Health?"

Mr. Don Foster: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether her Department will make a formal response to the recommendations of the Treasury's recent report on Securing Good Health for the Whole Nation; and if she will make a statement. [165008]

Miss Melanie Johnson: I have been asked to reply.

The Department of Health launched "Choosing Health? A consultation on action to improve people's health" on 3 March. The formal consultation period runs until 28 May 2004. The consultation will feed into a White Paper, to be published this summer. The White Paper will set out what the Government will do to achieve change in the public sector and in partnership with other organisations to improve health, and will include the Government's response to Derek Wanless' report on Securing Good Health for the Whole Population.

---