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Detection Rates

Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the percentage detection rate is for crimes committed against (a) under 18s, (b) 18–24s and (c) over 24s as specifically as possible to the Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland constituency; [18610]

(2) how many young people under the age of 16 years have been reported missing in each year since 1997 and still not traced in (a) England and Wales, (b) Tees Valley and (c) Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland. [18704]

Hazel Blears: The information requested is not collected centrally by the Home Office.

Emergency Numbers (Mobile Phones)

Mrs. Hodgson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received concerning the proposal to encourage the saving of In Case of Emergency numbers in the address books of mobile phones; and if he will make a statement. [13366]

Hazel Blears [holding answer 18 October 2005]: Following checks made on correspondence records, we can say that, to the best of my knowledge, I have not received any representations on the saving of In Case of Emergency numbers.

European Refugee Fund

John Bercow: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on expenditure by the European Refugee Fund since September 2000. [20272]

Mr. McNulty: For the first phase of the European Refugee Fund, which ran from 2000 to 2004, the European Commission allocated £146.7 million (€216 million), of which around £22 million was made available to the United Kingdom. Over this period the fund has been allocated to projects representing the three areas set by the European Commission—voluntary returns, reception of asylum-seekers, and refugee integration. All grants must be matched by money from other sources.

The United Kingdom has allocated all the funding received each year, although actual expenditure has in some cases been less than originally estimated. Final expenditure for this period has yet to be released by the European Commission following their scrutiny of reports from the projects.
 
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New rules for the expenditure of the European Refugee Fund came into force this year, following consultation with member states. The subjects for expenditure remain the same but grants may now be made for longer than one year. For 2005, approximately £6 million has been made available to the UK. Bids for grants were sought by the Home Office over the summer, and the successful applicants will be notified shortly.

Extradition Requests

Mr. Peter Robinson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent requests have been made by foreign governments to the UK Government for extradition of named individuals; what the Government's response was in each case; and from which country each request came. [19450]

Andy Burnham: In the period 1 January-30 September 2005, there were 30 extradition requests to the UK Government in which arrests were made. These figures include requests in which arrests have been made under provisional warrant and full request papers have not yet been received. In order to avoid all risk of prejudice to individuals, to the conduct of cases, or to ongoing investigations, it is not the normal practice to list names of individuals who are the subjects of extradition requests.

Also in order to avoid prejudice to ongoing investigations, we have excluded from the figures any requests which have not yet resulted in arrests. The figures include requests made to Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, they exclude requests made to the Crown Dependencies; and arrests made pursuant to European Arrest Warrants (EAWs), which are not Government-to-Government requests.

The 30 requests came from the following countries:

	Number
Albania	1
Australia	2
Canada	3
Croatia	2
Czech Rep	(42)1
Germany	(42)1
Israel	2
Italy	(42)3
Romania	7
Russian Federation	2
Turkey	1
USA	5

⁽⁴²⁾ Pre-EAW

To date, out of these requests, five have resulted in persons being returned to requesting states, while three have been discharged at Bow Street magistrates court, one was discharged at Lothian and Borders sheriff court and one was withdrawn before court proceedings. The remaining cases are progressing through the various stages laid down in the Extradition Act 2003.

Historic Sex Abuse Cases

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what support is provided for alleged offenders of historic sex abuse during (a) the investigation and (b) the trial. [20176]

 
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Paul Goggins: Those accused of historic child abuse are afforded the same level of support as those accused of other sexual crimes, including the services of a solicitor and their nominated counsel to advise and guide them through the investigation and trial.

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many times in the last 10 years media coverage has been assessed to have prejudiced an investigation into historic sex abuse. [20177]

Paul Goggins: The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Identity Cards

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the statement of the Under Secretary of State of 19 July 2005, Standing Committee D, column 413, on the Identity Cards Bill, whether all members of staff referred to as being in positions of trust will be subject to full police and security checks. [19314]

Andy Burnham: Staff members involved in the establishment and maintenance of the register as well as those involved in the issue, modification, cancellation or surrender of ID cards will be subject to checks to obtain an appropriate level of Government security clearance that is commensurate with their role.

John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his latest estimate is of the total cost of the identity cards scheme. [19754]

Mr. McNulty: The current best estimate for the total average annual running costs for issuing passports and ID cards to UK nationals is £584million.

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further assessment he has made of the reliability of technology features of the proposed identity card for purposes of validity since the answer given on the validity period on 10 December 2003, Official Report, column 497W. [19869]

Andy Burnham: The answer given to the earlier question, 10 December 2003, Official Report, column 497W, suggested that it may be necessary to replace the cards after five years to ensure their reliability. Since that time we have been able to undertake research into the capabilities of the market, we have held discussions with some card and chip manufacturers, and we have run a card durability survey to ask specific questions of a range of suppliers.

The data gathered from these exercises suggest that it will be sensible to set a requirement that the card will last 10 years under normal use.

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the KPMG review of the costing methodology and key cost assumptions of the identity card scheme arrived at the same current best estimate as the Government of the total average annual running costs for issuing passports and identity cards to UK nationals including allowances for contingency, optimism bias and non-recoverable VAT. [19870]

 
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Mr. McNulty: The KPMG review of the costing methodology and key cost assumptions did not create new estimates, but reviewed the assumptions made and the methods used in compiling the existing cost estimates. The review concluded that the methodology used to cost the ID cards proposals is robust and appropriate for this stage of development.

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government plans to store high-definition images of (a) all and (b) some of the biometrics to be used for identity cards. [20652]

Andy Burnham: No firm decisions on the data storage standards for biometrics within the Identity Cards scheme have been taken. It is assumed that the facial image will be stored in a format similar to that recommended by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) for use in Machine-Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs) which requires a high resolution image.

It is also assumed that images of the other biometrics will be stored at a sufficient resolution to enable templates (the compact encodings of the essential patterns in iris and fingerprint biometrics which are used by matching algorithms) to be regenerated should the matching technology being used by the Identity Cards scheme be updated or changed.

As the images will not be required for routine matching and may only be used for generating the template on enrolment and subsequent biometric renewal, they could therefore be stored in a separate database which may be managed as an archive.

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 12 July 2005, Official Report, column 907W, on identity cards, whether the estimate referred to of the likely rates of failure includes an analysis of the failure rate of the (a) facial, (b) fingerprint and (c) iris biometric technology. [20868]

Andy Burnham: The answer given to the earlier question focused on the failure of the cards and the chips on the cards, not on the need to re-enrol biometrics which might arise if a person's physiological characteristics change after their biometrics are recorded as part of their enrolment into the Identity Cards scheme.

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