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9 July 2007 : Column 1328W—continued
Police: Sports
Mr. Watson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to encourage police officers to join police sports teams in order to enhance physical fitness levels; how many police forces currently have sports teams; and if he will make a statement. [146576]
Mr. McNulty: Responsibility for the physical fitness of serving police officers and force sports teams lies with the chief officer of each force. Information on police force sports teams is not held centrally.
Police: Training
Mr. Watson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which police authorities are equipped with Hydra suites for the training of police officers; what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of police Hydra suites; what plans she has to encourage police authorities to build more Hydra suites; and if she will make a statement. [146578]
Mr. McNulty: The following police authorities are equipped with Hydra suites for the training of police officers:
Metropolitan Police Service (three suites)
National Policing Improvement Agency (3 suites)
Serious Organised Crime Agency
Scottish Police College, Tulliallan
Avon and Somerset police
Greater Manchester police
Hertfordshire constabulary
Kent constabulary
Merseyside police
Police Service of Northern Ireland (two suites)
South Wales police (three suites)
West Midlands police
West Yorkshire police
The Hydra suite and methodology is also being used internationally by a number of other organisations:
Justice Institute of British Columbia, Canada.
Royal Canadian mounted police currently located in Ottawa. Joint plans are being made for training to be extended to manage the winter Olympics 2010, G8 Conference, Papal visit and other major events in the next few years with both agencies.
Paramata, New South Wales, Australia. This was initially built and used to train police commanders and other agencies to prepare their officers to manage the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney. It is currently being used for leadership programmes, domestic and terrorist related hostage negotiation and counter terrorism preparedness.
The methodology has been grown over the last 20 years and has built on research findings through debriefing of such incidents as community confidence following the murder of Stephen Lawrence, outcomes from the foot and mouth epidemic, the international response to the tsunami, multi agency management of counter terrorism related to 9/11, the London bombings, Sharm el Sheikh and Bali bombings as well as the Olympic games in Sydney 2000, the Commonwealth games in Manchester and the G8 summit in Canada.
The Association of Chief Police Officers Terrorism and Applied Matters Committee (ACPO TAM) has commissioned a number of reports on the effectiveness of Hydra, for example a report entitled a Review of Counter Terrorism Exercises in the UK has 13 references to hydra as examples of good practice.
An HMIC report into the UK state of readiness for counter terrorism states Hydra and its associated 10kv debriefing as the way forward for capacity building. There are various HMIC thematic inspections around critical incident management throughout the country that refer to the effectiveness of those forces who are using Hydra.
The Hydra methodology prohibits the use of hydra to directly assess the performance of delegates; this allows the statement “Safe Learning environment” to have real integrity. However there are triangulated methods for assessments that are built into the programs that surround Hydra events that enable individual assessments to be made.
The National Policing Improvement Agency is planning a new suite at Harperley Hall, Durham; HMRC are building a Hydra suite and have appointed a suite manager; Ministry of Defence police are planning a suite at Wethersfield, Essex.
With the regional spread of Hydra suites there is not a direct need for small forces to create their own establishments and with the NPIA plans for Harperley Hall in Durham, consideration should now be given to plugging any holes in the regional map.
Bob Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) which police forces are participating in the Employer Supported Learning scheme; and in which towns the scheme is operating; [147852]
(2) how many people have been recruited to the Special Constabulary through the Employer Supported Learning scheme; and if she will make a statement. [147853]
Mr. McNulty: Responsibility for the policy development within the Special Constabulary now resides with the NPIA.
I understand from the CEO of the NPIA, that the following forces are currently participating in Employer Support programmes:
Metropolitan Police
Hampshire
Kent
Suffolk
Greater Manchester
South Wales
Bedfordshire
Cambridgeshire
Dorset
Data on the towns in which Employer Support programmes are operating and the number of Special Constables recruited from these programmes is not held centrally.
Police: Unitary Councils
Mr. Keith Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact of the creation of new unitary councils on co-terminosity of police basic command units and local authority boundaries. [146455]
Mr. McNulty: The boundaries of basic command units are administrative boundaries determined by chief constables who take into account the boundaries of local authorities in drawing them up. The consultation process should take in to account views of the local police force and authority on the impact of re-structuring proposals.
Mr. Keith Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his policy is on the co-terminosity of boundaries between police forces and local government structures. [146456]
Mr. McNulty: Current policy maintains that there should only be consequential changes to force boundaries as a result of local government reorganisation. There are no proposals being consulted on that cross police force borders.
Mr. Keith Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact of the bids of local authorities shortlisted for unitary status on policing in those areas. [146464]
Mr. McNulty:
The Home Office has been fully engaged in the local government restructuring process including emphasising the importance of consulting
local police and police authorities so that the local impact of the proposals is fully considered. Police authorities and police forces, along with a range of public bodies, have been able to submit their views as part of the consultation.
Mr. Keith Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he had with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on the local authorities seeking unitary status which appeared on the shortlist published by the Department for Communities and Local Government on 27 March 2006. [146474]
Mr. McNulty: The decision as to which proposals should proceed to stakeholder consultation reflected the collective decision of Government. All the 26 unitary proposals that were received in response to the invitation issued on 26 October 2006 were assessed against the five criteria set out in that invitation. The 16 unitary proposals that have been subject to the stakeholder consultation will now be reassessed against the same five criteria having regard to all the information available including that received in response the consultation.
