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13 Dec 2005 : Column 1916W—continued

Knives

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been found to be carrying knives in public without a good reason or lawful authority in (a) Southend, West constituency, (b) Essex, (c) the Metropolitan police area of London and (d) Hertfordshire since the coming into force of the Knives Act 1997; how many of these received a prison sentence; and what the sentence was in each case in which proceedings are complete. [35976]

Hazel Blears: Information from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform is provided in the following table. It shows the number of offenders convicted under section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 of 'having a knife or bladed article in a public place' in South East Essex petty sessional area and in Essex , Metropolitan and Hertfordshire police force areas, 1997–2004. The table also shows the numbers sentenced to immediate custody and the length of sentence.

Data for 2005 will be available in autumn 2006.
Defendants found guilty of carrying knives in public, and the number given sentences of immediate custody, 1997—2004

Number of defendants
	Custodial sentence length
	Guilty	Immediate custody	1 month and under	Over 1 month and up to 2 months	Over 2 months and up to 3 months	Over 3 months and up to 4 months
Essex police force area
1997	85	19	6	7	2	1
1998	97	27	5	11	4	3
1999	96	36	9	8	10	5
2000	99	24	7	8	3	4
2001	99	27	9	8	6	3
2002	103	43	11	12	11	9
2003	141	36	4	14	7	6
2004	200	54	12	13	9	11
Hertfordshire police force area
1997	31	3	1	2	0	0
1998	29	4	1	0	1	0
1999	28	7	2	2	1	1
2000	27	3	1	0	1	0
2001	24	2	0	0	0	1
2002	53	10	0	1	3	2
2003	83	13	1	6	3	1
2004	84	9	3	3	2	0
Metropolitan police force area
1997	1,256	190	102	41	26	13
1998	1,326	225	99	48	35	18
1999	1,081	181	63	47	38	18
2000	1,162	195	67	44	46	23
2001	1,501	262	95	63	39	43
2002	1,866	319	104	85	53	37
2003	1,681	289	95	68	56	35
2004	1,606	286	70	64	65	45
South East Essex petty sessional area
1997	19	8	2	5	0	1
1998	28	10	2	3	1	2
1999	24	14	2	3	4	2
2000	26	8	2	2	1	2
2001	13	6	2	1	2	0
2002	30	15	3	2	4	6
2003	37	8	0	3	2	3
2004	43	12	1	3	2	4

 
13 Dec 2005 : Column 1917W
 

	Custodial sentence length
	Over 4 months and up to 6 months	Over 6 months and up to 1 year	1 year	Over 1 year up to 18 months	Over 18 months up to 2 years
Essex police force area
1997	2	0	0	1	0
1998	3	0	1	0	0
1999	4	0	0	0	0
2000	1	1	0	0	0
2001	0	0	0	1	0
2002	0	0	0	0	0
2003	3	0	1	1	0
2004	6	3	0	0	0
Hertfordshire police force area
1997	0	0	0	0	0
1998	2	0	0	0	0
1999	0	0	0	1	0
2000	1	0	0	0	0
2001	0	1	0	0	0
2002	3	1	0	0	0
2003	0	1	1	0	0
2004	1	0	0	0	0
Metropolitan police force area
1997	7	0	0	1	0
1998	14	6	3	1	1
1999	9	5	1	0	0
2000	12	1	2	0	0
2001	17	2	0	3	0
2002	26	10	2	2	0
2003	19	7	5	2	2
2004	30	10	0	2	0
South East Essex
1997	0	0	0	0	0
1998	1	0	1	0	0
1999	3	0	0	0	0
2000	1	0	0	0	0
2001	0	0	0	1	0
2002	0	0	0	0	0
2003	0	0	0	0	0
2004	2	0	0	0	0

 
13 Dec 2005 : Column 1919W
 

KPMG Review

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 28 November 2005, Official Report, column 45W, on the KPMG review, for what reasons the whole KPMG report is not being published. [35271]

Andy Burnham: The extract from the KPMG review was published in November 2005. To publish the full report would prejudice the commercial interests of the Identity Cards Scheme as it contains figures from the business case which if published would result in the Department being unable to obtain value for money from prospective suppliers during the procurement process.
 
13 Dec 2005 : Column 1920W
 

London Bombings

Peter Luff: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers have been seconded from each individual constabulary in England and Wales to the Metropolitan police to assist with their investigations into the bombings and attempted bombings in London in July. [16349]

Hazel Blears: The information requested is not held centrally. However, the Commissioner of police of the metropolis has provided the following response. 352 officers from county forces were seconded to the Metropolitan police to assist with investigations into the London bombings. As at 30 November 2005,151 officers were still attached to the MPS. 201 county officers have since returned to their original force. Figures by individual force are provided in the following table.
Figures for the number of officers seconded to the Metropolitan police service to assist with their investigations into the London bombings (Figures provided by the metropolitan police)

County	Total number of secondments into the MPS to assist with London bombing investigations	Secondments currently serving with metropolitan police service as at 30 November 2005	Secondments who have since returned to own constabulary
Avon and Somerset	8	3	5
Bedfordshire	4	0	4
British Transport Police	15	6	9
Cambridgeshire	3	0	3
Cheshire	8	6	2
City of London	6	4	2
Cleveland	3	3	0
Cumbria	4	4	0
Derbyshire	9	5	4
Devon and Cornwall	4	4	0
Dorset	5	0	5
Durham	6	3	3
Dyfed Powys	8	7	1
Essex	16	6	10
Gloucestershire	5	1	4
Greater Manchester police	3	3	0
Hampshire	21	6	15
Hertfordshire	6	2	4
Humberside	17	5	12
Kent	22	5	17
Lancashire	10	4	6
Leicestershire	10	4	6
Lincolnshire	5	1	4
Manchester	2	1	1
Merseyside	11	1	10
Norfolk	5	4	1
North Wales	8	4	4
North Yorkshire	7	0	7
Northamptonshire	4	3	1
Northumbria	8	7	1
South Wales	16	7	9
South Yorkshire	12	5	7
Staffordshire	10	5	5
Straithclyde	1	0	1
Suffolk	4	4	0
Surrey	4	2	2
Sussex	13	6	7
Thames Valley	16	4	12
Warwickshire	4	3	1
West Mercia	11	7	4
West Midlands	9	4	5
West Yorkshire	5	0	5
Wiltshire	4	4	2
Total secondments	352	151	201

Mobile Phone Theft

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many incidents of mobile telephone theft there were in (a) Lancashire and (b) England and Wales in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement. [35503]

Hazel Blears: The information requested is not collected centrally.

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent discussions he has had with mobile telephone companies about measures to combat the theft of mobile telephones. [35504]

 
13 Dec 2005 : Column 1921W
 

Hazel Blears: The Home Office, mobile phone industry and police have developed a strong and close working partnership in order to tackle mobile phone theft effectively.

The principal forum through which the Home Office engages with the mobile phone industry at a working level is the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum (MICAF). MICAF is an industry-based forum of mobile phone network operators, retailers and handset manufacturers, set up specifically to tackle the issue of mobile phone crime. It has worked closely with the Home Office and the National Mobile Phone Crime Unit on a number of measures to tackle mobile phone theft, such as the database of lost and stolen phones, legislation to tackle re-programming and the National Mobile Phone Register.

At a ministerial level, several meetings have been held with network operators, retailers and handset manufacturers—these have all proved to be productive. The mobile phone industry are committed to helping the Government and law enforcement agencies tackle mobile phone theft and have worked very positively in partnership with us over the past three years.

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