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24 Feb 2009 : Column 706W—continued
Bail Accommodation and Support Service
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether any category of (a) defendant and (b) convicted offender is to be excluded from receiving assistance under the Bail Accommodation and Support Service. [257639]
Mr. Hanson: Those charged with or convicted of sex offences, those charged with or convicted of arson of buildings, those who are considered to pose a significant risk to the public or to staff and those under 18 years of age are excluded from this service.
Additionally defendants will only be released into the service if they are granted bail. The court may refuse bail if it is considered that the defendant would if granted bail abscond, offend or interfere with witnesses.
Offenders are excluded unless they are eligible for and are granted home detention curfew or are given a placement in the service as part of a community order as an intensive alternative to custody. The home detention curfew scheme applies primarily to prisoners serving sentences of at least three months but less than four years. Prisoners subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, prisoners serving public protection sentences and foreign national prisoners who are liable to removal are statutorily excluded from release under the home detention curfew scheme. In addition, prisoners serving sentences for certain serious violent offences and prisoners with any history of sexual offending are presumed unsuitable unless there are exceptional circumstances. Prisoners must pass a risk assessment to be released on HDC and are not referred to ClearSprings unless the Governor considers the prisoner is suitable for release.
Full details of the eligibility criteria for HDC and the assessment process are contained in Prison Service Order 6700 home detention curfew and details of the bail accommodation and support service are contained in Prison Service Instructions 29/2007 and 49/2007 which are available on the HM Prison Service website.
Data Protection: Fines
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when the provisions of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 amending the Data Protection Act 1998 to grant the Information Commissioner powers to fine organisations which have deliberately or recklessly breached data protection rules were first scheduled to enter into force; when he expects them to enter into force; and for what reason the commencement has been delayed. [257633]
Mr. Wills: We are committed to bringing these provisions into force as soon as possible. We will continue to work with the Information Commissioner’s Office to provide the Commissioner with the powers he needs to impose appropriate penalties on organisations who fail to comply with the data protection principles.
Departmental Catering
David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice which (a) food and (b) drinks suppliers have been used by his Department in each of the last three years; and how much his Department paid to each such supplier in each of those years. [248389]
Maria Eagle: The data in the following tables show spend on food and drink by supplier at the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) since its creation on 1 May 2007. The majority of spend is on food for use in HM Prison Service and includes food for resale to staff and catering for prisoners and staff. The remainder represents food for catering across other parts of the Ministry of Justice. 93.4 per cent. of Ministry of Justice spend on food in 2007-08 were through nationally contracted suppliers.
National contracted suppliers are shown separately in each section. These are the suppliers that are expected to be used on a continuous basis. Those marked with an asterix are used in the current financial year. All other contracts have expired and have been subsumed into other contracts by application of MOJ food procurement policy.
Ad-hoc supplier spend includes a combination of off-contract spend, food bought for resale (e.g. staff canteens) and the use of the Government Procurement Card (for ad-hoc purchases, e.g. unavailable within national contracts or emergency requirement). These figures may also include some non-food items as there are suppliers within this list that sell non-food items which are however primarily a food provider.
It was only possible to identify the use of these suppliers following implementation of an e-procurement system in 2007. By the nature of these purchases, it is not expected that these suppliers will be used in the future.
| Nationally contracted suppliers( 1) , 2007-08 | |
| Supplier name | £ |
| (1) Contracts that did not expire in financial year 2007-08 are marked with an asterix. | |
| Ad-hoc suppliers, 2007-08 | |
| Supplier name | £ |
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