Mr. Donaldson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether the three former senior officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC, Chris Albiston, Raymond White and Freddie Hall, who were named by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) on 24 January 2007, Official Report, column 1415W, following a report by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, were formally interviewed concerning any alleged offence during the course of the ombudsmans investigation into the death of Raymond McCord Junior and related matters; and if he will take steps to clear their names. [149982]
Paul Goggins: The three former senior officers, Chris Albiston, Raymond White and Freddie Hall, named by the hon. Gentleman were not formally interviewed in connection with any alleged offence in the course of the Police Ombudsmans investigation. I am happy to put on record that these officers, in common with many colleagues, served with commitment and distinction in very demanding policing roles in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Meacher: To ask the Solicitor-General how much the Law Officers' Departments spent on (a) management consultants and (b) other external consultants and advisers in each year since 2000; and which of these consultants undertook work for the Department with a total contractual value in excess of £10 million over this period. [146331]
The Solicitor-General: I am answering this question on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service, Serious Fraud Office, Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office, Treasury's Solicitors Department and HMCPS Inspectorate.
It has not been possible to distinguish between expenditure on management consultants and other external consultants. The statistics are also dependent on individual budget holders allocating expenditure to the correct code.
£000 | |||||
Financial year | CPS | SFO | RCPO | TSol( 1) | HMCPSI |
(1) Including AGO |
In addition the Treasury Solicitors department has incurred the following costs for externally procured legal advice for representation including expenditure which is recovered from client organisations through charges as part of the business operations of TSol.
£000 | |
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Solicitor-General what legislative provisions within the responsibility of the Law Officers' Departments introduced since 1997 have not yet been brought into force. [149681]
The Solicitor-General: My Department is not generally responsible for the carriage of legislation. We are not aware of any legislative provisions within our responsibility and introduced since 1997, which have not yet been brought into force.
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Solicitor-General how many (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there were of public sector employees for offences relating to their official duties in the last period for which figures are available. [149682]
The Solicitor-General: The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains no central record of whether the defendants it prosecutes are public sector employees or whether the offences for which defendants are prosecuted relate to their official duties.
This information may be held on individual case files, but could only be obtained by locating and examining a huge numbers of individual case files and would incur disproportionate cost (Code of Practice on Access to Information, part 2, clause 9).
Mr. Drew: To ask the Solicitor-General what monitoring the Law Officers' Departments undertake of the operation of the issuing of conditional cautions; and how many such cautions have been issued in each police authority. [149294]
The Solicitor-General: The joint Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)/Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) prosecution team is responsible for the implementation of and the day-to-day monitoring of the conditional cautioning scheme.
Monitoring of the use of the conditional cautions is undertaken at both national and local level. An information data set has been produced, which contains national and local performance data including the number of offenders being conditionally cautioned and the types of offences conditional cautions have
been issued for. The information data set is issued by the national prosecution team on a monthly basis to all staff across areas with lead responsibility for conditional cautioning.
Information contained in the information data set is obtained from the CPS case management system and management information system as well as from local areas and Home Office research, development and statistics (RDS) data. Collating the data in this way allows for a consistent, national recording mechanism which does not require additional reporting from areas.
Conditional cautioning is being implemented across each criminal justice area in a phased approach. To date, conditional cautioning is operational in 93 police basic command units across 41 out of the 42 criminal justice areas. Full implementation of the scheme across 230 basic command units is expected to be achieved by April 2008. There have been 2,963 conditional cautions issued nationally since the first pilot schemes were introduced in 2005. A breakdown of the number of conditional cautions in each CPS area is also available from:
conditional.cautioning:cps.gsi.gov.uk
In Gloucestershire, conditional cautions were introduced on 25 June 2007 in the Cotswold and Stroud division. However, to date no conditional cautions have been issued in this division.
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much his Department has spent on hospitality events in each of the last five years. [148613]
David Cairns: Scotland Office hospitality expenditure is detailed in the following table:
Hospitality expenditure (£) | |
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much was spent on overnight accommodation by civil servants within his Department's areas of responsibilities in the last 12 months. [149054]
David Cairns: I refer the hon. Member to the answer that I gave on 17 May 2006, Official Report, column 994W.
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many complaints of racial abuse relating to staff for which his Department is responsible have been (a) investigated and (b) upheld in the last 12 months. [149244]
David Cairns: There have been no complaints of racial abuse in the last 12 months.
Mr. Carmichael: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many receptions have been held at Dover House in each of the last five years. [148605]
David Cairns: The number of receptions held at Dover House is as shown in the following table. The receptions not funded by the Scotland Office were third party events organised and funded by organisations such as charities and trade associations.
Third party events | Scotland Office funded events | Total number of events | |
Mr. Gerald Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the Naval Base Review, with particular reference to Faslane. [149556]
David Cairns: The Secretary of State has regular discussions with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence on a range of subjects.
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much was spent on overnight accommodation by civil servants within his Departments areas of responsibilities in the last 12 months. [149058]
Mr. Hain: A total of £12,263.38 was spent on overnight accommodation by civil servants in the 12 months to 31 March 2007, the latest period for which we have final figures. This reflects the increased travel requirements of Cardiff-based staff in support of the heavy parliamentary legislative programme delivered by the Wales Office.
Mark Pritchard: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had with the Welsh Assembly Government on health and safety and the new Welsh gas pipeline. [149217]
Mr. Hain: My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire (Nick Ainger), and I had regular discussions with Welsh Assembly Government ministerial colleagues, including about the health and safety considerations of both phases of the liquid natural gas pipeline (LNG), and I will continue to do so as necessary.
I am confident that stringent conditions are attached to the approval. All pipelines in the United Kingdom
are designed, tested and operated in accordance with the strictest standards established by the Health and Safety Executive and the Institute of Gas Engineers.
Both the National Grid (NG) and the Milford Haven Port Authority have been working closely with Government and security services to make sure they have robust security arrangements.
The NG takes safety and security of people and assets extremely seriously and continually carries out thorough reviews of safety and security at its sites around the country based on potential risks, and has a number of procedures in place. In 35 years the UKs high-pressure National Grid Transmission System has never experienced a serious incident affecting life or property, and I am sure that NG is doing its utmost to maintain this exemplary record.
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