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20 Mar 2008 : Column 1324W—continued
In addition the following table shows the total number of new chlamydia diagnoses undertaken by the National Chlamydia Screening Programme in England between April 2003 and December 2007.
| Number of confirmed positive chlamydia diagnoses in England: April 2003 to December 2007 | |
| Year | Number positive of confirmed chlamydia diagnoses |
| Notes: 1. The data are from NCSP registered screening venues and includes the Boots pathfinder project. 2. Data from the NCSP do not include diagnoses made in GUM clinics. 3. The NCSP screens those aged under 25 years and the data shown apply to the age group 13 to 24 years. 4. The NCSP began screening on 1 April 2003 and so data are only available from that date onwards. 5. The data available from the NCSP are the number of diagnoses made and not the number of patients diagnosed. 6. The NCSP receive data on a quarterly basis. Data for the last quarter of year 5 (January to March 2008) is not yet available. Source: National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP) | |
Smoking: Young People
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what measures he is considering to reduce levels of smoking among teenagers. [195971]
Dawn Primarolo: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) on 7 February 2008, Official Report, columns 1482-83W.
Streptococcus: Screening
Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the Answer of 5 March 2008, Official Report, column 2527W, on Streptococcus screening, when the proposal was made to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE); when he expects a response from NICE; whether he has made an assessment of the method of processing swabs for group B streptococcus carriage in NHS trusts; and if he will bring forward proposals for the enriched culture method test to be available on the NHS. [194422]
Dawn Primarolo: The proposal for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to appraise the use of an enriched culture medium for the detection of Group B streptococcus (GBS) carriage in a subset of pregnant women with clinical risk factors was submitted on behalf of the UK National Screening Committee’s GBS Coordinating Group in June 2006. NICE are currently considering this topic as part of a wider assessment of the approach they should adopt in assessing proposals for appraisals of diagnostics.
No separate assessment of the method of processing swabs for GBS carriage in national health service trusts has been made; the method used is for local services to determine.
Tobacco: Licensing
David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when and by what means he plans to monitor the effectiveness of restricted premises and sales orders when they are implemented; what information will be collected as part of the monitoring arrangements; and over what period the information will be collected. [195581]
Dawn Primarolo: The first report on the impact of restricted premises and sales orders will be published in 2010, a year after the powers for magistrates to make the orders are due to come into force. Thereafter, a report will be made to Parliament annually.
A number of indicators will reflect the impact of the new powers and can be covered in the report. These include: the number of orders imposed and the number of applications for orders made by trading standards officers; the number of prosecutions against retailers
for under-age sale of tobacco; the number of fixed penalty notices issued for under-age sale of tobacco by trading standards officers (under the Retail Enforcement and Sanctions law currently before Parliament); attempted purchase of tobacco by young people and the difficulty they encounter in doing so; smoking prevalence among older children and young teenagers under 18 (as reported annually in the Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Survey); the number of failed test purchases and smoking prevalence among 16 to 18-year-olds.
Wales
British-Irish Council
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proportion of his time is spent on the British-Irish Council; and what administrative support his Department provides to the Council. [195079]
Mr. Paul Murphy: It is too early to make a meaningful assessment of the proportion of time I will spend on British-Irish Council matters. Since my appointment I have attended a meeting in Dublin and held briefing meetings with officials. The Ministry of Justice provides the UK side of the joint UK-Irish Government secretariat which supports the work of the Council. Wales Office does not provide any administrative support to the BIC.
Council Tax
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate (a) his Department and (b) the Valuation Office Agency have made of the year-on-year changes in council tax receipts in Wales resulting from revaluation in 2005 after the end of transition relief. [195222]
Mr. Paul Murphy: The revaluation and re-banding exercise was intended to be revenue-neutral. Year-to-year changes in the level of council tax receipts are the result of local authority budget decisions.
The increase in Band D council tax was 3.8 per cent. between 2004-05 and 2005-06; 4.5 per cent. between 2005-06 and 2006-07, and 4.4 per cent. between 2006-07 and 2007-08.
Governance: Accountability
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the options for improvement of accountability of governance in Wales. [195077]
Mr. Paul Murphy:
The governance of Wales rests on three pillars—Parliament, the National Assembly and its Government, and local government. The Government
of Wales Act 2006 made important improvements to the structure of the National Assembly and Welsh Assembly Government, which took effect last May. Since then we have seen the arrangements for incremental devolution of legislative powers to the Assembly under part 3 of the Act beginning to work through. These new arrangements are already serving to improve the accountability of governance in Wales. The Government have no current plans for any changes to the Government of Wales Act 2006 in relation to this area.
Hospitals
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he holds on the number of English residents (a) in hospital and (b) in school in Wales. [195304]
Mr. Paul Murphy: I do not hold any information on the number of English residents in hospitals or schools in Wales; however (a) Health Solutions Wales produces the Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW), and in 2005-06 there were 11,918 finished consultant episodes for patients from an English commissioner in a Welsh trust. (A finished consultant episode describes the time a patient spends in the continuous care of one consultant).
(b) Similarly, data from the Stats Wales school census for January 2006 show that there were 1,500 primary and secondary school pupils known to live in England, but were in educated in Wales. This does not include figures for children who attend independent schools.
Justice
Departmental Pay
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the salary range is for each pay band of civil servants in his Department. [188804]
Bridget Prentice: Pay ranges for the senior civil service (SCS), for whom reward arrangements are managed centrally, for 2007-08 are as follows:
SCS Pay Band 1
£56,100 (minimum), £116,000 (ceiling)
SCS Pay Band 1A
£65,280 (minimum), £127,000 (ceiling)
SCS Pay Band 2
£81,600 (minimum), £160,000 (ceiling)
SCS Pay Band 3
£99,960 (minimum), £205,000 (ceiling)
Below the SCS approximately 95 per cent. of staff employed on Ministry of Justice terms and conditions are paid according to Pay scales, of which those for 2007-08 are shown in the following table.
| Inner London (Range 1) | Outer London (Range 2) | Hotspots (Range 3) | National Plus (Range 4) | National (Range 5) | ||
A small number of staff are employed on the legacy arrangements inherited from the Magistrates' Courts Service and the former DCA such arrangements did not contain comparable pay bands.
Approximately 2,000 staff joined the Ministry of Justice from the Home Office in May 2007. They remain on Home Office pay scales pending talks with the Unions. There are a very small number of staff working for the Ministry of Justice on legacy terms from other Government Departments following other machinery of Government changes.
Offenders: Custodial Treatment
Ian Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 11 March 2008, Official Report, column 378W, on offenders: custodial treatment, how many (a) young and (b) adult offenders have been sentenced to terms of immediate custody in the last five years for which records are available. [195031]
Maria Eagle: The requested information is contained in the following table.
| Persons sentenced to immediate custody by age group, sex and type of sentence, 1996 to 2006, England and Wales | ||
| Number of persons | ||
| Age, sex and year | Total immediate custody | Total persons sentenced |
| Notes: 1. Section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 was repealed on 25 August 2000 and its provisions transferred to sections 90 to 92 of the Power of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. 2. Sentences for dangerous young offenders under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which came into force on 4 April 2005 are included under ‘Unsuspended imprisonment’. 3. See Preface and Appendix 3, paragraph 3.15. 4. These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Source: RDS-NOMS, Ministry of Justice. | ||
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