Animal Experiments
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps her Department has taken in response to the recommendations of the (a) 2002 House of Lords Select Committee Report on Animals in Scientific Procedures, (b) Animals Procedures Committee (APC) 2001 Report on Openness, (c) the APC’s 2003 review of Cost-benefit Assessment in the Use of Animals in Research and (d) the APC’s 2005 Report on the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals in Scientific Procedures; and if she will make a statement. [147833]
Meg Hillier: Our response to the report of the House of Lord Select Committee on animals in scientific procedures was published in January 2003 (CM 5729) and our responses to the Animal Procedures Committee (APC) reports on openness and the cost benefit assessment have been published in the APC annual reports for 2001 and 2005, respectively. These documents are available in the House Library. We responded to the APC statistics report in January 2006 and a copy of that response is available on the Committee’s website.
The main steps we have taken in the light of these reports have been as follows. We have:
established a national centre for the replacement, refinement and reduction of animals in research (the NCSRs);
reviewed section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, the so-called “confidentiality clause”, and concluded that it should be should be retained and reviewed again when we have seen the full effect of the safeguards provided by the Freedom of Information Act 2000;
since January 2005, published the details of over 800 project licences granted under the 1986 Act on the Home Office website;
begun publishing an Animals (Scientific Procedures) Inspectorate annual report and placed copies of the first two reports, for 2004 and 2005, in the House Library;
made presentational changes to the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2005 to make them more reader-friendly;
identified further presentational changes to be made to the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2006 to be published shortly; and
through our on going contacts, worked with the NCSRs and others to identify areas of animal use in which specific gains in the reduction, replacement and refinement of animal procedures might be achievable in the future.
Other changes to the annual statistics publication will be considered later taking account of the recommendations of the Davidson Review of the transposition of European legislation in the United Kingdom and relevant issues raised by the proposed revision of European Directive 86/609/EEC, which the 1986 Act transposes into United Kingdom legislation. Some further information relevant to the cost benefit assessment will also be published when a current judicial review, the outcome of which may be relevant, has been completed.
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was of (a) producing and (b) publishing the Animals Procedures Committee's (i) 2001 report on openness, (ii) 2003 cost-benefit assessment on the use of animals in research and (iii) 2005 report on the statistics of scientific procedures on living animals; and if she will make a statement. [147839]
Meg Hillier: The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 ("the Act") requires the licensing of any experiment or other scientific procedure carried out on living, protected animals which may cause them pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm. The Animal Procedures Committee (APC) is established under section 19 of the Act to provide the Home Secretary and the Northern Ireland Secretary with independent advice about the Act and their functions under it.
For the financial year 2001-02 the Home Office was allocated in the region of £8,000 for the production of APC reports and related services. In that year the APC produced three reports, its Annual Report and reports on Biotechnology and Openness. For financial year 2003-04, £8,000 was allocated to the Home Office for production of reports, in that year the APC produced its Annual Report and a report on Cost Benefit Assessment. It should be noted that costs are not separately identifiable for the production and publication of such reports.
The Home Office Animals Scientific Procedures Division were charged £1,973 for the printing of forms, and £2,141 for publication of the 2005 Report on the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on living animals, totalling £4,114. The cost of internal resources allocated to producing this report is not separately identifiable.
Asylum
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum legacy cases have been resolved since the establishment of the dedicated directorate within the Border and Immigration Agency. [147763]
Jacqui Smith:
Lin Homer, the chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency, wrote to the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee on 19 February
2007 about the legacy programme. She explained that once reports can be produced on the programme in which Parliament and the wider public can have suitable confidence, Parliament will be updated accordingly. A copy of this letter has been placed in the Library of the House.
Asylum: Children
Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children who had applied for asylum in the UK and had their application refused were deported in each of the last five years. [148157]
Mr. Byrne: The available data are given in the table.
Information on the age of persons removed from the UK has only been available since the start of 2004. It is not possible to say what stage in the asylum process people have reached at the time of their removal (e.g. whether their application had been refused), as those departing voluntarily can do so at any stage.
Information on asylum removals is published quarterly and annually. Copies of these publications are available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics website at:
| Removals, voluntary departures( 1) , assisted returns of asylum applicants, including dependants, aged under 18( 2) , 2004 to 2006( 3) | |||
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006( 4) | |
| (1) Includes enforced removals, persons departing ‘voluntarily’ following enforcement action initiated against them, persons leaving under Assisted Voluntary Return Programmes run by the International Organization for Migration and those who it is established have left the UK without informing the immigration authorities (from 2005). (2) Age at time of removal. This figure may overstate because some applicants aged 18 or over may claim to be younger on their date of removal from the UK. (3) Figures rounded to the nearest five. (4) Provisional figures. | |||
Asylum: Iraq
Mr. Steen: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans she has to deport failed Iraqi asylum seekers living in Plymouth; how many were deported in each of the last two years; and if she will make a statement. [148160]
Mr. Byrne: Each asylum and human rights application made by an Iraqi national is, as with all other nationalities, considered individually against the background of current information from a wide range of well-recognised sources about the situation in Iraq. Those who are found not to be in need of any international protection and have no legal basis of stay in the UK may return voluntarily to any region of Iraq. Where an individual does not return voluntarily, removal may be enforced. Enforced removals will only be undertaken where we are satisfied the individual has no protection needs. Removal statistics are available in the following table.
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