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26 Oct 2006 : Column 2128W—continued
Foreign Prisoners
Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether judges’ recommendations on the desirability of deportation at the end of the sentence are routinely placed on prisoners’ files; and if he will make a statement. [67469]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Recommendations for deportation are retained in prison custody offices along with committal warrants, certificates of conviction, and other orders requiring a prisoner’s detention. They will be referred to when calculating or checking a prisoner’s sentence, a process which occurs at intervals during sentence and particularly as release approaches.
Mr. Wilshire: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what (a) instructions and (b) guidance have been issued to (i) the director of Bronzefield prison, (ii) the chief constable of Surrey and (iii) the Surrey police authority on procedures relating to the future release of foreign nationals from Bronzefield prison. [67573]
Mr. Byrne [holding answer 1 May 2006]: In a written ministerial statement of 19 July 2006, Official Report, column 29WS, I provided an update to the House on the progress being made by the immigration and nationality directorate and all of the relevant criminal justice agencies in ensuring that foreign national prisoners face deportation and that this happens as early as possible in their sentence. The Department re-issued Prison Service Order (PSO) 4630 on 17 July 2006 to all prisons including Bronzefield prison. This instruction sets out the procedures and actions relating to immigration matters and overrides all other instructions to governors and directors released prior to that date. You will be able to access this information on the HM Prisons website at:
http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/resourcecentre/psispsos/listpsos/index.asp?startrow=51
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether (a) illegal immigrants and (b) foreign national prisoners are (i) DNA tested and (ii) fingerprinted before being deported. [68903]
Mr. Byrne: Immigration legislation does not provide any powers to take DNA samples from individuals. Under provisions in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984, police officers may take a DNA sample from any person arrested or charged in connection with a recordable offence. Section 141 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (as amended) provides a power for authorised persons to take fingerprints from any person in respect of whom a relevant immigration decision has been made. This includes the decision to remove an illegal entrant and the decision to deport. When serving a decision notice on an illegal entrant, the immigration officer will check against existing immigration fingerprint records and if there is no trace he or she will fingerprint the individual. In the case of foreign national prisoners, fingerprints will have been taken at an earlier stage under police powers at the point of charging for the criminal offence.
Gwyn Prosser: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the foreign prisoners released without being deported had been held in prisons or detention centres in Kent; and how many of them are unaccounted for. [90676]
Mr. Byrne: The Director General of the immigration and nationality directorate wrote to the Home Affairs Committee on 29 June and set out, in line with the Home Secretary’s requirements, the most accurate data the Department currently holds on the 1,013 foreign national prisoner cohort released without due deportation consideration.
Gangmasters
Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the involvement of gangmasters in (a) people smuggling, (b) illegal copying and selling of DVDs and (c) other types of organised crime; and if he will make a statement. [96415]
Mr. Coaker: The Serious Organised Crime Agency has considered the threat posed by gangmasters to the UK in the context of organised immigration crime. The assessment is contained in the published “UK Threat Assessment of Serious Organised Crime 2006-07”. The assessment states that for many illegal workers in the UK a job is part of their facilitation package and criminal gangmasters are involved in finding work for illegal immigrants. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority began licensing the agricultural, horticultural, shellfish gathering, and associated processing industries in March 2006.
There is no evidence to suggest that gangmasters are involved in illegal copying and selling of DVDs or any other types of organised crime. In order to ensure a joint industry and Government response to counterfeiting and piracy, the Government launched the National IP Crime Strategy in 2004. The Annual Enforcement Report, published by the Patent Office, sets out the range of action being taken by Government and industry bodies to tackle this problem.
Identity and Passport Service
Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost will be of setting up the new identity and passport service office in Kendal. [97010]
Joan Ryan [holding answer 24 October 2006]: No estimate of costs for individual sites has been made. The Kendal interview office has not yet been delivered to IPS but the contract requires all premises to be made available by the end of 2006.
The estimated costs of providing and running the 69 interview offices for the first year of operation (2006-07) are £58.32 million with an annual running cost from 2009-10 of £29 million. All costs will be met from passport fees.
Identity Cards
Mr. Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the proposed (a) national identity card and (b) biometric passport will utilise (i) RFID chips and (ii) proximity chips. [96403]
Joan Ryan: Proximity chips are being introduced into travel documents worldwide to fulfil international requirements established by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a division of the United Nations. As both biometric passports and the proposed identity card are, or are intended to be, travel documents, they are required to comply with such requirements. It should be noted that the UK's new e-passport, over 2.5 million of which have now been issued, includes a proximity chip in order to meet ICAO requirements and to meet the conditions of the US Visa Waiver Programme.
The chips being used in passports communicate with the passport reader using radio frequencies. However, use of the term “RFID chips” for these causes confusion as, for many people, “RFID” implies functionality found in “RFID Tags” which are low-security, passive devices, capable of being read by standard equipment at a distance of several metres.
The chips used in passports are designed to be capable of being read at distances of only a few centimetres and implement Basic Access Control in accordance with international standards. This requires the reader to scan optically information on the data page of the passport and pass this to the chip before the chip will communicate with the reader. Thus, it would not be possible for a reader to extract any data from the chip at a distance or if the reader had not been able to scan the passport’s data page. RFID Tags will not be utilised in either the biometric passport or the national identity card.
In addition to Basic Access Control, proximity chips in the identity card and passport will use other cryptographic measures in order to prevent the information on the chip from being modified. It is also planned that further advanced encryption will be utilised to secure biometric information on the chip of the passport and card in the future. This will comply with Extended Access Control standards that are currently under development at an international level.
