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19 Feb 2007 : Column 140W—continued
Prisons: Wales
Hywel Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether the National Offender Management Service is pursuing a site for a new prison in (a) South Wales and (b) North Wales; [112522]
(2) whether the National Offender Management Service has tested any locations for new prisons suggested in the business case presented by the North Wales Criminal Justice Board. [112515]
Mr. Sutcliffe: A national site search is under way, with South Wales one of a number of priority areas due to strategic need. Other priority areas include London, the North West and the West Midlands.
North Wales is not currently included in these priorities. However, the National Offender Management Service continues to investigate all options for providing further increases in capacity.
Mr. Llwyd:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether the National Offender Management Service in Wales is actively pursuing the
establishment of a new prison facility in Wales; [119850]
(2) whether the National Offender Management Service in Wales has actively tested any of the locations suggested in the business case presented by the North Wales Criminal Justice Board for suitability for a new prison facility. [119867]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 8 February 2007]: The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is currently undertaking searches to identify sites for new prisons in areas of highest demand for prison places. The priority search areas are London and the Thames corridor, South Wales, the North West and the West Midlands. NOMS is aware of the site proposed by the North Wales Local Criminal Justice Board in evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee in December 2006. The site is considerably smaller than those under consideration for development as a new prison.
Private Prisons
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many assaults there were on (a) staff and (b) prisoners at each private prison in 2005-06. [117569]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The information is provided in the following table.
| 1 January 2005-31 December 2005 | 1 January 2006-31 December 2006 | |||
| Prison | Number of assaults on staff | Number of assaults on prisoners | Number of assaults on staff | Number of assaults on prisoners |
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any private prison has been refinanced by a holding or partner company. [117570]
Mr. Sutcliffe: There are no private prisons that have been refinanced by a holding or partner company.
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many unfilled posts there were in the Prison Service in (a) public and (b) private prisons in each of the last 12 months. [117572]
Mr. Sutcliffe:
The number of unfilled posts for the last five quarters is shown in the following tables. These figures include all posts, both operational and non-operational, across the whole Prison Service. For the
public sector they reflect the impact of additional hours worked through contracted supplementary hours and agency staffing. The number of unfilled posts represent around 3 per cent. of all posts.
| Public sector | |
| Date( 1) | Shortfall on staffing requirement having included CSH and agency staff( 2) |
| (1) Staffing requirements are centrally reported quarterly and therefore the number of unfilled posts is only available for the end of each quarter. (2) Information has been derived from the Personnel Corporate Database, Oracle HRMS and Quarterly Forecast Change Forms completed by each establishment. Where an establishment has recorded a surplus of staff this has not been used to off-set shortfalls of others. | |
| Private prisons | |
| Shortfall on staffing requirement( 1) | |
| (1) Private prisons information has been obtained from the Home Office, on behalf of Serco, GSL, G4S, and KALYX human resources databases. | |
Probation Service
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the projected balance is in the national probation budget for 2006-07; and what consequences are expected for service delivery. [113399]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The overall budget for 2006-07 for the national probation service is £883 million. The current projected out-turn is within 0.5 per cent. of this figure.
There are 13 main probation performance indicators which can be compared with 2005-06. For the period April to September 2006, the performance against 10 of these indicators is equal to or exceeding the 2005-06 performance.
Prospect Hostel, Exeter
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average annual cost was of running approved premises performing similar functions to the Prospect Hostel in Exeter in 2005-06. [104761]
Mr. Sutcliffe:
Approved premises in the main estate do not perform directly comparable functions to the Prospects premises. Whereas most approved premises
are a public protection resource for the management of high risk offenders, the Prospects premises were established to provide an accommodation, interventions and support package targeted at released prisoners convicted of acquisitive crimes to fund their drug habit.
In 2005-06 the average grant payment to an approved premises in the mainstream estate was £535,730.
Prostitution
Lorely Burt: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of prostitutes who were (a) addicted to drugs, (b) born outside the UK and (c) victims of human trafficking in each of the last 10 years. [118334]
Mr. Sutcliffe: It is not possible to provide precise figures as so much prostitution is hidden from view. However published Home Office research has looked at the numbers involved who are drug addicted and has provided broad estimates of the numbers of people trafficked into the UK for the purposes of prostitution. Information on the proportion born outside the UK is not available.
A Home Office Research Study in 2004 profiled 228 women involved in street-based prostitution. It found 87 per cent. were using heroin and 64 per cent. crack
cocaine. Anecdotal evidence from respondents to the Home Office-led review of prostitution in 2004 suggested that a high proportion—in many areas, almost all—of those involved in street-based prostitution are Class A drug users. Home Office funded research in 2000 found that 71 women were known to have been trafficked into prostitution in the UK in 1998. Using this figure as a baseline the research estimated that there may have been between 142 and 1,420 women trafficked into the UK during the same period.
A research paper on sizing UK organised crime markets and their associated harms will be published in early 2007. Emerging findings suggest that at any one moment in time in 2003 there were around 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution in the UK.
Lorely Burt: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many successful prosecutions relating to (a) soliciting by a prostitute, (b) kerb crawling and (c) the operation of a brothel there were in each of the last 10 years. [118340]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Data from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform on the number of defendants convicted at all courts for various offences in England and Wales, 1996 to 2005, relating to prostitution can be found in the following table:
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