Supplementary information submitted by
the Home Office
I am writing with the follow up information
I undertook to provide during my evidence session before the Home
Affairs Committee (HAC) on 25 October.
You asked why it was that the department publishes
details of its dealing with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC)
in the Annual report but not of its dealing with HAC. I agreed
that this was anomalous and that I would look into trying to treating
both committees the same. Advice from the Treasury is that the
department need not produce the extensive list of actions against
PAC recommendations that we currently put into the annual report,
but that a list of the PAC reports together with dates and references
to the Government responses to the reports is adequate.
In future I will list both HAC and PAC reports
together with the dates, titles etc of all Home Office responses.
You also asked questions about the relationship
between the department and the Committee, making specific reference
to your unanswered letter of 29 July that requested a copy of
the Young Muslims and Extremism paper. You subsequently
received a copy of the paper, but did not receive a substantive
response to your letter, for which I apologised. You asked in
the letter that in future the Committee should be provided with
all papers that are directly relevant to their enquiries. I agree
with the principle of your request, but must retain the option
to review what should be released on a case by case basis. As
you say in the letter of 29 July, "Government must be necessarily
selective in the information it releases to Select Committees."
Bearing in mind the above proviso, I do accept the principle and
presumption that documents should be released.
Whilst discussing the issue of prison overcrowding
and suicide, Ann Cryer asked if I would provide a breakdown of
suicides in prison showing the record of public and contracted
prisons separately. This is at Annex 1. As was stated at the session
last week, the figures are not strictly comparable as they do
not compare like with like. Also at Annex 1, I have included a
table showing the rate of self inflicted deaths per 100,000 prisoners
broken down by contracted and publicly run prisons—this
gives a more meaningful figure than the strictly numerical count.
Nick Herbert raised the question of collection
of fines. I stated in my evidence that I thought it had improved
to something like 90%, but was unsure of the actual figure. Historically,
there was an unacceptable level of performance in the collection
of fines, with a national payment rate[4]
of 55% in 2002-03[5].
In 2003 the DCA (now HMCS) Enforcement Programme was established
to drive up poor performance in this area and thus significantly
contribute to increasing public confidence in the CJS and ensuring
respect for orders of the court.
There have been significant improvements made
over the last two years with the payment rate for 2004-05 reaching
80% exceeding that year's target of 78%. Improved performance
continues to be sustained with the 2005-06 year to date payment
rate at 81%. Looking forward, DCA has a Spending Review 2004 commitment
to deliver a payment rate of at least 85% in 2007-08.
Richard Benyon raised the issue of Zimbabwe
and the future of ancestral visas. He followed up the session
with four additional written questions. I have set out the questions
and answers below:
Why is this review taking so long?
Actually there has been no delay to the points
based system, which was announced in February as part of the Government's
five year plan for asylum and immigration. It is progressing well
and currently out to consultation. The consultation document was
published on 19 July and the period ends on 7 November. However,
there have been delays to approving UK Ancestry applicants from
Zimbabweans because these cases were generally suspended while
a suspected fraud was investigated and taken to court.
Why is there confusion about the status of this
review?
Concern about possible abuse of the UK ancestry
route was identified during the course of a top-to-bottom review
of managed migration routes which was launched by the Prime Minister
in April 2004. A number of changes were made to the rules on managed
migration routes in the course of this review, including a tightening
of the rules on switching into UK ancestry if you have entered
under another category. Based on the top-to-bottom review the
Government announced on 7 February that all routes to work or
study in the UK would be brought into a single points based system.
As UK ancestry allows a person to come to the UK to work or to
look for work it should be considered as part of the redesign,
but it hasn't yet been specifically consulted on, and we will
seek views on the benefits or not of maintaining this as a route
to entry and stay in the UK within the new system.
Why Zimbabwe?
The majority of suspect cases were from Zimbabwean
nationals. There were a small number of suspect applications from
South African and Tanzanian nationals but at a level which would
have made suspension of all cases from these nationals disproportionate.
Is there a material change in policy in relation
to allowing people to come to Britain from Zimbabwe on an ancestral
visa?
There has been no material change to the policy
in relation to allowing people to enter or remain in the UK from
Zimbabwe on ancestral visas. The delay to these cases is a result
of the action taken to investigate abuse of the UK ancestry route.
On 25 October 2004 paragraph 189 of the Immigration
Rules was amended to the extent that in-country switching to UK
Ancestry from other categories is now prohibited. This applied
to all Commonwealth citizens, not just citizens of Zimbabwe. We
may return to this issue during the Committee's forthcoming enquiry
into asylum and immigration issues.
Gary Streeter asked what was the reason for
the rise in violent crime and specifically violence against the
person. I told him at the session that I did not accept his assertion
but could not provide the specifics there and then. The 2004-05
British Crime Survey (BCS) estimated that there were approximately
2.4 million violent incidents against adults in England and Wales.
This represents a fall of 11% compared with the previous year,
and 34% overall since 1997. The BCS definition of violent crime
comprises common assault, wounding and mugging (robbery and snatch
theft) committed against people aged 16 and over; it does not
include murder, sexual assaults or threats or violence against
children.
David Winnick raised the matter of the compensation
levels and speed of payouts to the victims of the London bombings
under the auspices of CICA. He has written to me on the matter
and I have replied, giving him an update on both the situation
as regards the current payout following the London bombings and
on the review of CICA he mentioned at the session.
Finally, I was asked about the KPMG report on
ID Cards. The Executive Summary of the report and the Home Office's
response to the recommendations will be published when both documents
have been finalised. Both the report and Home Office response
are nearing completion and I hope to publish them before the Committee
stages in the House of Lords. On publishing the rest of the report,
at the moment I am only able to repeat what I said at the Committee,
that I only intend to publish the Executive Summary once we have
gone to tender.
Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP
Home Secretary
4 November 2005
4 The headline performance indicator for fine enforcement
is the payment rate, defined as the amount paid into court as
a percentage of new amounts owed, over a specified period of time
(month, quarter, the year to date). Back
5
5 Note that as a result of a series of revisions in the method
of calculating the payment rate, direct year-on-year comparisons
cannot be made. Back
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