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9 Jan 2007 : Column 536W—continued
Mr. Binley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the policy review of the practice of giving two months’ discretionary leave to remain to any citizen who cannot provide evidence of existing leave to remain at a port of entry will be completed; and if he will make a statement. [102013]
Mr. Byrne: A review of the guidance for dealing with passengers who are unable to provide evidence of their existing leave conditions at port will be completed shortly. The revised guidance will be published on the Home Office website in the new year.
Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for indefinite leave to remain were submitted in each year between 1997 and 2005; how many are awaiting a decision; and if he will make a statement. [108653]
Mr. Byrne: The required statistics in the following table are obtained from the General Case Information Database, which, although operational from late 2001, was not fully utilised until 2002. These figures show the volumes of main applicants applying for non-asylum indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.
Of these, approximately 20,000 are awaiting a decision in general casework areas. Information about cases in other business areas could only be obtained by detailed records searches at disproportionate cost.
| Number of non-asylum indefinite leave to remain applications from 2001-05( 1) | |
| (1)Figures given are rounded to the nearest 100 Note: The above data is not provided under the National Statistics protocols. It has been derived from local management information and is therefore provisional and subject to change. | |
Legal Advice
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much has been spent by the Department on external legal advice in each of the past five years. [109110]
Mr. Byrne: The Home Office maintains records of expenditure on external legal fees which include legal advice. To disaggregate legal advice costs from litigation costs could only be done at disproportionate cost.
Migrant Workers: Bulgaria and Romania
Mr. Clapham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what controls he plans to put in place to ensure that building workers coming from Bulgaria and Romania under the highly skilled migrant workers programme have the requisite skills. [108768]
Mr. Byrne [holding answer 13 December 2006]: The proposed Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006 provide for Bulgarian and Romanian nationals to be issued with a registration certificate giving access to the labour market if the Secretary of State is satisfied that they are highly skilled. They will be deemed to be highly skilled if they meet the criteria specified for the issuance of a document under the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (http://www.workingintheuk.gov.uk/working_in_the_uk/en/homepage.html) or if they have been awarded qualifications specified in the Regulations.
Applications for a registration certificate on this basis will need to be accompanied by documentary evidence of qualifications, and in the case of
applications that are to be considered against Highly Skilled Migrant programme criteria, other documentary evidence of previous earnings and employment.
Mr. Clapham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what controls will be put in place to ensure that low-skilled workers from Bulgaria and Romania permitted to enter the UK to work in agriculture and food processing are restricted to that type of work. [108769]
Mr. Byrne [holding answer 13 December 2006]: The proposed Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006 require Bulgarian and Romanian nationals intending to take employment in the United Kingdom to be in possession of a document confirming that they are authorised to work, except where they are exempt from the requirement to do so.
In the case of those coming to do agricultural work, this will take the form of a work card issued by an approved operator under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme. In the case of those coming to work in the food processing sector, it will take the form of an accession worker card issued on the basis that the employment has been approved under the criteria of the Sectors-Based Scheme.
In both cases, the document will specify the employer for whom the worker is authorised to work and will not confer permission to undertake other employment. If the holder engages in employment other than that specified on the document they will commit an offence.
Mr. Clapham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what controls will be put in place to ensure that skilled workers from Bulgaria and Romania entering the UK will be employed only where there are no suitable UK applicants. [108770]
Mr. Byrne [holding answer 13 December 2006]: The proposed Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006 require Bulgarian and Romanian nationals intending to take employment in the United Kingdom to be in possession of a document confirming that they are authorised to work, except where they are exempt from the requirement to do so.
In the majority of cases, the issue of such a document will be conditional upon the employer demonstrating that the employment meets existing work permit criteria. These criteria include requirements that the employer can demonstrate that he has made a genuine attempt to fill the vacancy with a suitably qualified worker from the resident labour market and that the jobholder will be remunerated with the going rate for the job.
National DNA Database
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of offenders convicted in 2005 of (a) violent offences, (b) theft and handling of stolen goods, (c) burglary, (d) fraud and forgery, (e) criminal damage and (f) drugs offences have a profile on the National DNA Database. [108679]
John Reid: The National DNA Database records the DNA profile for a particular individual. It does not hold data on arrest and criminal records. This information is held on the Police National Computer (PNC). At present the facilities do not exist on PNC to provide the information requested. However, as standard police practice is to take a DNA sample on arrest, we expect that almost all those convicted of the offences named have a profile on the NDNAD.
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of the prison population has a profile on the National DNA Database. [108680]
John Reid: The NDNAD does not record whether people on it are in prison. However, there are good reasons for believing that the great majority of the prison population has a profile on the NDNAD. Forces have had the power to retain DNA taken from those convicted of recordable offences since the establishment of the DNA Database in 1995. For the first few years this power was exercised in relation to more serious offenders, but from 2000 onwards additional funding was made available under the DNA Expansion Programme to make it standard practice to take samples from all offenders. In addition, two prisoner sampling projects have been undertaken, most recently in 2003, to take DNA from any prisoner who had not already been sampled, for example because they had been imprisoned before DNA sampling was widely practiced.
