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11 May 2006 : Column 514W—continued
National Identity Register
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the sole address permitted on the National Identity Register will be an individual's private residential address. [68646]
Joan Ryan [holding answer 8 May 2006]: An individual on registration will be required to provide his principal residential address but the Identity Cards Act 2006 also allows the registering of other addresses at which he has a place of residence, including addresses overseas. The extent to which secondary addresses may or must be registered, as with other details of the registration process, will be determined in secondary legislation.
This will have to be approved by Parliament under the affirmative resolution procedure and full guidance will be provided to individuals registering. It is intended that all addresses registered will be residential addresses, not business or contact addresses, except potentially in exceptional cases such as persons with no fixed abode, who may only have a contact address. Section 42(10) of the Act allows regulations to be made defining these special cases.
People Trafficking
Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he plans to make it a criminal offence to pay for sex with a person who has been illegally trafficked. [68385]
Mr. Coaker: We consider that the Sexual Offences Act 2003, with its emphasis on consent freely entered into, is sufficient to prosecute men who knowingly have sex with women against their will, including women who have been illegally trafficked. The Act provides at section 74 that
“a person consents if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice”.
If the trafficked woman is engaging in prostitution under duress then we find it difficult to see how she would be considered to be freely consenting. There are also evidential assumptions at section 75 of the Act which, if proven, will mean that the complainant is taken not to have consented and these include the use and threat of violence and unlawful detention of the victim. Furthermore, creating a further offence of paying for sex with a trafficked woman may give the appearance that it is a lesser offence than rape; it is not.
If the woman does not freely consent to sex and if the defendant does not reasonably believe that she consents, then regardless of her occupation, it is rape.
Pornography
Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his Department's working definition of pornography is. [66145]
Mr. Coaker [holding answer 27 April 2006]: There is no statutory definition of ‘pornography’ in UK legislation. Under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 it is a criminal offence to publish any article which is considered to be ‘obscene’: that is, an article, if its effect when taken as a whole, is such as to tend to ‘deprave and corrupt’ persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
In the Government's recent Consultation Paper on the Possession of Extreme Pornographic Material, material which is explicit and has been solely, or primarily produced for the purpose of sexual arousal is considered to be ‘pornographic’. By explicit we mean material in which the activity can be clearly seen and is not hidden, disguised or implied. In terms of regulation, we consider the harm that any type of material (whether pornography, violence, portrayal of drugs use, etc.) is likely to cause to the vulnerable, particularly children.
Prisons
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many existing governor grade officials in the prison service have had their status (a) upgraded and (b) downgraded; what proportion of these have been on a (i) temporary and (ii) permanent basis; and if he will make a statement. [69417]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Over the past year, 72 operational managers were permanently upgraded and three were permanently downgraded. Over the same period 91 operational managers were temporarily upgraded and 54 reverted back to a lower grade after a period of temporary promotion.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) for what reasons the compulsory transfer may take place of prison governors to alternative establishments; [69326]
(2) at what level of management in the prison service the decision compulsorily to transfer prison governor grade staff to alternative establishments is taken; and if he will make a statement. [69327]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Directed moves can happen for a varied number of reasons. These include for effective succession, to facilitate secondment, for disciplinary or performance reasons, career development, for certain personal and domestic circumstances, to fill new posts and to help support establishment performance tests or improvement plans.
Directed moves of all operational managers and senior operational managers are approved at the following levels of prison service management. Decisions about the appointment and transfer of senior operational managers (senior prison governors pay bands A to D) are made at director level. Decisions about the appointment and transfer of other prison governors (more junior prison governors pay bands F and E) are usually made at area manager level (senior civil servant).
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisons in England and Wales use hutted accommodation for inmates; and how many inmates are housed in (a) dormitories and (b) single rooms in each such prison. [68959]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Seven prisons hold prisoners in hutted accommodation. The huts form part of the accommodation available for prisoners at these establishments. These prisons are: Drake Hall, Ford, Haverigg, North Sea Camp, Ranby, Spring Hill and Sudbury. The number of prisoners held in dormitories and single cells/rooms accommodation at these prisons is not recorded centrally.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which prisons have (a) a special educational needs co-ordinator and (b) learning support assistants. [66550]
Mr. Sutcliffe: I refer the hon. Member for North- West Norfolk to the combined answer of 2 May 2006 from my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona MacTaggart) to questions 65461 and 65462, Official Report, column 1425W, from the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones).