Mr. Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the forecast charge is for registering a change of (a) name, (b) marital status and (c) address under the proposed national identity card scheme. [96409]
Joan Ryan: The Government have indicated in Parliament that it anticipates that changes to information on a person's record on the national identity register that would not require a change of card ( e.g. address) would not incur a fee.
With regard to other changes of information that do involve a change of card, a schedule of fees has not yet been decided and will depend on the outcome of procurement processes related to the national identity scheme.
It should be noted that marital status will not be recorded on the national identity register and thus the need to update marital status does not arise.
Immigration and Nationality Directorate
Martin Linton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many caseworkers have been employed by the immigration and nationality directorate to work on asylum applications in each year since 1997. [25122]
Mr. Byrne: We are not able to provide the information in the format requested. Staffing numbers are recorded by grade, location and work area. As the grade and responsibilities of caseworkers have changed over time, we are not able to establish accurately the number of caseworkers from this data.
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many personnel were employed by the immigration and nationality directorate to process deportation orders in (a) 2001, (b) 2002, (c) 2003, (d) 2004, (e) 2005 and (f) the last period for which figures are available. [68722]
John Reid:
The number of employees engaged on processing deportation orders is not disaggregated
from the overall number of employees within the immigration and nationality directorate (IND) and therefore not readily available. Any attempt to calculate the number of employees involved in processing deportation orders in each of the last five years would need to take into account a large number of factors and this could be done only at disproportionate cost.
However one of the main functions of the criminal casework directorate (CCD) within IND is to process deportation orders for foreign national prisoners. The average number of full-time equivalent employees in this area, from when the figures are available from 2002-03, during each of the past four financial years is as follows:
| Number | |
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of the decisions made by staff at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate Public Enquiry Office in Croydon were subject to quality assurance checks in each year since 1997. [73694]
John Reid: The number of cases sampled in the Public Enquiry Office during the period January 2006 to 23 May 2006 was 3.6 per cent. of completed cases. This compares to 1.7 per cent. of cases sampled for the period May 2005 to December 2005.
There are no formal records for the number of cases sampled in the Public Enquiry Office prior to May 2005. Prior to this date cases were cleared by a supervisor, but no central record was maintained.
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum applicants were interviewed in the course of the Gbedemah Inquiry. [73695]
John Reid: The PEO does not deal with asylum applicants. No asylum applicants were interviewed in the course of the Gbedemah Inquiry, which investigated allegations about practices within the Public Enquiry Office in Croydon.
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish the findings of the inquiry into allegations of abuse at Lunar House, Croydon; and if he will make a statement. [53496]
Mr. Byrne: The findings of the investigation into allegations about practices within the Public Enquiry Office at Lunar House in Croydon were published on 14 March 2006.
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent instructions he has issued to the immigration and nationality directorate concerning the extension of analysis of PEO decisions to cover more cases and to include analysis of patterns and trends. [73708]
John Reid: Tim Gbedemah’s report of 3 March 2006 specifically identified the need to cover more cases and to include analysis of patterns and trends. This recommendation was fully accepted and senior managers within the Public Inquiry Office are taking this work forward.
Islamist Publications (Prisons)
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether instructions have been issued to prison governors on the receipt of Islamist publications by prisoners. [96704]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 23 October 2006]: There has been no centrally issued instruction to prison governors on the receipt of Islamist publications by prisoners. However, governors can receive advice from their security, chaplaincy and race equality teams if they have specific concerns or issues about particular publications.
Knives (Hendon)
Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many knives were recovered as part of the recent amnesty by Barnet police. [96933]
Mr. McNulty: This information is not available centrally. Figures for the number of items surrendered to the police during the knife amnesty which ran from 24 May to 30 June 2006 have been collated at police force level. A total of 89,864 items were surrendered in England and Wales.
The Metropolitan police reported that 9,145 knives and other sharp instruments were handed in to them.
Ministerial Visits
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which prisons Ministers in his Department have visited in each year since 1997; and for what purposes. [63073]
Mr. Sutcliffe: I am placing in the Library a list of the visits to prisons by Home Office Ministers since 1 May 1997. Ministers visit prisons for a variety of reasons including: general familiarisation; attending the launch of an initiative or opening of a new building or wing; attending a meeting, such as the Suicide Prevention Roundtable; or attending a religious service. Information on the purpose of each individual visit is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
National Offender Management Service
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the budget is for (a) the National Offender Management Service and (b) the regional offender managers for 2006-07. [88006]
Mr. Sutcliffe:
The delegated resource budget for the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) (this includes the Prison Service, National Probation Service
and Youth Justice Board as well as NOMS HQ) for the year 2006-07 is £4,294,248,000; the delegated capital budget is £380,478,000.
The total delegated resource budget for the Regional Offender Managers’ offices for 2006-07 is £11,780,682.
Neighbourhood Policing
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his policy is on neighbourhood policing outside the capital. [89172]
Mr. Coaker: The Government are committed to introducing neighbourhood policing to every part of England and Wales by April 2007. By April 2008, every community will have its own neighbourhood policing team.
Neighbourhood policing is about local policing teams being genuinely visible and responsive to people, and dealing effectively with the crime and antisocial behaviour that concerns them. A key part of neighbourhood policing is that everyone will know their local policing team, and be able to contact them easily by telephone or by email. The Government are supporting the roll-out of neighbourhood policing, not only through general police grant, but also through specific funding around police community support officers (PCSOs). This will total around £222 million this year and includes an additional £91 million announced in the Budget to accelerate numbers of PCSOs to 16,000 by April 2007 (around 11,500 outside London). This will increase the pace of the roll-out of neighbourhood policing overall.
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