National Offender Management Service
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the detailed business case for the National Offender Management Scheme will be published; and what the differences are between that business case and the strategic business case published on 20 October 2005. [113571]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 8 January 2007]: The strategic business case sets out the strategic case for change for NOMS. This is backed up by further documents which have subsequently been published and which were referred to in my written answer to the hon. Member of 4 January, printed on 8 January 2007, Official Report, column 150W.
We have developed the strategic business case into a more detailed document for the purposes of managing the change programme. This is in line with best practice guidance from the Office of Government Commerce. The more detailed document, which is constantly updated as the programme develops, is an internal management tool and is not being published at present.
Offenders: Unemployment
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of offenders are unemployed when sentenced. [113605]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The Home Office does not hold data on the employment status of all sentenced offenders.
Officials: Disclosure
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the proposed EU development of an obligation on certain categories of officials with regard to the reporting of bribery and the disclosure of assets and business interests; and what its legal base is. [108067]
Ed Balls: I have been asked to reply.
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 14 December 2006, Official Report, column 1424W, on the effect of Commission Directives 2005/60/EC and 2006/70/EC.
The Treaty base for 2005/60/EC is Article 47(2), first and third sentences, and Article 95.
Police
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what projects for minority groups were financially supported by the Metropolitan police in the last two financial years; and what funding is planned in 2006-07. [110110]
Mr. McNulty: This is a matter for the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis.
Police Cells
Mr. George Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police cells are available for use in each police force in England and Wales; and what the average occupancy rate was in police cells in the latest period for which figures are available. [107501]
Mr. McNulty: The information requested is not held centrally and could be supplied only at disproportionate cost. The provision of police cells is an operational matter for each chief officer.
Prison Service
Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for what reasons the Phoenix computer system for HM Prison Service has been delayed; who is responsible for the implementation of the system; when he expects the system to become operational; and if he will make a statement. [112893]
Mr. Sutcliffe: [holding answer 8 January 2007]: The Phoenix programme has met all key milestones. IT systems and the Shared Service Centre have been implemented to plan.
During November a processing fault in the procurement application caused it to be temporarily withdrawn. A solution has now been implemented and all sites will have the service reinstated by 22 December.
Ann Beasley, Director of Finance for the Prison Service, is the senior responsible owner for the Phoenix programme.
Prisoners: Crime Victims
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of prisoners who were at some stage victims of crime. [113606]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The Home Office does not routinely collect data on whether prisoners have been victims of crime and there has been no research that has specifically addressed this question.
Prisons
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offenders released from prison were known to have re-offended within (a) 24 hours, (b) 48 hours, (c) one week and (d) one month of release from prison in the latest period for which figures are available. [112730]
John Reid: The most recent re-offending information on times to re-offending was published in November as “Re-offending of Adults: results from the 2003 cohort. Home Office Statistical Bulletin 20/06”. The report is available on line at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb2006.pdf and covers offenders starting community sentences or being discharged from prison in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2003.
Time to re-offending for offenders released from custody only, and information on re-offending within 24 hours, 48 hours, and one week, are not routinely calculated.
However information on time to re-offending on a monthly basis for offenders released from custody or starting a community sentence in the first quarter of 2003 is illustrated in figure 3, page 5. Figure 4 on page 5 shows the average number of days to re-offending by offence group.
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are serving sentences of (a) less than three months and (b) between three and six months. [112731]
John Reid: Information on the numbers of prisoners serving sentences of less than six months can be found in the following table which is taken from webtable 8.19 to be published shortly in conjunction with the Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2005, a copy of which can be found in the House of Commons Library.
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, and although shown to the last individual the figures may not be accurate to that level.
| Population in prison establishments serving immediate custodial sentences up to six months, as at 30 June 2005 | |
| Number | |
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his most recent estimate is of the number of prisoners who have accommodation arranged on release from prison. [113609]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Data for the resettlement key performance indicator show that, in 2005-06, 76,774 prisoners reported that they had accommodation arranged on release. This represents 90.1 per cent. of the total released in the year ending March 2006, the latest period for which figures are available.
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements are in place for the provision of advice on (a) benefits and (b) debt to prisoners on release. [113610]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Jobcentre Plus advisers work in most prisons, and offer advice and assistance on potential employment opportunities, closing down benefit claims and the completion of forms, including for community care grants or crisis loans, prior to discharge.
Prisoners who do not have a job or training place to go to on release also have the opportunity to have a Freshstart interview booked prior to release to enable them to attend a local Jobcentre within the first few days of discharge.
This provides them with opportunity to seek employment and links them into the benefit system.
Debt advice is provided across the prison estate through local management arrangements by a variety of voluntary and statutory organisations.
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what average number of hours of purposeful activity was undertaken by a prisoner per week in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available; and for what reason this figure is no longer published by the Prison Service or Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons. [113616]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The average number of weekly hours of purposeful activity per prisoner during the last 10 years is shown in the following table.
| Purposeful activity outturns since 1996-97 | |
| Financial year | Percentage |
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