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23 Jan 2006 : Column 1788W—continued
Racially Aggravated Offences
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent discussions he has had with the Crown Prosecution Service on the prosecution of racially aggravated offences. [35650]
Hazel Blears: Discussions have been, and will continue to be, held in the context of making the criminal justice system more effective in bringing offences, including racially aggravated offences, to justice.
Recorded Offences (Humberside)
Shona McIsaac: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been found to be carrying knives in public without good reason or lawful authority in each division of Humberside police in each year since the introduction of the Knives Act 1997. [42586]
Hazel Blears: Data from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform which show that the number of people proceeded against at the magistrates courts and found guilty at all courts for carrying knives in public without good reason or lawful authority for Humberside police force area, 2002–04 are contained in the table.
It is not possible to identify those convictions by each division of Humberside police as the data are not collected at this level of detail.
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(24)These data are on the principal offence basis.
Stateless People
Mr. Chaytor: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many stateless people were known to be resident in the United Kingdom in each of the last five years; and what his policy is on considering applications for leave to remain. [43049]
Mr. McNulty: No distinction is made between applications for leave to remain from stateless people and from people who have a nationality. Stateless people whose applications are successful are granted leave to enter or remain in the usual way. Those whose applications fail are expected to leave the United Kingdom, usually to return to their countries of habitual residence. Statistics on grants of settlement—that is, grants of permanent residence—to stateless persons, 2000 to 2004, are given in the following table. However, they are not cumulative and they do not take account of persons who subsequently embark or acquire British Citizenship.
Further immigration statistics can be found in the Command Papers Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom" available from the Library and from the Home Office websitehttp://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.html
| United Kingdom | Number of persons |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Stateless |
| 2000 | 930 |
| 2001 | 390 |
| 2002 | 215 |
| 2003 | 330 |
| 2004(27) | 205 |
(25)Includes persons whose nationality is recorded as unknown.
(26)Data from 2003 also exclude dependants of EEA and Swiss nationals in confirmed relationships
(27)Provisional
Data rounded to the nearest 5.
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Under-age Sales
Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many businesses were prosecuted for selling (a) alcohol, (b) glue products and (c) fireworks to under-age people in the South Lakeland Crime and Disorder Partnership in 2004–05. [43379]
Hazel Blears: The available information from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform shows that there were no prosecutions in South Lakeland petty sessional area for selling intoxicating substances or fireworks to persons under age in 2004. In addition, there were no prosecutions as notified to the court proceedings database for retailers supplying intoxicating substances or fireworks to persons under 18.
Statistics on court proceedings for 2005 will be published in the autumn.
Violent Crime
Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the reasons for changes in the number of recorded violent crime in each of the last four quarters. [41872]
Hazel Blears: There are three main reasons for the increases in recorded crime in each of the last four quarters for which figures are available (i.e. ending April to June 2005).
There is still some residual effect from the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard in 2002. Analysis shows that there is some increase in recording as police forces improve compliance with the standard.
Many of the Government's programmes for tackling domestic violence and sexual crime are encouraging the reporting and therefore recording of offences
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whichhad hitherto been grossly under-reported. The reclassification of some offences (such as indecent exposure) as violent has also led to increases.
More pro-active policing and increased police effectiveness may cause an increase in recorded crime. Use of CCTV, for example, may lead to recording and detection of assaults which would otherwise have gone unreported and unrecorded.
The British Crime Survey, which is widely-regarded as providing a more reliable trend measure because it is resistant to changes in reporting, police recording and local policing activity, showed a fall of 7 per cent. in violent crime during this period (though this was not statistically significant).
Work Permits
Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many work permits were granted to health workers from overseas in (a) 2004 and (b) each month in 2005 for which records are available, broken down by country. [24259]
Mr. McNulty
[holding answer 1 November 2005]: Table 1 displays the number of permits approved for health workers from overseas in 2004 broken down by country. These figures include all approvals made
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for overseas applications, in-country applications, extension applications and change of employment applications.
Table 2 displays the number of permits approved for health workers from overseas for each month in 2005 for which records are available, broken down by nationality. These figures include all approvals made for overseas applications, in-country applications, extension applications and change of employment applications.
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