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17 July 2008 : Column 594W—continued
Alcoholic Drinks: Crime
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were convicted of crimes in which alcohol was a contributory factor in England and Wales in each of the last three years. [215021]
Mr. Coaker: The Ministry of Justice does not hold statistics on convictions in which alcohol has been a contributory factor.
Alcoholic Drinks: Young People
Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) fixed penalty notices were issued and (b) prosecutions were brought for the offences of (i) selling alcohol to a person under age, (ii) buying alcohol under age and (iii) buying alcohol on behalf of someone under age in the last year for which figures are available. [206386]
Mr. Coaker: The number of penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) issued, and the number of defendants proceeded against at the magistrates court for the offences of selling alcohol to a person under the age of 18, purchasing alcohol while under the age of 18, and purchasing alcohol on behalf of someone under 18 can be found in the following table.
Mr. Evennett: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were (a) cautioned, (b) prosecuted and (c) given a penalty notice for disorder for selling alcohol to people under the age of 18 years in each borough in London in each of the last five years. [209842]
Mr. Coaker: The number of (a) cautions, (b) prosecutions at magistrates courts for the years 2002 to 2006 and (c) penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) for the years 2004 to 2006 for the offence of selling alcohol to people under the age of 18 years in the City of London and Metropolitan Police force areas can be viewed in the following table.
We are unable to provide figures on individual London boroughs as data are not collected at this level of detail by the Ministry of Justice.
| N umber of cautions issued, defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts, and issued with a penalty notice for disorder for offences relating to the sale of alcohol to a person under the age of 18 years, in the Metropolitan and City of London police force areas, 2002-06( 1,)( )( 2,)( )( 3,)( )( 4) | |||
| Cautions( 5) | Proceeded against | Penalty notices for disorder | |
| (1) Cautions and proceeded against data are on the principal offence basis. Data on PNDs are a straight count of the number issued during each year. (2) Data include the following offence descriptions and corresponding statutes: Holder of occasional permission or his agent knowingly selling to, knowingly allow consumption by or allowing any person to sell, intoxicating liquor to a person under 18. Selling etc intoxicating liquor to person under 18 for consumption on the premises. Licensing (Occasional Permissions) Act 1983 schedule (s. 3) para 4(1). Licensing Act 1964 s. 169(1). Sale of alcohol to person under 18. Licensing Act 2003 s.146(1) Wholesaler selling intoxicating liquor to a person under 18. Licensing Act 1964 s. 181A (1) as added by Licensing Act 1988 s. 17. Allow sale of alcohol to an individual under 18. Licensing Act 2003 s. 147(1) and (5) Sell alcohol to under 18 s.169A, Licensing Act 1964 Sale of alcohol anywhere to a person under 18. s. 146(1) of the Licensing Act 2003 (3) The Licensing Act 2003 came into force on 24 November 2005. (4) 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, other agencies, 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. (5) From 1 June 2000 the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 came into force nationally and removed the use of cautions for persons under 18 and replaced them with reprimands and final warnings. Reprimands and final warnings are included in the data. (6) There are no data for 2002 and 2003 as the PND scheme was rolled out in 2004 Source: Court proceedings data held by RDS— Office for Criminal Justice Reform— Ministry of Justice | |||
Corporate Alliance on Domestic Violence
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department who the members are of the Corporate Alliance on Domestic Violence; what the outcomes of (a) meetings and (b) initiatives of the alliance have been over the last five years; and when it last met. [218818]
Mr. Coaker: In September 2005 the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence (CAADV) was launched by the Home Secretary and taken forward by Baroness Scotland.
Since its launch over 160 new companies have joined the Alliance, which has an executive board including, The Body Shop International, KPMG, the NHS Employers organisation and AOL.
Key outcomes and initiatives have been the development of online resources such as a workplace policy template, strategic communications toolkit, case studies and information on employee training:
We are working with CAADV to review its terms of reference and work programme for this year.
Crime
Alun Michael: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment she has made of the performance of local authority areas in England and Wales in implementation of local crime and disorder reduction audits against objectives; and which local authorities were found to have the best audits in terms of (a) clarity, (b) mapping and (c) methodology in the last year for which details are available. [218536]
Mr. Coaker: Following a review of the partnerships provisions of the Crime and Disorder 1998 Act, the duties to produce three yearly audits and to report annually to the Secretary of State on a partnership's work and progress were repealed in 2007. They were replaced by new statutory requirements in 2007 to introduce minimum standards for partnership working based on six hallmarks of effective partnerships, providing clear statements of the core functions of crime and disorder reduction partnership or community safety partnership in Wales. These include producing a strategic assessment identifying local community safety priorities and a partnership plan which sets out the approach for addressing these priorities. Partnerships have a duty to publish a summary of the partnership plan in a format of their choice but in a way that makes it available to diverse groups in their communities.
We do not intend to introduce a compliance regime to oversee the implementation of the standards or the hallmarks. However, we will want to carry out a programme to review whether or not the statutory requirements of national minimum standards are in place and produce a preliminary report later in 2008.
