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19 Nov 2008 : Column 465W—continued
Prisons: Childbirth
Sandra Osborne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many women have given birth while serving a prison sentence in England in each of the last five years. [235686]
Mr. Hanson: The numbers of prisoners who have given birth while serving their custodial sentence since April 2005, when the Prison Service began collecting figures centrally, are as follows:
| Number | |
The Government are seeking to encourage greater use of community sentences for women offenders where possible. Where a custodial sentence has been given, specific provision is made for those women who are pregnant or have babies with them in prison.
Prisons: Death
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) suicides, (b) deaths from natural causes and (c) suspicious deaths there were in prisons in each year since 1997. [235955]
Mr. Malik: The National Offender Management Service’s system for classifying deaths in prison custody consists of four categories indicating the apparent cause of death. These are ‘self-inflicted’, ‘natural causes’, ‘homicide’ and ‘other non-natural’. There is no specific category of ‘suspicious deaths’. The deaths in prison custody since 1997 to 13 November 2007 have been classified as follows:
| Homicide | Natural causes | Other non-natural | Self-inflicted | Total | |
There is also one further death in 2008 which remains unclassified. As inquests can take several years to be completed, all classifications are considered as provisional. Historical numbers can change slightly when new information is received.
Small Claims: Internet
Mr. Leech: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many small claims for matters relating to the trade of counterfeit goods over the internet were reported in 2007. [235830]
Bridget Prentice: There were approximately 1.2 million small claims issued in the county courts of England and Wales in 2007. However, figures relating solely to small claims about the trade of counterfeit goods over the internet are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Treasury
Bank Services
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps are being taken to prevent future instances of home state deposit guarantee schemes being unable to cover the savings of UK depositors. [231016]
Ian Pearson: The European Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive (94/19/EC) sets the minimum level of compensation to retail depositors in credit institutions in the event of the failure of a deposit taker. The directive is in the course of being updated to increase the minimum level of coverage, reduce the payout delay and introduce 100 per cent. coverage of eligible deposits.
Banking Supervision
Mr. Andrew Turner:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the extent and scope of his responsibilities and accountability to Parliament in relation to the activity of the arms-length bodies managing the stakes taken by the Government in (a) the Royal Bank of Scotland, (b) Halifax/Bank of Scotland, (c) Lloyds TSB Bank and (d) Northern
Rock; what guidance has been offered in each case in responding to correspondence from hon. Members; and on what matters he will (i) answer questions and (ii) refer such questions to the executive bodies of each institution. [228296]
Ian Pearson: As part of the recapitalisation scheme announced on 8 October, it is intended that new non-executive directors will be appointed to the boards of each of RBS and the merged Lloyds TSB/HBOS. These will be independent non-executive directors appointed by the board of each bank. UK Financial Investments, the company which will manage the Treasury's shareholding, will work with those boards to ensure the individuals have appropriate commercial experience. The purpose behind their appointment is to strengthen the board of each bank and to provide independent oversight in respect of governance and other matters in the interests of all the shareholders of each bank.
Annual reports on UKFI's performance will be laid before Parliament, and the chair and chief executive will make themselves available for scrutiny by the relevant parliamentary committees.
Northern Rock (in common with all institutions in which UKFI has a stake) will continue to have its own independent board and management team, determining its own strategy.
Christmas
Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much (a) his Department and (b) its agencies have spent on Christmas (a) cards, (b) parties and (c) decorations in the last 12 months. [237495]
Angela Eagle: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 21 April 2008, Official Report , columns 1668-69W.
Departmental Telephone Services
Andrew George: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what guidance his Department has issued to staff responsible for handling calls from the public in respect of (a) accuracy of responses, (b) the cost to the caller, (c) the duration of calls, (d) customer satisfaction, (e) access to accurate records, (f) confidentiality, (g) access to staff capable of making executive decisions and (h) fulfilling undertakings to call a customer back; and what targets have been set for (i) each of the above categories and (ii) any other performance measures. [237088]
Angela Eagle: All Treasury officials are expected to comply with the provisions of the Civil Service Code and to deal with members of the public and their affairs fairly, efficiently, promptly, effectively and sensitively.
Hotels
Mr. Heald: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much his Department spent on hotel bills in 2007-08. [237148]
Angela Eagle: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 27 October 2008, Official Report, column 780W to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson).
Housing: Valuation
Grant Shapps: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) pursuant to the Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) of 18 June 2008, Official Report, column 988W, on housing: valuation, if he will place in the Library a copy of the maps and boundaries of each locality within the billing authority of Bromley. [235868]
(2) pursuant to the Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) of 22 July 2008, Official Report, column 1393W, on housing: valuation, for what reason the numerical co-efficient values used by the Valuation Office Agency are commercially confidential. [235875]
Mr. Timms: Valuation Office Agency (VOA) provides valuation services in competition with other providers. Publication of this information would weaken the competitive position of VOA.
Kaupthing Singer and Friedland
Mr. MacNeil: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration he gave to the partial or complete taking into public ownership of the UK operations of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander. [230732]
Ian Pearson: On 8 October acting on the advice of the bank and FSA, the Chancellor acted to protect the retail depositors in Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander, a UK-based banking subsidiary of Kaupthing Bank.
The Treasury used the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 to ensure a resolution that preserves financial stability and provides protection and continuity of business for depositors. KSF's Kaupthing Edge deposit business was transferred to ING Direct, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ING Group, which operates through its branch in the UK. The remainder of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander business was put into administration.
Any retail depositors eligible to claim under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme whose business has not been transferred to ING Direct will be paid out in full through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
This was the right course of action to protect savers, ensure financial stability, and safeguard the interests of the taxpayer.
Members: Correspondence
Ann Winterton: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he plans to reply to the letter of 19 September 2008 from the hon. Member for Congleton on behalf of her constituent Mr. Robert Arian. [236241]
Ian Pearson: I understand the Financial Services Secretary has now replied to the hon. Lady.
NHS: Consultants
Mr. Stephen O'Brien:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to the recent analysis of consultants' NHS and private incomes funded by the Department of Health, on what occasions in the last
five years access to (a) anonymised, (b) pseudo-anonymised and (c) non-anonymised data from tax returns has been granted to (i) non-HM Revenue and Customs personnel and (ii) non-Civil Service personnel; and how many tax returns have been used in this way. [231976]
Mr. Timms: In the last five years, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has conducted sample surveys into consultants' earnings on behalf of Department of Health for the tax years 2001-02, 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05, using data derived from HMRC records. HMRC has not released any data from this work to non-HM Revenue and Customs personnel in either pseudo-anonymised or non-anonymised form. Only anonymised outputs were released to Department of Health or to The NHS Information Centre for health and social care. The number of tax records used in each study is as follows:
| Income tax year | Count of tax records |
In addition, at the request of Department of Health for 2003-04 only, HMRC created an anonymised statistical dataset relating to consultants' earnings. It contained only the data items for 24,407 cases that were necessary to enable an academic researcher acting on behalf of Department of Health to undertake statistical analysis. The researcher was only allowed supervised access to this one anonymised, statistical dataset on HMRC premises, in a stand alone, secure environment.
Performance Appraisal
David Simpson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many staff in his Department did not achieve an acceptable assessment grade in their annual report in the latest reporting year for which figures are available. [235210]
Angela Eagle: During the reporting year 2007-08:
41 (6 per cent.) staff below SCS received a tranche 3 appraisal marking described as
“Some significant shortcomings over the performance year that need to be addressed or are being addressed, expected overall to be around 5 to 10% of people across the Treasury.”
5 (7 per cent.) staff in the SCS received a group 4 marking described as
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