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Protection from Harassment Act 1997

James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people were (a) charged, (b) prosecuted and (c) convicted for offences under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 in each of the last 10 years. [214437]

Maria Eagle: The number of persons proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty at all courts for offences under Section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 in England and Wales for the years 1997 to 2006 can be viewed in the following table. Section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 came into force on 16 June 1997.

Charging data are not held by the Ministry of Justice. Information on numbers proceeded against has been provided in lieu of charging data.

These data are on the principal offence basis. The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, the offence selected is the one for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.

Court proceedings data for 2007 will be available in the autumn of 2008.

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The number of persons proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty at all courts for offences under Section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, England and Wales, 1997 to 2006( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
	Proceeded against	Found guilty
1997	507	249
1998	4,301	2,222
1999	5,540	2,753
2000	5,976	2,929
2001	5,873	2,806
2002	5,842	2,864
2003	5,891	3,020
2004	5,973	3,348
2005	5,678	3,635
2006	5,446	3,768
(1) Data are on the principal offence basis. (2 )Data include the following statutes and corresponding offence descriptions: Protection from Harassment Act 1997 Sec.2 as amended by Crime & Disorder Act 1998 Sec.32(l)(a),(3). Racially Aggravated Offence of Harassment. Religiously aggravated offence of harassment. Racially or religiously aggravated offence of harassment. Protection from Harassment Act 1997 Sec.2. Offence of Harassment. (3 )Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts, and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (4 )Staffordshire police force were only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates courts for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust enough at a detailed level and have been excluded from the table. (5 )Section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 came into force on 16 June 1997. Source: Court proceedings data held by RDS—Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Ministry of Justice.

James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many restraining orders were issued by courts following a conviction under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 in each of the last 10 years; and how many such orders have been breached. [214438]

Maria Eagle: The number of restraining orders issued and the number of persons sentenced for breaches of a restraining order are set out in the tables.

Statistics for 2007 will be published in the autumn.

Number of persons sentenced( 1) for breach of a restraining order, all courts, England and Wales 1997-2006
Offence	Year	Number of persons sentenced
Breach of a restraining order	1997	14
	1998	273
	1999	471
	2000	561
	2001	534
	2002	597
	2003	689
	2004	760
	2005	876
	2006	861
(1) These data are on the principal offence basis. Note: 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: OMS Analytical Services

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Number of persons given a restraining order( 1) for offences of harassment( 2) , all courts, England and Wales, 1997-2006
Number of persons
Disposal	Year	Offence of harassment	Racially aggravated offence of harassment	Religiously aggravated offence of harassment	Racially or religiously aggravated offence of harassment	Total
Restraining order (harassment)(3)	1997	—	—	—	—	—
	1998	15	—	—	—	15
	1999	30	—	—	—	30
	2000	30	—	—	—	30
	2001	34	1	—	—	35
	2002	56	4	—	—	60
	2003	101	7	1	2	111
	2004	95	10	—	—	105
	2005	156	11	—	—	167
	2006	181	11	1	1	194
(1) These data are on the principal offence basis. (2) Offences of harassment under Protection from Harassment Act 1997 S.2 only have been included. (3) Section 5 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 allows for a court sentencing a person convicted of an offence under either section 2 or section 4 of the Act to impose a restraining order. The disposal code used to determine the number of restraining orders given does not separately identify offences that fall under section 2 or section 4. Note: 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: OMS Analytical Services

James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent assessment he has made of the use of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 to combat abuse and harassment committed via the internet. [214439]

Maria Eagle: The Protection from Harassment Act was introduced primarily to tackle stalking. A research study published by the Home Office in August 2000 showed that it was being used to deal with a variety of behaviour other than stalking, including domestic and inter-neighbour disputes. There has been no research into the use of the Act specifically in relation to the internet but the law applies to online as well as off-line behaviour and we know from press reports that it has been used to convict people of harassment committed through that medium.

Sexual Offences: Jurisdiction

Mr. Sarwar: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will bring forward proposals to amend the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to apply extraterritorial jurisdiction to offences committed abroad by UK nationals which would be considered criminal under domestic law. [213822]

Maria Eagle: It is already an offence under section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for a British citizen or UK resident to commit sex offences overseas against children under the age of 16 providing that such acts are also offences in the country where they are committed.

We have recently strengthened these provisions in section 72 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. When this section of the Act is implemented on 14 July it will be possible to prosecute a British citizen for child sex offences committed overseas regardless of whether the acts are legal in the country in question. We have also amended the relevant age for these provisions so that they will now apply to victims under the age of 18.

This change will mean that British citizens who travel abroad to exploit children will not be able to evade justice by targeting countries whose laws offer less protection to children than the laws of the UK.

Taking extraterritorial jurisdiction is a major step but we believe it is fully justified in respect of offences committed against children by our citizens abroad. We have no plans to extend this further at this stage.

Wood

Mr. Peter Ainsworth: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how much timber and how many timber products were procured by his Department and its predecessor in each of the last five years; and at what cost; [213746]

(2) how much timber and how many timber products were procured by his Department and its predecessor originating from independently verified legal and sustainable sources or from a licensed FLEGT partner in each of the last five years; and at what cost. [213747]

Mr. Wills: We do not hold central records of the furniture purchased in the last five years, to retrieve such information would involve manual checks of local records at disproportionate time and cost. The Ministry of Justice buys the vast majority of its furniture from OGC Buying Solutions frameworks. All furniture purchased from these frameworks are from legal and sustainable sources.

Within the National Offender Management Service, it is our policy to make furniture in-house from raw materials sourced from a range of suppliers, rather than buy the furniture as finished products.

Work and Pensions

Departmental Assets

Mr. Weir: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions over what period his Department depreciates the asset value of its (a) vehicles, (b) computer hardware, (c) bespoke computer software, (d) standard computer software, (e) furniture and (f) telecommunications equipment. [213225]

Mrs. McGuire: The Department for Work and Pensions depreciates its assets over periods consistent with the accounting standards laid out in HM Treasury’s Financial Reporting Manual (FReM).

Departmental Buildings

Stewart Hosie: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department spent on (a) new capital investment and (b) refurbishment of property in each of the last 10 years, broken down by project. [212871]

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Mrs. McGuire: The total amount spent by the Department on new capital investment and refurbishment of property in the last 10 years is set out in the following table.

The figures include the nationwide rollout of the new Jobcentre Plus network and other major departmental initiatives in The Pension Service and Debt Management.

It is not possible to supply the data by project, or to differentiate between new capital investment and refurbishment, as this information is not collated centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

	£ million
1997-98	52.4
1998-99	14.6
1999-2000	23.3
2000-01	23.7
2001-02	77.8
2002-03	170.0
2003-04	282.3
2004-05	117.3
2005-06	278.9
2006-07	162.2

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