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12 Dec 2005 : Column 1717W—continued
Re-offending
James Duddridge: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the most recent re-offending rates are of (a) minors and (b) adults from Southend. [34025]
Fiona Mactaggart: Re-offending rates are not currently available on a regional basis.
Secure Training Centres
Ms Keeble: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children in secure training centres have been referred under the Children Act 2004 to local social services departments for reasons of child protection in each of the last three years. [35060]
Fiona Mactaggart: References are made under the Children Act 1989. Each secure training centre has a protocol, agreed with the local authority, which governs referrals. The protocol is ratified by the local Area Child Protection Committee. Where a young person (or any other person) makes a complaint which raises child protection issues, it is passed to the local authority social services department for its consideration. It is for the social services department to decide whether an investigation is warranted under section 47 of the Children Act 1989. The following table lists the number of referrals made by each centre over the last three years.
| 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hassockfield | 39 | 25 | 37 |
| Oakhill | n/a | n/a | 26 |
| Medway | 16 | 45 | 29 |
| Rainsbrook | 20 | 15 | 21 |
Travellers
Andrew Rosindell:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many travellers have
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been convicted for not paying tax on their motor vehicles in each of the last eight years; [33867]
(2) how many travellers were convicted of criminal offences in the last five years, broken down by crime. [33868]
Fiona Mactaggart: It is not possible to provide the information requested, as travellers cannot be identified on the Court Proceedings Database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform.
Voter Registration
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of the population is registered to vote in each constituency in the UnitedKingdom (a) ranked in descending order and (b) broken down by region and ranked in descending order. [36887]
John Healey: I have been asked to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 12 December 2005:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning the percentage of the population who are registered to vote in each Parliamentary Constituency. I am replying in her absence. (36887)
Population data by Parliamentary Constituency are not available on an annual basis, consequently the tables have been prepared from 2001 Census data. Constituencies in Scotland, therefore, are those that were in place prior to the last election.
In order to give an estimate of the number of electors on Census day (29 April 2001), a weighted average is taken of the 1 February 2001 and 1 December 2001 electoral data. Data are given for Parliamentary electorate. Data for the local/European electorate, by Parliamentary Constituency are not readily available for 2001.
For the purposes of answering this question, we have assumed that you are interested in the percentage of the population aged 18 and over who are registered to vote. However it should be noted that the percentage of residents who are registered to vote in each
- Constituency is not a reliable estimate of the registration rate of the eligible population: the resident population aged 18 and over is not the same as the number of people eligible to vote.
The UK Parliamentary electorate excludes residents of countries other than the UK and the Commonwealth and includes UK citizens resident abroad. In addition not everyone who is usually resident is entitled to vote (foreign citizens from outside of the EU and Commonwealth. prisoners, etc, are not eligible) and people who have more than one address may register in more than one place. Also there is inevitably some double counting of the registered electorate as electoral registration officers vary in how quickly they remove people from the registers after they have moved away from an area or after they have died. This latter is the main reason why in some Constituencies the population aged 18 and over is less than those registered to vote. These factors may have a different impact from place to place.
Furthermore, you should note that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revised the mid-2001 population estimates since the publication of the 2001 Census results. In September 2003, revisions were made that added approximately 193,000 to the population of England and Wales. This revision primarily related to the addition of a number of young males that were not captured by the Census. In September 2004, ONS made further revisions as a result of concluding studies designed to improve population estimates in the areas that proved hardest to count in the 2001 Census in England and Wales. The results of this work showed that the Census worked well in most areas, but that there were a few cases where it was not able sufficiently to adjust for exceptional circumstances. The analysis showed that there was a need for revisions to the 2001 Census based population estimates of around 107,000 for England and Wales as a whole. The adjustments were included in the new mid-year population estimates for 2001, published in 2004. The census database itself was not revised following the publication of these adjustments. More details on these issues can be found at: www.statistics.gov.uk/lastudies
Any comparison of these data with figures for other years should be made carefully as electoral legislation and other changes (such as EU expansion) can change the size of the electorate.
Vulnerable Witnesses
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many vulnerable witnesses used intermediaries provided for in the special measures for vulnerable witnesses under the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 in each of the pilot schemes; and if he will make a statement. [29342]
Fiona Mactaggart: Examination of a witness through an intermediary under section 29 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 is currently available in six pathfinder areas: Merseyside; West Midlands; Thames Valley; South Wales; Norfolk; and Devon and Cornwall. Evaluation of the pathfinders will be completed by the end of March 2006 after which plans will be made for further roll out of the scheme in England and Wales.
The latest available information about the number of times that intermediaries have been used is given in the attached table.
We have issued recently information packs entitled 'What's my story?' and 'Intermediaries: Giving a voice to vulnerable witnesses' copies of which have been placed in the Library. These materials are being used to promote awareness and understanding of the intermediary scheme in the pathfinder areas.
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(30)Data refer to the number of witnesses for whom the Office for Criminal Justice Reform has provided a registered intermediary where the intermediary has, or is expected to, carried out a communication needs analysis relating to the witness or has assisted them to understand questions or to make their answers understood during a criminal investigation or trial. Data refer only to pathfinder areas where notification of availability of the intermediary special measure has been made in accordance with section 18(2) of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999.
(31)In South Wales trials are restricted to Cardiff Crown Court, Cardiff Magistrates' Courts, The Vale of Glamorgan Magistrates' Courts, Newcastle and Ogmore Magistrates' Courts, Miskin Magistrates' Courts.
(32)In Devon and Cornwall trials are restricted to Plymouth Crown Court and Plymouth Magistrates' Court.
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