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26 Nov 2007 : Column 187W—continued
Mr. McNulty: Counter-terrorism security advisers are employed by police forces.
Offenders: Deportation
Ms Abbott: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Prime Minister’s oral statement of 14 November on national security, to which countries the 4,000 foreign prisoners referred to are to be deported. [165835]
Mr. Byrne: Nationals of all countries can be considered for deportation. The Chief Executive of the Border and Immigration Agency, Lin Homer, wrote to the Home Affairs Committee on 20 November 2007 and explained that up to the first week of November, approximately 3,500 foreign national prisoners have been removed or deported in 2007. This already represents a 48 per cent. improvement on the total number of FNPs removed for the entire calendar year of 2006, and over 130 per cent. more than for the calendar years 2004 and 2005. A copy of this letter is available from the Library of the House.
Passports: Forgery
Mr. Brazier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what stage the document scanning equipment with forgery detection capability tender for (a) Heathrow airport, (b) other airports and (c) Eurotunnel has reached. [165571]
Mr. Byrne: All ports and airports were equipped with document readers with forgery detection capability as part of a technical refresh which was completed in March 2007.
Passports: Fraud
Mr. Brazier: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps are being taken to manage people who arrive at airports in the UK without the passports with which they checked in at their departure airport. [165572]
Mr. Byrne: All arriving passengers are subjected to a Border and Immigration Agency Warnings Index check. Where the passenger does not hold a passport, they are subject to further examination in order satisfactorily to establish their identity and nationality. Additional checks may also be conducted including checks with the police, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, UKVisas and the Identity and Passport Service.
Passengers who arrive without documentation and claim asylum are interviewed, photographed and have their fingerprints taken; their personal details are cross- checked against records.
Where a passenger arrives without a document and the inbound flight details are not known, inquiries are conducted in order to establish the carrier and to identify if there are any grounds to suspect that the passenger’s entry has been facilitated by a third party. If such a party is detected then prosecution under section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 (as amended) may follow.
Foreign nationals who arrive undocumented and are unable to provide a statutory defence for their actions may have committed an offence under section 2 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 and may be prosecuted accordingly.
Police
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police forces operate a system of named local police officers. [165663]
Mr. McNulty: The full implementation of Neighbourhood Policing is due to be completed by April 2008 when all 43 police forces in England and Wales will have local neighbourhood policing teams covering their entire force area.
Police forces, where such a Neighbourhood Policing team is fully in place, will aim to provide the names of individual neighbourhood policing team members together with their team contact details through written updates to the local community (such as local policing summaries) and individual police force websites. Police forces are also currently looking at other ways of conveying this information to the general public through a range of publicity material.
Police Custody
Nick Herbert: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police cells there were in each police force area on 1 November; and how many of these were reserved under Operation Safeguard. [166696]
Mr. McNulty: Information on the number of cells in each force area is not held centrally. The provision of police cell accommodation is a matter for the chief officer of each individual force.
The number of places provided by police forces for Operation Safeguard use may vary according to operational pressures. The following table gives details of police forces that on 16 November 2007 had places available in police cells as part of Operation Safeguard.
| Police force | Places available |
Police Custody: Chelmsford
Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) police cells and (b) custody suites there are in West Chelmsford constituency. [167062]
Mr. McNulty: The provision of police custody accommodation is a matter for the chief constable of Essex police and for the police authority.
Police Custody: Wales
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police cells or custody suites there are in each of the police forces in Wales. [166181]
Mr. McNulty: The provision of police custody accommodation is a matter for each chief constable and police authority.
Police Stations: Opening Hours
Mr. Boris Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many police stations were never closed in (a) England, (b) London and (c) each London borough in each year since 1997; [166926]
(2) how many police stations were open in (a) England, (b) London and (c) each London borough in each year since 1997. [166942]
Mr. McNulty: The Home Office does not have reliable data submitted by forces on the total number of police stations open and never closed since 1997.
Police: Airports
Mr. David Hamilton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 20 November 2007, Official Report, column 680W, on police: airports, (1) which non-designated airports have a routine police presence; [168504]
(2) whether information on the size of the routine police presence at (a) designated and (b) non-designated airports is held centrally. [168505]
Mr. McNulty: The uniformed police contribution to airport security in the UK is a local matter for the airport operator and the police force for the area concerned. Whether an airport is designated or not, neither party is required routinely to provide information centrally on the police presence.
Police: Allowances
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much was paid in attendance allowances to members of police authorities in England and Wales in each of the last 10 municipal years; and how much she estimates will be allocated in the 2007-08 municipal year. [165806]
Mr. McNulty: The information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Police: Armed Forces
Mr. Touhig: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what schemes are in place to encourage forces personnel to join the police service. [165984]
Mr. McNulty: It is for individual forces to decide how to target their recruitment activity.
Police: Graduates
Mr. Boris Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many university graduates have been hired by the Metropolitan Police in each year since 1997. [166921]
Mr. McNulty: This information is not held centrally. This is a matter for the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
Police: Interpreters and Translators
Mr. Malins: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) full-time and (b) part-time interpreters of the (i) Arabic, (ii) Romanian, (iii) Bulgarian, (iv) Lithuanian, (v) Czech and (vi) Polish language were employed by the police in the Greater London area in (A) 1997 and (B) 2006. [166178]
Mr. McNulty: This information is not collected centrally.
Mr. Boris Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost of translators in police stations was in (a) England and (b) each London borough in each year since 1997. [166930]
Mr. McNulty: Funding for translation and interpretation services is not separately identified. Decisions on the distribution of resources are matters for the chief officer and the police authority.
Police: Manpower
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers there were in each police authority area in England in each year since 1997; and what the ratio of police officers to residents was in each area, in each year. [165647]
Mr. McNulty: The available data are given in the following table.
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