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24 Oct 2007 : Column 341W—continued
Crime: Arrests
Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many arrests relating to crimes committed by members of gangs there were in 2006. [159608]
Mr. Coaker: The arrests data held by the Ministry of Justice only provide information on persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences) by age group, gender, ethnicity and main offence group. Aggregated data, collected centrally from the 43 police force areas in England and Wales, do not record the circumstances of the offence leading to an arrest.
The annual publication ‘Arrests for Recorded Crime (Notifiable Offences) and the Operation of Certain Police Powers under PACE, England and Wales’ can be found on the Home Office website at:
Crime: Homophobia
Mrs. James: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many homophobic hate crimes were reported to police forces in England and Wales in (a) 2004, (b) 2005 and (c) 2006. [156758]
Mr. Coaker: From the information collected on recorded crime, it is not possible to identify those offences which are homophobic hate crimes. Such crimes are not specifically defined by statute and details of the individual circumstances of offences do not feature in the recorded crime statistics.
Departments: ICT
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was of buying new (a) laptops, (b) mobile telephones and (c) personal digital assistant devices for new Ministers in her Department following each Cabinet reshuffle since 1997; and if she will make a statement. [156815]
Mr. Byrne: Information from 1997 to 2005 is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Information from May 2005 is as follows:
| Number of mobile phones purchased | Cost (£) | Number of Laptops purchased | Cost (£) | Number of personal digital assistant devices/Blackberrys purchased | Cost (£) | Total (£) | |
Departments: Internet
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many websites her Department operates; how many it operated at 1 January 2005; and what the estimated annual cost has been of running her Department’s websites in the last five years. [157897]
Mr. Byrne: In January 2005, the Home Office operated more than 100 websites across the estate.
As of September 2007, website rationalisation driven by the Transformational Government agenda, the Home Office now operates 34 websites:
the Home Office department website and its sub-domains
19 agency and/or non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs)
14 websites identified as soon or eventually to close under Transformational Government
The estimated annual cost of running all of these websites in any of the last five years, including this one, cannot be compiled without incurring disproportionate costs. However, we know from the NAO report (which surveyed the core Home Office and 13 of its agencies and public bodies) that the Home Office spent £17.9 million on websites in 2005-06.
Departments: Sick Leave
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many staff in her Department have taken (a) five or more, (b) four, (c) three and (d) two periods of sick leave of less than five days in the last 12 months. [147054]
Mr. Byrne: The information is shown in the following table.
| A | F | G | H | I | J | |||
| 1 | Number of staff—1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007 sickness less than 5 cal or wd per period | |||||||
| 2 | 5+ periods | 4 periods | 3 periods | 2 periods | Total permanent staff at 31 March 2007 | |||
| Notes: 1. The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) does not record data in the format requested. 2. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR) have been included in the Home Office figures because it would incur a disproportionate cost to extract NOMS and OCJR data from our figures. | ||||||||
Departments: Standards
Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of her Department’s public service agreement targets (a) take and (b) do not take account of rural proofing. [159631]
Mr. Byrne: The PSAs set the Government’s top national priorities for the next three financial years. The PSAs that the Home Secretary is responsible for leading are:
Ensure controlled, fair migration that protects the public and contributes to economic growth
Make communities safer
Reduce the harm caused by alcohol and drugs
Reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from international terrorism
Deliver a more effective, transparent and responsive criminal justice system for victims and the public (jointly with the Secretary of State for Justice and the Attorney-General)
In developing the policy which underpins all of our responsibilities including these priorities, we would always aim to fully assess the impact of all our proposals including significant effects on the rural community. Under the new impact assessment process we are required, like all Government Departments, to specifically demonstrate that we have considered rural proofing. All impact assessments are published.
The PSA framework also provides some flexibility for local agencies such as the police, local authorities, local criminal justice boards and regional Border and Immigration Agency directors to set local priorities according to local circumstances including rural needs.
Departments: Visits
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which establishments and offices within the Border and Immigration Agency and the Immigration Detention Estate Ministers in her Department have visited in the last 12 months; and if she will make a statement. [156980]
Mr. Byrne: In addition to everyday contact with Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) staff, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Ministers in her Department, regularly undertake visits to both policy and operational areas across the BIA estate.
In my capacity of Minister of State for Borders and Immigration I have personally made a large number of visits to meet Border and Immigration staff doing their jobs, visiting our detention facilities including Harmondsworth, Colnbrook, Campsfield House; many airports, among them Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Birmingham; the sea ports at Calais, Harwich and Poole, and almost all our local enforcement offices across the country, from Portsmouth to North Shields.
Deportation: Enforcement
Martin Linton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when she will consider the case of Mr. O.S. (Ref S1202771), who is awaiting the re-issue of asylum refusal papers in order to make an appeal. [155827]
Mr. Byrne: I wrote to the hon. Member on 18 October 2007.
Deportation: Offenders
Mr. Malins: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many deportation recommendations conducive to the public good were made by (a) criminal courts and (b) her Department in each of the last six months; how many were appealed against (i) successfully and (ii) unsuccessfully in each month; how many persons were deported in each month; and how many persons are currently awaiting deportation following such recommendations. [157063]
Mr. Byrne [holding answer 11 October 2007]: The information requested could be obtained only by a detailed examination of individual case records at disproportionate cost.
On 14 June the Director General of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate wrote to the Home Affairs Committee to provide the most recent information available on the deportation of foreign national prisoners. In this letter the director reported that 2,784
foreign national prisoners were deported or removed in the financial year 2006-07. A copy of this letter is available from the Library of the House.
Detection Rates: CCTV
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment she has made of the effect of CCTV cameras on crime detection in areas where they have been introduced; and if she will make a statement. [159265]
Mr. Coaker: Case studies and good practice clearly indicate that CCTV has a role to play in crime reduction and detection.
The most recent Home Office evaluation of CCTV was carried out in 2005. (Gill, M., and Spriggs, A. (2005) Assessing the Impact of CCTV. Home Office Research Study 292. London: Home Office),
The Home Office has no figures available on the extent of, or success of the use of CCTV in the context of the prosecution of offenders who commit offences.
Entry Clearances
Jo Swinson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what the average time taken was to process applications for indefinite leave to remain designated as priority cases in the last period for which figures are available; [158966]
(2) what the target timescale is for dealing with applications for indefinite leave to remain designated as priority cases. [158967]
Mr. Byrne: There is no “priority” categorisation of general caseworking indefinite leave to remain applications.
Statistical information on time taken to process applications is not collated as an average.
However the published “General Caseworking Service Standards” and the percentage of general caseworking indefinite leave to remain cases achieving those standards are as follows:
| Service standard( 1 ) (Percentage) | Within | Achieved 2006-07 (Percentage) | |
| (1) The service standard is the percentage of cases to be decided within the given timescale. (2 )The Public Enquiry Office provides a rapid turn around service for applicants applying in person for which a premium charged may be made. The majority of applicants apply by post for which a lower charge may be made. | |||
Please note this information has not been quality assured, and is not a National Statistic. It should be treated as provisional management information only.
Entry Clearances: Peterborough
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for indefinite leave to remain were received from individuals domiciled in Peterborough constituency in each quarter since 1997. [159048]
Mr. Byrne [holding answer 19 October 2007]: The requested information is unavailable and could be obtained only by examination of individual case records and therefore at disproportionate cost.
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