Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
12 Jan 2009 : Column 316Wcontinued
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent steps the Government has taken to reduce levels of car thefts. [244560]
Mr. Alan Campbell: There has been a significant and sustained reduction in vehicle crime. Since 1997 all vehicle crime is down by 57 per cent. The police recorded a 5 per cent. decrease in the number of cars stolen between 2006-07 and 2007-08. This decrease is also reflected in the British Crime Survey for 2007-08 which shows a reduction of 11 per cent. for vehicle-related thefts compared with 2006-07.
Maintaining this reduction is important, but our strategy reflects the success to date and the maturity of practice in this area. The Crime Strategy outlines our approach that Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, Community Safety Partnerships and other local partners should focus on the issues of greatest priority in each locality through local area agreements. As part of the local area agreement process 98 of the 150 local areas have chosen serious acquisitive crime, of which vehicle crime is an important component, as one of their key priorities for improvement. Central Government are also held to account through Public Service Agreement 23 which measures the progress in tackling serious acquisitive crime.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent steps the Government have taken to reduce levels of retail theft. [244562]
Mr. Alan Campbell:
In 2007, the Home Office set up the National Retail Crime Steering Group, to provide a forum for retailers to raise issues of concern with Government and devise strategies for tackling retail
crime. Current issues the group is addressing include ensuring Penalty Notices for Disorder are issued appropriately and consistently, developing and disseminating good practice guidance for local retailers and crime reduction partnerships to work more effectively together, and designing a new Commercial Victimisation Survey. The introduction of neighbourhood policing teams will also ensure that retailers concerns are reflected in local policing priorities. This will be backed up by guidance from the National Police Improvement Agency, and the reforms set out in the Policing Green Paper From the neighbourhood to the national: policing our communities together' to give local people, including businesses, a greater say in how their neighbourhoods are policed.
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost implications for the UK Border Agency are of the London Olympics in 2012. [241607]
Jacqui Smith: Work is continuing to finalise the strategy and plans for the security of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Any decisions will need to take account of operational needs, affordability within the total funding envelope and the need to secure value for money.
Mr. Garnier:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners in England and Wales were released into the custody of the UK
Border Agency and its predecessors in each of the last 12 months. [244481]
Mr. Woolas [holding answer 16 December 2008]: The Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency has regularly written to the Home Affairs Select Committee with all of the most robust and accurate information on the deportation of foreign criminals, including updates on the numbers of such individuals who are subject to deportation action and are detained following completion of their custodial sentence in order to facilitate their eventual deportation. In her letter of 23 July she advised the Committee that there were around 1,650 such individuals who were detained beyond their sentence under immigration powers. Copies of all of these letters are available in the Library of the House.
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many UK Border Agency (UKBA) enforcement operations have taken place on Saturdays or Sundays in each month of 2008, broken down by each UKBA region. [243117]
Mr. Woolas: The UK Border Agency adopts an intelligence-led approach to operations. The number of UK Border Agency enforcement operations that have taken place on Saturdays or Sundays in each month to end September 2008, broken down by each region of the UK Border Agency is detailed in the following table.
The data provided are management information. They may be subject to change and do not represent published national statistics.
Saturday/Sunday operations by month, 2008 | ||||||||||
Command | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | Total |
Note: All data are sourced from the National Operations Database (NOD) or Crime Management Information (CMI) system. The NOD/CMI is a management information tool and data from it are not quality assured under National Statistics protocols. Figures provided from the NOD/CMI do not constitute part of National Statistics and should be treated as provisional. |
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average waiting time to process Criminal Records Bureau checks in each police force area was in the latest period for which information is available. [246843]
Meg Hillier: Data concerning the average time taken to complete a disclosure by police force area are not a performance target and are not collated by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).
The CRB operates to a set of published service standards (PSS) which include to issue 90 per cent. of Standard Disclosures within 10 days and 90 per cent. of enhanced disclosures within 28-days.
Average figures do not give an accurate indication of performance, since any forces' performance can be affected by a number of factors; the volume of cases sent to a force to process in any given month, the number of staff available to process the checks and the IT resources on hand to forces. With these variables, performance can fluctuate within individual forces from one month to the next.
However, you may be interested to note that comparative police force performance data can be found on the CRB website at:
Chris Grayling:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been granted work permits in the last 12 months, broken
down by (a) country of origin and (b) duration of work permit. [244722]
Mr. Woolas: The following table shows the number of work permits granted broken down by the country of origin and the duration of the work permit:
Next Section | Index | Home Page |