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22 May 2006 : Column 1542W—continued
Recruitment
Mr. Jenkins: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much (a) his Department and (b) its agencies spent on recruitment, search and selection agencies in each of the last five years. [68339]
John Reid: The information requested cannot be provided except at disproportionate cost.
Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list recommendations from the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure which were (a) accepted, (b) implemented in legislation and (c) rejected; and if he will make a statement. [71982]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure was established in 1977 and published its final report in January 1981 (Cm 8092). The Commission made a wide range of recommendations. For example, its report is known to have influenced legislation governing police powers in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and also the establishment of an independent Crown Prosecution Service in the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. There does not appear to have been a formal published Government response to the recommendations in the report and it is not possible to supply the detailed information requested. In the 25 years since the report was published there have been a number of other enquiries, most recently, Sir Robin Auld's Review of the Criminal Courts of England and Wales in 2001.
Rural Crime
Mrs. Dorries: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps the Government are taking to reduce crime in rural areas; and if he will make a statement. [71596]
Mr. Byrne: Effective and responsive policing at neighbourhood level as well as robust partnership working are both essential parts of our strategy to tackle crime and to sustain the confidence and trust of the public in all parts of the country.
We introduced the Rural Policing Fund in 2000-01 specifically to enhance the visibility and accessibility of policing in rural areas. 31 police authorities with the most widespread populations have benefited fromthis additional funding. The annual allocation is£30 million. As part of the police funding settlement for 2006-07 and 2007-08, we have consolidated four specific grants, including the Rural Policing Fund, into a single provision for each police authority to give them more control over how they may be used. However, we expect authorities to honour commitments and agreed policy initiatives to build on the outstanding successes achieved by, for example, the Rural Policing Fund that has enhanced the visibility and accessibility of policing in rural areas.
We have invested in the police right across the country, and there are now more officers on the streets than there have ever been before. Bedfordshire police employed 121 more officers in March 2005 than it did in March 1997. Across England and Wales there were 14,072 extra officers in the same period, giving a record total of 141,230. We have also made a commitment that by April 2007, Neighbourhood Policing will have been introduced to every area in England and Wales.
There is a wide programme of work under way nationally to reduce violent crime, in both rural and urban areas. We have introduced the Violent Crime Reduction Bill, which contains new measures to ensure that police and local communities have the powers they need to tackle guns, knives and alcohol-related violence.
Three national Alcohol Misuse Enforcement Campaigns have taken place, with a fourth due to start before the football World Cup. Police operations targeting hotspots of alcohol-related disorder have included the use of fixed penalty notices, confiscation of alcohol and test purchases to address under-age sales. Bedfordshire police have taken part in these campaigns.
In Bedfordshire, a number of police operations have targeted violent crime and antisocial behaviour. Operation Coriander has seen high visibility police patrols targeting violence and antisocial behaviour in Flitwick with extra resources at peak times. Operation Lead has taken a similar approach to reducing violence in the night-time economy in several Bedfordshire towns. Additionally, alcohol exclusion zones and dispersal zones have been set up and are being enforced in several locations across the force area.
Violent crime as measured by British Crime Survey (BCS), considered to be the most reliable measure of violent crime in England and Wales, has fallen significantly in recent years. According to the BCS it has nearly halved (fallen by 43 per cent.) since a peak in 1995, an estimated 1.8 million fewer incidents. It has fallen by 34 per cent. since 1997, by 11 per cent. since 2003-04 and by 5 per cent. since 2004-05.
Security Industry Authority
Patrick Mercer: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the cost of the Security Industry Authority to date. [58969]
Mr. Coaker: The Security Industry Authority (SIA) is required to be self-financing from the licence fee income but it was always anticipated that the SIA would not break even in its first couple of years, because of the gradual introduction of licensing which will eventually meet all the SIA’s running costs. The deficit in the first year, 2003-04, was £7.1 million as the SIA had no licence income. In 2004-05, the deficit was £13 million, and the estimated deficit for 2005-06 is about £3.5 million.
Sex Trafficking
Kerry McCarthy: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answer of29 November 2005, Official Report, columns 465-7W to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer), on sex trafficking, what progress has been made on taking forward the necessary steps to ratify the UN convention against transnational organised crime and the related Palermo protocol. [71165]
Mr. Coaker: We recently ratified the Convention and its protocols on smuggling and trafficking, having put in place all the legislative requirements to bring our law into compliance with these instruments. The UK ratified the Convention and protocols on 9 February 2006 with an effective date of 11 March 2006.
Tagging Orders
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offenders have been found guilty of damaging their electronic tag while subject to a tagging order. [69367]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Between 1 April 2005, the start date of the new electronic monitoring contracts, and 30 April 2006, a total of 2,695 subjects breached their curfew requirements by maliciously damaging their tag.