We are also developing a self-evaluation toolkit so that partnerships can identify their own areas for improvement. Regional Government offices are also available to offer advice and assistance to partnerships and we are taking forward work with the Association of Chief Police Officers on how best to make available local crime information including mapping.
Crimes of Violence: Young People
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the number of people under the age of 18-years-old in criminal gangs in each of the last 10 years. [218381]
Mr. Coaker: There are no reliable estimates of the number of young people involved in “gangs”.
The 2004 OCJS survey estimated that 6 per cent. of young people aged 10 to 19 were classified as belonging to a “delinquent youth group” (involving a group of more than three members who had been involved in delinquent or criminal behaviour in the previous 12 months, the group also having other structural features). However, these groups are not necessarily involved in violence and would not all be considered to be “street gangs”.
Domestic Violence
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will publish the minutes of meetings of the Inter-ministerial Group on Domestic Violence; what the outcomes of (a) meetings and (b) initiatives of the group have been over the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [218817]
Mr. Coaker: We do not publish the minutes of the Inter-ministerial Group on domestic violence (set up in 2003). This is because the minutes often record the considerations made when formulating and developing Government policy. Any premature disclosure may result in closing off alternative decisions or courses of action.
A report on the progress made against the National Domestic Violence Delivery Plan, which the IMG oversees, is published annually. The annual reports for 2005-06; 2006-07 are on the website and the report for 2007-08 will be published shortly.
Key initiatives have been: the development of the Specialist Domestic Violence Programme; developing the co-ordinated Community Response to domestic violence; supporting the roll-out of Independent Domestic Violence Advisers and Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences; and the establishment of the Forced Marriage Unit.
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans she has to establish a register of domestic violence offenders; and if she will make a statement. [218819]
Mr. Coaker: The Government do not have any current plans to establish a register of domestic violence offenders. The Tackling Violence Action Plan however does ask crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs) to develop mechanisms for sharing personal information between agencies to monitor the behaviour of potentially violent offenders and move to protect those victims most at risk.
Domestic Violence: Curriculum
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families on the treatment of domestic violence issues within the curriculum. [218820]
Mr. Coaker:
The Home Affairs Committee Report into Domestic Violence, Forced Marriage and “Honour”-Based Violence published in June this year made recommendations on the treatment of domestic violence
issues within the curriculum. The Home Office and DCSF have been working together on the Government’s response to the report.
The curriculum already provides scope for the exploration of issues relating to domestic violence principally, although not exclusively, within personal, social and health education (PSHE), which includes sex and relationship education (SRE). It is important that we focus efforts on raising the overall standard of teaching in PSHE and SRE, where issues to do with healthy relationships, managing conflict and aggression would be addressed, and alerting schools to ways in which domestic violence can be used as context for exploring key concepts within the PSHE curriculum. To raise the standard of teaching we are already training teachers on PSHE, rolling out the Healthy Schools Programme and providing advice and guidance through bodies such as the QCA and PSHE Association.
We are also currently conducting two parallel reviews on how to improve the teaching of sex and relationships education and drug education within the context of PSHE. We will give careful consideration to all of the recommendations from the reviews when they report later this summer.
Domestic Violence: Re-offenders
Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment she has made of the levels of reoffending rates by perpetrators of domestic violence. [218832]
Mr. Coaker: We do not collect information on re-offending by perpetrators of domestic violence centrally.
However we do have measures in place to reduce re-offending of domestic violence offenders. Firstly by focusing on the protection of victims through Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) which identify those victims most at risk of serious harm and develop interventions to reduce the risk of repeat victimisation and by managing the offender.
Secondly, three accredited domestic abuse perpetrator programmes have been developed for convicted domestic abuse perpetrators. The Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP) and the Community Domestic Violence Programme (CDVP) have been fully implemented in all probation areas in England and Wales. The Healthy Relationships Programme (HRP) is run in custody. To ensure the effectiveness of the programmes, a range of evaluation projects has been commissioned.
Thirdly, we are funding RESPECT to develop national standards for perpetrator programmes outside of the criminal justice system.
Domestic Violence: Victim Support Schemes
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) when she plans to begin the new scheme targeted at domestic violence victims with no recourse to public funds, which will pay their housing and living costs if they are granted indefinite leave to remain; [217327]
(2) if her Department will establish a working group with members drawn from non-governmental organisations and women's groups to advise it on policy on women with no recourse to public funds who have experienced domestic violence. [217376]
Mr. Coaker: The development of the new scheme which will provide support to victims of domestic violence who are successful in applying for indefinite leave to remain is currently being negotiated and will be implemented later in the year. The proposals under the new scheme will strengthen the way in which domestic violence cases are considered, enabling those victims who are vulnerable to access additional support. Details of the scheme will be made available shortly.
We have established a national stakeholder advisory group on domestic violence which includes representation from organisations supporting women with no recourse to public funds. We will soon also set up a national Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) working group of Government, statutory agencies and third sector organisations that will promote a partnership approach to issues on domestic and sexual violence, forced marriage, so called honour crimes and female genital mutilation. The aim of the group will be to identify and develop actions and practical tools to assist victims and potential victims of these crimes.
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