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23 Feb 2009 : Column 350W—continued
Legal Opinion
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the cost was of external legal services provided to his Department in each of the last five years. [251352]
Maria Eagle: The Ministry of Justice was established on 9 May 2007 as a merger between the former Department for Constitutional Affairs and parts of the Home Office, namely the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR).
Some of the legacy systems inherited by the Department do not separately distinguish expenditure on external legal expenses from other types of legal expenditure. This information can be provided only at disproportionate cost.
For activities relating to the former Department for Constitutional Affairs (comprising the core Department and its agencies, HM Courts Service, Tribunal Service and Office of the Public Guardian) accounting records indicate that expenditure over the last five years on external legal services was as follows:
| £ | |
Expenditure on external legal services includes all use of counsel and solicitors in private practice and excludes advice from in-house legal advisers or Treasury solicitors.
Offenders: Personal Records
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) pursuant to the answer of 9 February 2009, Official Report, column 1536W, on offenders: personal records, what his Department plans to do with the data once it completes its analysis of the final cohort; [257003]
(2) how many offenders there were on the Offenders Index when it was last updated. [257160]
Mr. Hanson: There were about 8 million offenders on the Offenders Index database in December 2006. The Department no longer uses the Offender Index to provide routine data on reoffending and criminal history. We are currently analysing the final cohort of offenders extracted from the Offenders Index which are based on data up to December 2006. The Department has no plans for a further update but will retain the data after completion and publication of the analysis.
Since 2005, the Ministry of Justice has been using data extracted from its Police National Computer database to provide the published figures on reoffending.
Mr. Oaten:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 9 February 2009, Official Report, column 1536W, on offenders: personal records,
whether his Department plans to delete any of the data which are not being used. [258229]
Mr. Hanson: The Department no longer uses the Offenders Index to provide routine data on reoffending and criminal history; we now use data extracted from the Police National Computer to provide the published figures on reoffending. We are currently analysing the final cohort of offenders extracted from the Offenders Index. Although we do not plan to use the Offenders Index in future we have no plans to delete any of the data as there is a range of possible future uses for them.
Open Prisons
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many places in semi-open prisons for adult women prisoners (a) there are in England and Wales and (b) there will be in England and Wales after 2 March 2009 following the re-designation of HM Prison/Young Offender Institution Drake Hall and HM Prison Morton Hall. [258091]
Mr. Hanson: Following the recent announcement from the National Offender Management Service to re-designate HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Drake Hall and HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Morton Hall, there will be no semi-open prisons for adult women in England and Wales after 2 March 2009.
Police Stations: Prison Accommodation
Jenny Willott: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many nights have been spent by prisoners in police cells in each police force under Operation Safeguard (a) in total and (b) in each month since April 2008; and if he will make a statement. [254948]
Mr. Hanson: Operation Safeguard was activated between 12 October and 22 December 2006 and again from 16 January 2007 to 31 October 2008. Police cells have not been used since 22 September 2008 and no police cells have been on stand by since the end of October 2008.
The following table details usage between 12 October 2006 and 22 September 2008 and gives the aggregate total of the number of prisoner nights in which a police cell was used. It is not possible to ascertain how many individual prisoners these totals cover.
| Number | |
The following table details month by month usage since 1 April 2008 and again gives the aggregate total of the number of prisoner nights in which a police cell was used.
| Number | ||||||||
| 2008 | ||||||||
| April | May | June | July | August | September | October | ||
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