Sex Offences (South Wales)
Mrs. James: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many sexual offences of (a) rape, (b) sexual assault, (c) indecent assault, (d) gross indecency and (e) unlawful sex were reported to South Wales police in 2004-05; and if he will make a statement. [55999]
Mr. Coaker: The available information relates to those offences recorded by the police and is in the table. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 came into effect in May 2004. At that time, some existing offences were repealed or re-defined and new offences were created. For completeness all the appropriate offences are provided in the table. Detailed information on the changes to sexual offences is contained in the recorded crime offence list which can be found in Appendix two of ‘Crime in England and Wales 2004-05', Home Office Statistical Bulletin 11/05. Appendix two can be accessed via the following link:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hosb1105append.pdf
| Selected recorded sexual offences for South Wales in 2004-05 | ||
| 2004-05 | ||
| Notes: As a result of the introduction of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 in May 2004 (1)Offences in effect to the end of April 2004 only (2)Offences in effect from May 2004 onwards (3)Re-used offence codes form May 2004 onwards. |
Sexual Assault Referral Centres
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the (a) location, (b) staffing profile and (c) cost for the most recent year for which figures are available is of each Sexual Assault Referral Centre; what assessment he has made of the work of such centres; and if he will make a statement. [69321]
Mr. Coaker: The information requested is set out in the National Services Guidelines for Developing Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) published by the Home Office and Department of Health in October 2005 and available at www.homeoffice.gov.uk. SARCs were positively evaluated in Home Office Research Study 285, “Sexual Assault Referral Centres: Developing Good Practice and Maximising Potentials”, published in 2004. They are centres of expertise, providing an enhanced medical, forensic and
therapeutic response to victims of sexual assault. The Home Office has supported the development of SARCs over the last two years through the Victims Fund, and further funding will be available to assist new SARCs in 2006-07.
Tagging Orders
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offenders have been prosecuted for breaking the terms of tagging curfews in each of the last five years. [69366]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The readily available information, which relates to the number of persons breaching curfew orders (with and without electronic monitoring) is published in Table 4.13 of ‘Sentencing Statistics, England and Wales’, 2004 (page 92). This publication can be found in the Library and also on the Home Office website, as follows:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hosb1505.pdf.
Uninsured Drivers
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average fine for uninsured drivers was in each year since 1997. [68870]
Mr. Coaker: Available information taken from the Court Proceedings Database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform, from 1997 to 2004 (latest available), is in the following table. 2005 data will be available early in 2007.
| Average fines imposed at all courts for the offence of using a vehicle uninsured against third party risks( 1) England and Wales, 1997-2004 | |
| Average fine (£) | |
| (1) Offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988 s. 143 (2). Notes: Coverage and recording practice affecting the statistics: 1. It is known that for some police force areas, the reporting of court proceedings in particular those relating to summary motoring offences, may be less than complete. 2. Since 1990, due to the delays in implementing new counting procedures, corrective action on non-keying errors was reduced resulting in deterioration in the quality of data on summary motoring proceedings. |
Young Offenders
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people are detained in young offenders institutions. [67641]
Mr. Sutcliffe: On 28 February 2006 there were 8,252 young adults aged 18-20 (including some 21 year olds who have not yet been reclassified as adults) and 2,726
juveniles aged 15-17 held in prison accommodation in England and Wales. 6,186 young adults were sentenced to detention under YOI rules. There were a further 1,970 young adults aged 18-20 held on remand under prison rules, and 96 young adults held as civil prisoners. There were 2,122 sentenced juveniles held under YOI rules. There were a further 599 remand juveniles held under prison rules, and five juveniles aged 15-17 held as civil prisoners. This information is as recorded on the Prison IT system, and excludes those held outside of the prison estate in secure training centres and local authority secure children's homes.
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