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29 Oct 2008 : Column 1082W—continued
Departmental Postal Services
Dr. Alasdair McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what changes her Department has made to the postal delivery service it uses for returning documents to members of the public in the last 10 years; when these changes were made; and for what reasons they were made. [228973]
Meg Hillier: To provide a response across the whole of the Home Office area of business would be disproportionate to costs. However, for passports, the Identity and Passport Service despatched passports by Royal Mail first class post until February 2004. Since then new passports have been despatched by Secure Delivery, a secure courier service provided by Secure Mail Services, a private contractor. Customers can also opt for the return of their supporting documents by Secure Delivery on payment of a fee of £3.00.
This change was due to the high numbers of passports lost within the Royal Mail. In 2003, the last year of the Royal Mail arrangements, 3,593 passports were recorded as lost in the delivery process. Following the introduction
of secure delivery, losses have been around 720 in the last two years; a reduction of over 80 per cent. The recent introduction of handheld GPS technology for couriers should significantly reduce this figure further.
Deportation: Offenders
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much has been paid in compensation since April 2006 to foreign prisoners held in custody beyond the expiry of their sentence while awaiting deportation. [227001]
Jacqui Smith: Information on successful claims for compensation made by foreign prisoners held in detention post sentence is not held centrally. It would be necessary to obtain information from all government agencies and departments who may have received claims for compensation at disproportionate cost.
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with which states the UK has signed memorandums of understanding intended to facilitate the deportation from the UK of individuals who are nationals of those states; how many persons have been deported to each country under the provisions of such memorandums; and with which states the Government is seeking to agree such memorandums. [230911]
Jacqui Smith [holding answer 27 October 2008]: Memoranda of understanding on deportation with assurances were signed with Jordan, Lebanon and Libya in 2005. Separate arrangements, set out in an exchange of letters in July 2006, apply in respect of Algeria.
The Government are pursuing similar agreements with other countries, but it would not be appropriate to identify the countries concerned until the negotiations have been concluded. Copies of any new agreements will be placed in the House Library.
To date, no-one has been deported to Jordan, Lebanon or Libya on the basis of assurances received under the memoranda of understanding with those countries. Eight men have been deported to Algeria, having withdrawn their appeals against the decision to deport them. 11 other cases are at various stages in the appeals process.
Dispersal Orders
Ms Keeble: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many dispersal orders were issued by each police authority area in England and Wales in each of the last five years. [229732]
Mr. Alan Campbell: 1,065 areas were designated under section 30 of the Antisocial Behaviour Act 2003 between 1 January 2004 and 31 March 2006 and this information broken down by police force area is enclosed in the following table. Information on the number of designated areas for the period 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2008 will be published shortly.
| Designated areas( 1) | |
| Force | Number |
| (1) January 2004 to March 2006 (2) No designated areas. (3) No data provided. | |
Driving Offences: Fixed Penalties
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many fixed penalty tickets for motoring offences were issued to non-UK residents in the last 12 months; and how many of those remain unpaid. [229951]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The information requested is not available.
It is not possible from the information held by the Home Office to match persons who have been issued with fixed penalty tickets with details of residency in the UK. The statistics are collected through aggregate returns which prevent any matching with other data sources.
Drugs: Crime Prevention
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of measures to combat drug-related crime. [228574]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The Government are committed to reducing the harms caused by illegal drugs, including drug-related crime. Most recently the Government have committed through public service agreement (PSA) 25 to reduce the harm caused by alcohol and drugs. Within this PSA three indicators relate to drugs; one of which is a commitment to reduce the rate of drug-related offending.
Recent assessment of effectiveness has shown that good progress has been made in combating drug related crime.
The previous public service agreement relating to drugs (PSA 4) committed the Government to reduce the harm caused by illegal drugs; a key measure of effectiveness in relation to this PSA is assessed by the Drug Harm Index, the single largest element of which is drug related crime. Latest figures show that since 2002 the Drug Harm Index has fallen by 28.4 per cent., representing a substantial fall in drug related crime types. As there is some delay in the availability of data which contribute to this measure, we continue to gather performance data relating to the previous PSA using the Drug Harm Index.
Effectiveness in relation to PSA 4 is also assessed through monitoring the numbers of drug users entering treatment through the Criminal Justice System. The Government's target to increase the number of drug misusers entering drug treatment through the Criminal Justice System to 1,000 per week was met two months early in January 2008 and we are currently consistently achieving over 4,000 entering treatment each month.
The Government's Drug Interventions programme (DIP) was introduced in 2003 and is central in delivering drug misusers into treatment via the criminal justice system. Recent research on DIP found that around half of offenders who came into contact with DIP had 79 per cent. lower levels of offending in the six months after their contact with the programme. The overall volume of offending for the entire cohort was 26 per cent. lower.
Latest published figures on recorded crime show that recorded acquisitive crime—to which drug-related crime makes a significant contribution—has fallen by 28 per cent. since 2002-03.
The Home Office also carries out a broad programme of scientific research to assess the effectiveness of individual interventions in relation to drugs. Home Office research is regularly published on the Home Office website. Much of the relevant evidence is summarised in
Appendix 5 of the Government's new Drug Strategy, published in February 2008—“Drugs: protecting families and communities”:
The new strategy underpins action to achieve Government commitments on drug related crime. The strategy sets out a comprehensive and co-ordinated framework, which builds on the significant successes of the last strategy, while placing a new focus on meeting the needs of families and communities, and on achieving better treatment outcomes for individuals who have developed drug misuse problems.
The Government are committed to reducing drug-related crime and will continue to monitor this through the new PSAs and through research.
Firearms: Detection Rates
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the detection rate was for offences involving firearms in each of the last 10 years, broken down by (a) offence and (b) police force area. [228896]
Jacqui Smith: The requested information is not available centrally.
Genetics: Databases
Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of the British population has a DNA sample stored on the national DNA database. [229176]
Mr. Alan Campbell: At 30 June 2008, the estimated number of individuals with a record on the National DNA Database (NDNAD) held for all United Kingdom police forces was 4,503,186. The most recent estimate of the United Kingdom population published by the Office for National Statistics is that, at mid-2007, it was 60,975,000. Comparing these two figures gives a figure of 7.39 per cent. of the United Kingdom population having a record on the NDNAD. This figure does not take account of any increase in the United Kingdom population between mid-2007 and 30 June 2008, and is, therefore, likely to be a slight overstatement.
Highly Skilled Migrant Programme
Mr. Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many permits were issued under the highly skilled migrant programme or tier 1 of the points based system in each month of 2008; which the top 10 countries of origin were in this period; and how many permits were issued to applicants from each of those countries. [227449]
Mr. Woolas [holding answer 16 October 2008]: The information is as follows:
| HSMP in and out of country initial applications granted, period January to September 2008 | |||||||||
| January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | Sept ember | |
| HSMP In and Out of Country Initial Applications Granted, Top 10 Nationalities Period January to September 2008 | |||||||||
| Top 10 Nationalities | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September |
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