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16 Apr 2007 : Column 479W—continued
Police: Forms
Mr. Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of forms used by the police. [128684]
Mr. McNulty: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has consistently made clear his commitment to reducing police bureaucracy, placing this important work at the heart of his vision for policing through:
A review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act which was announced July last year, to examine potential areas for reducing bureaucracy on the Police Service.
A Statement of Common Values on the Police Service made on six March, which included a commitment to reduce bureaucracy and make policing more public-facing.
A Review of Policing announced on 27 March, which includes Sir Ronnie Flanagan leading work on how to deliver a step-change in bureaucracy, reporting in August.
A key feature of these plans is the commitment to ensuring that administrative demands do not distort or hinder front-line policing priorities. However, the information required of each police force to make an assessment of the number of forms they use is not held centrally.
Police: Retirement
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 15 March 2007, Official Report, column 550W, on police: retirement, what categories of data will be provided by forces. [130334]
John Reid: Data will be collected in respect of exit interviews as part of the annual data requirement in categories for rank, gender, length of service, ethnicity, and reason for leaving. In terms of the reason for leaving these are categorised as domestic reasons, work commitments, the individual's role, pay and conditions, training/career, management issues, organisational culture, colleagues, fairness at work, discrimination, taking another job, and on promotion.
Ports
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many ports of entry there are in the United Kingdom. [126438]
John Reid: For the purposes of the Immigration Act 1971 there are 57 ports of entry in the United Kingdom.
Prison Places
Mr. Mullin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many additional prison places were provided in each year since 1997; and how many more are planned; [129935]
(2) what the average cost was of each new prison place built in each year since 1997. [129936]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The following table shows how many new prison places have been created in the years in question and the average capital building cost per new place. 8,000 new prison places were announced in the Criminal Justice System Review in July 2006. These will be provided using a combination of new prisons and expansion at existing sites.
| £000 | ||
| Financial year | Number of new prison places( 1) | Average capital building cost per new place( 2) |
| (1) The number of new places includes a mixture of places at new prisons as well as places provided by expansions at existing prisons. It does not take into account any places provided through prisoners sharing cells; nor does it take into account any places that have been taken out of use. (2) The costs shown cover the capital building costs of each new place only. No adjustment has been made for inflation. | ||
Mr. Mullin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in which prisons an increase in capacity is planned; what the current capacity is of each; what increase is planned; and by what date he expects the new accommodation to be available. [129937]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The building programme to provide new prison places by 2012, both in new prisons and at existing sites, is still under development. Decisions on the location of the places will be determined by greatest need; and where possible, they will be provided in areas of highest demand. Specific sites are subject to detailed internal planning, acquisition and planning consent.
Prison Sentences
Mr. Clegg:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead of 20 February 2007, Official Report, column 643W, on prison sentences,
whether there is a difference in average length of sentences for British and foreign offenders who committed the same offence; and if he will provide average sentence lengths for (a) foreign and (b) British offenders in each category of offence. [126436]
John Reid: Information on the average sentence length by offence for foreign national and British offenders held in custody in all prison establishments in England and Wales can be found in the following table.
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
| Mean sentences for prisoners in England and Wales 2004-05 to 2006-07 by British and foreign nationals | ||||||||||||
| Months | ||||||||||||
| British nationals | Foreign nationals | Nationality not recorded | Totals for year | |||||||||
| 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | |
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are serving over tariff incarceration on the grounds of their refusal to confess their guilt. [129657]
John Reid: The information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Denial of guilt is not of itself a bar to release of prisoners from custody. There is no rule or policy that automatically prevents those who, for whatever reason, deny their guilt from progressing through the prison system provided their risk is assessed as having reduced to a level that is compatible with protecting the public from harm. The assessment of a prisoner's current level of risk is the pre-eminent factor in determining suitability for release.
Release of tariff-expired indeterminate sentence prisoners is a matter for the independent Parole Board. The main criterion governing the Board's consideration is the level of risk of serious harm that the prisoner may pose to others. For that reason it is unlawful for the Board to refuse release simply on the ground that the prisoner continues to deny guilt.
Prisoners Transfers
Mr. Jeremy Browne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many and what percentage of prisoners serving a sentence of (a) zero to three months, (b) six to 12 months, (c) 12 to 18 months, (d) 18 to 24 months and (e) 24 months or more were transferred (i) once, (ii) twice, (iii) three times, (iv) four times, (v) five times, (vi) six times, (vii) seven times, (viii) eight times and (ix) more than eight times during their sentence in the last year for which figures are available. [130532]
Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 29 March 2007]: This information is not held centrally.
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners were transferred to another prison during their sentence in each of the last five years. [130548]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The table shows the number of prison to prison transfers of prisoners in England and Wales, recorded by the Inter Prison Transfer contractor, for each financial year from April 2002 until March 2007, the latest date for which figures are available.
There are also a number of prisoner movements between prisons managed locally that are not reported centrally.
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