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Fixed Penalty Notices

Mr. Wiggin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the procedures for issuing fixed penalty notices by police officers. [183177]

Caroline Flint: Police issue fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for traffic offences under the powers set out in Part III of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, as amended by the Road Traffic Act 1991. Fixed penalties are currently available for about 150 different traffic offences.

Where a driver is detected committing a fixed penalty offence, the police will decide what action to take in the particular case. The driver may be given an informal warning or issued with a fixed penalty notice or reported for prosecution. The police operate to Association of Chief Officer of Police (ACPO) guidelines advising on what course of action might be appropriate but it is in law ultimately a matter for the individual officer's decision.

Fixed penalty notices for traffic offences may be issued using one of four different procedures. One involves fixing the FPN to the vehicle. This is normally used for parking offences. The FPN may be issued to the driver at the time of the offence in two sets of circumstances: one for non-endorsable offences, such as failure to wear a seat belt, the other for an endorsable offence, such as speeding. For endorsable offences, the driver has to produce his driving licence at the roadside or later at a police station. The fourth procedure is used to deal with offending drivers detected by automatic
 
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speed camera and involves sending a conditional fixed penalty offer to the person identified by the vehicle number plate as being the registered keeper.

Police may also issue fixed penalty notices for disorder offences. Guidance has been provided by the Secretary of State for police, community support officers and persons accredited by a Chief Constable under community safety accreditation schemes under section 6 of the Act. Supplementary guidance has also been provided on the issue of fixed penalty notices to persons aged 16 and 17-years-old since the scheme was extended to them in January 2004. Copies of the guidance are available on the Home Office website at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crimpol/police/penalty/index.html

The main police operational guidance is currently being revised and a new version will be provided to the police and published shortly. The Home Office continues to take feedback from the police on the operation of the fixed penalty notice for disorder scheme so that guidance may be updated as and when necessary.

G8 Conference

Mr. Lyons: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which police forces will contribute to the security of the G8 Conference. [183036]

Caroline Flint: Responsibility for local policing in connection with the 2005 G8 Summit at Gleneagles, Perthshire, will rest with the Chief Constable of Tayside Police. Tayside Police will call on mutual aid from other police forces as appropriate, and arrangements for this are in hand.

Gold Incident Command Suite

Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions the Prison Service GOLD Incident Command suite has been opened in each month since April 2003; and what the nature was of each incident. [181510]

Paul Goggins: The Prison Service Gold Command suite opened on 40 occasions between 1 April 2003 and 28 June 2004. The suite was opened on 24 occasions to manage hostage incidents, on nine occasions to manage incidents of concerted indiscipline and on seven occasions to manage at height/roof climb incidents.

An incident is classified as a concerted indiscipline when a number of prisoners collectively refuse to comply with a lawful order or involve themselves in disruption of an establishment's normal regime. Hostage incidents are when a prisoner or prisoners take another prisoner, or on occasion a member of staff, hostage. At height incidents usually involve a prisoner or prisoners getting onto a roof but can be other climbs. A barricade incident is when a prisoner barricades his cell or another area to prevent staff access.

Green Minister

Mr. Horam: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the activities of the Green Minister in the Department in financial year 2003–04. [185134]

 
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Fiona Mactaggart: As the Department's Green Minister I take the lead in improving the Department's performance in contributing towards sustainable development. I do this through meetings with the officials responsible for sustainable development to check progress and give my personal support where necessary. This has included giving a talk at a workshop to launch the Department's Sustainable Development Framework Project and judging a switch off poster competition, as well as attending more formal meetings on sustainable development issues.

I am a member of the Ministerial Sub-Committee of Green Ministers.

HGVs (Road Accidents)

Helen Southworth: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many road traffic incidents involving left hand drive heavy goods vehicles have been recorded by Cheshire police in the last year for which figures are available. [185391]

Caroline Flint: Information collected by my Department on motoring offences recorded by the police does not distinguish the characteristics of the vehicles involved.

Home Office Legislation

Mr. Andrew Turner: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the Home Office legislation which has been implemented in different parts of England on different dates since 1997. [181835]

Paul Goggins [holding answer 5 July 2004]: The following provisions of Home Office legislation passed since 1997 have been implemented in different parts of England and Wales on different dates.

Provision	Subject matter of provision
Crime and Disorder Act 1998
Section 46	Date of first appearance in bail cases
Section 49	Powers of magistrates' courts exercisable by single justice
Section 51	No committal proceedings for indictable-only offences
Sections 65 and 66	Reprimands and warnings
Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000
Section 52	Electronic monitoring
Section 57	Drug testing in police detention
Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001
Section 130	Remands and committals of juveniles to secure accommodation
Private Security Industry Act 2001
Section 3	Conduct prohibited without a licence
Police Reform Act 2002
Schedule 4	Detention by Community Support Officers
Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003
Sections 48–52	Removal of graffiti

 
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Human Trafficking

Tom Brake: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the progress in the UK's implementation of the European Union Council of Ministers' Framework Decision on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings. [182463]

Mr. Browne: The European Union Framework Decision requires us to criminalise trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour. We are committed to criminalising trafficking effectively for these purposes, and in the case of trafficking for sexual exploitation legislative measures are already in force.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 includes offences covering trafficking into, within and out of the United Kingdom. These offences were brought into force on 1 May 2004. New offences covering trafficking for other forms of exploitation, including trafficking for the purposes of forced labour and removal of organs, are included in the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, which is currently before Parliament.

Identity Cards

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment has been made of the experience of other countries regarding the experience of ethnic minorities with demands to show identity cards. [182299]

Mr. Browne: We have looked at schemes in other countries but the experience of ethnic minorities in other countries depends on a range of factors which are not necessarily comparable. These include:

(i) whether the scheme is voluntary or compulsory;

(ii) what police powers exist to require a person to produce an identity card or otherwise identify themselves;

(iii) how the card scheme is linked to the provision of public services;

(iv) what use the private sector makes of the card scheme; and

(v) what legal safeguards are in place to outlaw unlawful discrimination.

We have announced that we are building a base for a compulsory scheme. One of the advantages of a compulsory scheme is that any requirement to produce a card would not be discriminatory as everyone would have one. We have said that there will be no new power for the police to stop someone and demand to see their card. Our draft Bill does allow public services to specify how a card might be produced but Parliament will have to approve the rules on a case-by-case basis. There are also provisions to guard against 'compulsion by the back door' by prohibiting organisations from making an ID card the exclusive means of proving identity in advance of the scheme being compulsory.

Finally the administration of the scheme and how it is used to verify identity by public services will be bound by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

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