Written Answers to Questions
Monday 28 April 2008
Solicitor-General
Administration of Justice: Appeals
Nick Herbert: To ask the Solicitor-General how many appeals on the grounds of undue leniency were made in each of the last five years. [200203]
The Solicitor-General: The Attorney-General's Office publishes annual statistics on unduly lenient sentence references on its website:
The following table shows the number of offenders whose sentences were referred to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient, the number of offenders whose references were subsequently withdrawn and the number of offenders who were therefore brought before the Court of Appeal in each of the last five years for which full statistics have been published.
| Offenders referred to Court of Appeal | Withdrawn references | Offenders brought to the Court of Appeal | |
Nick Herbert: To ask the Solicitor-General how many appeals on the grounds of undue leniency against the minimum tariff applied in cases of indeterminate sentences for public protection were made in each of the last three years. [200205]
The Solicitor-General: The Attorney-General's Office publishes annual statistics on unduly lenient sentence references on its website:
The following table shows the number of offenders whose sentences were referred to the Court of Appeal on the basis that the minimum term attached to a sentence of imprisonment for public protection (under section 225 (3) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003) was unduly lenient in each of the years when the sentence was available to the court and for which full statistics have been published.
| Offenders referred | |
| Number | |
| (1) The legislation came into force on 4 April 2005 and applies to offences committed from that date. | |
Corruption: Bosnia
John Austin: To ask the Solicitor-General whether the Attorney General has sought views from other Government Departments about providing consent for the Serious Fraud Office to pursue a prosecution relating to alleged corrupt activity in Bosnia by the UK-based company EFT. [200807]
The Solicitor-General: I do not propose to comment on the details of a case currently under consideration.
John Austin: To ask the Solicitor-General what the reasons are for the time taken by the Attorney General's Office to decide the application for consent for the Serious Fraud Office to pursue an overseas corruption prosecution related to an alleged corrupt activity in Bosnia by a UK-based company. [201993]
The Solicitor-General: A decision whether to consent to a prosecution is not a rubber-stamping exercise. The time taken to process a case may depend on the nature and complexity of the issues, legal and otherwise, and any dialogue with the prosecuting authority that may be necessary. I do not propose to comment on an individual case that is currently under consideration.
Sexual Offences: Appeals
Nick Herbert: To ask the Solicitor-General how many appeals on the grounds of undue leniency against sentences for rape were made in each of the last five years. [200206]
The Solicitor-General: The Attorney-General's Office publishes annual statistics on unduly lenient sentence references on its website:
The following table shows the number of offenders whose sentences for offences including rape(1) were referred to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient in each of the last five years for which full statistics have been published.
(1) This includes attempted rape, conspiracy to rape and incitement to rape offences.
| Offenders referred to Court of Appeal | |
| Number | |
Teachers: Misconduct
Michael Gove: To ask the Solicitor-General (1) how many allegations of assault or professional misconduct brought against teachers by pupils were referred to the Crown Prosecution Service in each year since 1997; [202068]
(2) how many teachers prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service were found guilty of assault or professional misconduct following allegations by pupils in each year since 1997. [202072]
The Solicitor-General: The records maintained by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) do not identify defendants in criminal proceedings by their profession or by their professional relationship with victims. To obtain this information, by reference to individual case files, would incur disproportionate cost (Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, part 2, clause 9).
Northern Ireland
Departmental Equality
Sammy Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much expenditure his Department has incurred in conducting (a) equality screening exercises and (b) equality impact assessments in each of the last three years. [200614]
Mr. Woodward: The Northern Ireland Office has in each of the last three years only incurred normal staff costs in conducting (a) equality screening exercises and (b) equality impact assessments as no external resources were engaged to carry out these exercises.