The system is designed to ensure that any attempt to remove a tag within the curfew address automatically registers as a tamper at the electronic monitoring service provider's control centre.
Unsolicited Mail (Fraud)
Mark Tami: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions of individuals using unsolicited mail to carry out fraudulent acts there were in the most recent year for which figures are available. [71575]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Data from the Court Proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform on the number of persons using unsolicited mail to carry out fraudulent acts is not available.
US Immigration Authorities
Mr. Hollobone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the names of people arrested in England and Wales are reported to US
immigration authorities by (a) the police and (b) other Government bodies. [70417]
Mr. Byrne: There are no arrangements for routinely supplying arrest details to US immigration authorities by either the police or other Government bodies. However, information may be shared between agencies during joint criminal investigations.
Witness Intimidation
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been convicted of intimidating witnesses in each of the last five years. [69744]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Data from the court proceedings database held by the office for criminal justice reform for the number of people convicted of intimidating witnesses in England and Wales for the years 2000 to 2004 can be found in the following table.
Data for 2005 will be available in the autumn of 2006.
Workers Registration Scheme
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people from EU accession countries have registered on the Workers Registration Scheme in each year since its inception. [71687]
Mr. McNulty: 329,090 applicants to the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) were issued with WRS registration certificates and cards since the scheme's inception on 1 May 2004 to December 2005. This is made up of 125,870 for 2004 and 203,220 for 2005.
The figures quoted are for applicants rather than the number of applications made. The figures do not include multiple applications, where an individual is undertaking more than one job simultaneously, nor re-registrations, where an individual has changed employers. In addition, an individual who has registered to work and who leaves employment is not required to de-register, therefore some of those counted will have left the employment for which they registered and some are likely to have left the UK.
Health
Abortions
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether she has plans to review the Abortion Act 1967; and if she will make a statement. [70408]
Caroline Flint: The Government have no plans to review the Abortion Act. It is accepted parliamentary practice that proposals for changes in the law on abortion have come from hon. and right hon. Members on the back benches and that decisions are made on the basis of free votes. In addition, key organisations in the medical profession are not pressing for a review of this area, for example, both the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have said that they do not believe there is a case for changing the time limits for an abortion.
Abuse by Health Staff
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many inquiries into abuse by health staff were ordered by (a) her Department and (b) NHS trusts
and strategic health authorities in the last five years; what the status of each inquiry was; whether the data from each inquiry have been brought together; and what plans for action were made as a result of each inquiry. [70813]
Andy Burnham: The investigation of any adverse incident involving healthcare staff is primarily a matter for the local national health service community. Where professional conduct issues are raised then the Department would also expect the relevant professional and regulatory body to be involved. In
cases where there are wider concerns about the failure of the systems in place to prevent such incidents, NHS trusts and strategic health authorities may set up independent investigations but information on these is not collected centrally.
The independent Healthcare Commission and Commission for Social Care Inspection also investigate serious failures in the provision of health and social care which may also involve abuse by healthcare staff.
Since May 2001, the Department has set up the following independent investigations following concerns about healthcare professionals.
The Government are awaiting the recommendations of a review by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of certain aspects of medical regulation, including the revalidation of doctors. The CMO is currently finalising his report and will be reporting to Ministers in the near future. Once Ministers have considered the CMO's recommendations, the Government will publish a comprehensive action programme responding to the recommendations in the Ayling, Neale and Kerr/Haslam inquiries as well as the outstanding recommendations of the Shipman Inquiry.
Both the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and the Department have produced detailed action plans to follow up the recommendations of the review of paediatric neurology services at Leicester effectively in order to minimise the risk of similar future occurrences.
Accident and Emergency Services
Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health which NHS hospitals had (a) a 24 hour accident and emergency department and (b) another accident and emergency facility in (i) 1996 and (ii) 2006; and in which NHS hospitals with 24 hour provision there are confirmed plans to end such provision. [67862]
Ms Rosie Winterton: National health service trusts self-report the number of accident and emergency (A and E) services they provide against definitions set by the Department for the three types of A and E. The information available is shown in the following table and this was the position at the end of December 2005.
| Number of departments (England) | |
| Number | |
|
Type 3 A and E departments (minor injury and illness services including minor injury units, including walk-in centres) | |
| Source: OMAE |
Prior to 2000-01, statistics provided a count of the number of trusts providing the three different A and E services, rather than the number of each type of service. This pre-2000-01 trust data is available on the Department’s website at: www.performance.doh.gov .uk/hospitalactivity
The Department does not routinely collect and hold centrally operational management information on proposals to close wards or capacity.
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