Sammy Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many (a) equality screening exercises and (b) equality impact assessments his Department conducted in each of the last three years; and how many of each it proposes to conduct in 2008. [200621]
Mr. Woodward: Details of (a) equality screening exercises and (b) equality impact assessments conducted by the Northern Ireland Office in each of the last three years are available in the Department’s Section 75 Annual Progress Reports which appear on the NIO website at:
http://www.nio.gov.uk/index/niopublication/niopubsearch esults.htm?category=Rights_and_Equality&keyword=Section+75&order=date&submitbutton.x=10&submitbutton. y=11
Information on the number of (a) equality screening exercises and (b) equality impact assessments the Department proposes to conduct in 2008-09 is being collated and will appear in the 2007-08 Annual Progress Report which will be published on the NIO website later this year.
Departmental Public Participation
Stewart Hosie: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many public consultations have been held by his Department since March 2007; and how many respondents took part in each consultation carried out by his Department in the last three years. [198680]
Mr. Woodward: In each of the last three years the Northern Ireland Office held the following number of public consultations:
| Number | |
The number of responses to these consultations varies greatly ranging from no responses in the consultation “Search Code of Practice issued under POCA 2002”, to several thousand responses in the consultation on "Review of Sexual Offences".
Departmental Translation Services
Mr. Paul Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland pursuant to the answer of 6 March 2008, Official Report, column 2689W, on departmental translation services, how much his Department, associated agencies and non-departmental public bodies spent on translation services into (a) Irish, (b) Welsh and (c) other languages in (i) 2003-04, (ii) 2004-05, (iii) 2005-06, (iv) 2006-07 and (v) 2007-08 to date. [197551]
Mr. Woodward: The information requested is not held centrally and to provide this information would incur disproportionate costs. The Department, associated agencies and non-departmental bodies can provide the following information on translation services:
| Spend on translation services | ||
| £ | ||
| Irish | Other languages | |
Spend on translation services into other languages mainly comprises ethnic minority languages.
As indicated in a previous question (187993) figures are not yet available for the period 2007-08 but we shall lay this information in the Library of the House as soon as it becomes available.
Driving under Influence: Reoffenders
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people convicted of drink-driving related offences in Northern Ireland where a custodial sentence was not given were subsequently convicted of similar offences within 12 months of the original conviction in the last five years. [201507]
Paul Goggins: The table gives the number of convictions for drink/drug-driving related offences in Northern Ireland where a non-custodial sentence was given. Data in relation to the number of people who were subsequently convicted of similar offences within 12 months are not available. However, in 2004 (the latest year for which data are available) the two-year reconviction rate for all those sentenced to supervised community sentences was 33.7 per cent. compared with the predicted rate of 42.8 per cent. While we are not complacent, this is an encouraging sign and a clear indication that the measures and wide range of schemes put in place by the various criminal justice agencies to help reduce reconviction by offenders is having a positive impact.
Data in the following table cover the calendar years 2002 to 2006 (the latest available years) and are collated on the principal offence rule; so only the most serious offence with which an offender is charged is included.
| Number of persons convicted of drink/drug-driving related offences( 1) in Northern Ireland who were given non-custodial sentences 2002-06 | |
| Number of persons given non-custodial sentences | |
| (1) It is not possible to separate out drug-related offences from alcohol-related offences for the offences of ‘driving when unfit through drink or drugs’, ‘driving while under the influence of’, ‘attempting to drive while under the influence of’ and ‘in charge of a vehicle when under the influence of’. | |
Electoral Register
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what estimate he has made of the percentage of 18 year olds in Northern Ireland on the electoral register. [201508]
Paul Goggins: The Secretary of State has not made an estimate of the percentage of 18-year-olds in Northern Ireland on the electoral register. This is a matter for the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland and the hon. Member may wish to contact the Chief Electoral Officer directly.
Emergency Calls: Hoaxes and False Alarms
Mr. Gregory Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many 999 calls turned out to be hoaxes in 2007; and how many such callers then involved a genuine 999 call in the same general vicinity. [201505]
Paul Goggins: The Chief Constable has provided the following answer:
“The total number of hoax calls using the reporting method of 999 to PSNI from 1 January to 31 December 2007 was 884. The information sought in the second half of the question is not recorded in the way requested but the total number of non hoax calls using the same method was 99,296.”
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