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12 Mar 2009 : Column 668W—continued
Land Registry
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how much the Land Registry has budgeted to spend on the Business Gateway service in the next five year period from 1 March 2009; [263271]
(2) how much the Land Registry spent on the Business Gateway service up to 1 March 2009. [263272]
Mr. Wills: Land Registry has only budgeted for the development of the Business Gateway for 12 months from 1 April 2009. This budget includes £266,290 for internal staff and other support costs. In addition there is a sum to cover an external contract but Land Registry believes that providing the budgeted spend for this would prejudice its commercial interests.
Land Registry spent £532,130 on the Business Gateway up to 11 March 2009. There are additional costs that have been incurred for work carried out but not yet invoiced by the contractor under commercial arrangements.
Legal Advice and Assistance: Travelling People
Robert Neill: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the Answer to the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar of 2 February 2009, Official Report, column 917W, on legal advice and assistance: Travelling people, in which planning inquiries the Legal Services Commission funded representation for Travellers through its exceptional funding scheme in (a) 2007-08 and (b) 2008-09; and what the case reference number was for each such inquiry. [259577]
Mr. Malik: The MoJ has authorised the LSC to grant funding, through the exceptional funding scheme, for Gypsies and Travellers to be represented at a planning inquiry involving each of the following authorities:
In the financial year 2007-08:
Tunbridge Wells County Council
Basildon District Council
North Somerset Council (two cases)
Tandridge District Council
Dartford Borough Council
South Staffordshire District Council
Surrey Heath Borough Council
London Borough of Bromley
Bath and North East Somerset Council
Wyre Forest District Council
Lewes District Council
South Somerset District Council
(Authorities for three cases cannot be confirmed)
In the financial year 2008-09 (to date):
Mid Devon District Council
Rother District Council
Chichester District Council
Canterbury City Council
Kent County Council
Bedford Borough Council
Lewes District Council
Ashford Borough Council
The case reference numbers for planning inquiries are not held centrally by the LSC or the MoJ.
Legal Aid Scheme
Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many legal firms have (a) stopped and (b) started doing legal aid work in each of the last five years. [255254]
Mr. Malik: Table 1 shows the number of solicitor offices starting legal aid work as part of the Criminal Defence Service (CDS) for criminal matters and the Community Legal Service (CLS) for civil matters in each of the last five financial years.
Table 2 shows the number of solicitor offices leaving the Criminal Defences Service in each of the past five financial years. For the Community Legal Service the table shows the combined total of solicitors offices leaving plus accounts expiring or terminated.
The figures are given in terms of numbers of offices rather than firms. This is because prior to the introduction of the civil unified contract in April 2007 and criminal unified contract in July 2008, legal aid providers delivering services in more than one office would hold separate contracts for each of those offices. In addition, where providers have decided not to continue providing civil legal aid services, they may nevertheless still have an account or accounts with the Legal Services Commission while they continue to deal with their remaining clients.
Over the period there has been a downward trend in the overall number of solicitor offices dealing with legal aid. This is because there has been a continuing process of offices that do only small amounts of legal aid work leaving the market or merging with other offices, so that the work is done in larger volumes at fewer offices. In addition, the Legal Services Commission has over time sought to terminate dormant accounts where no work was being done.
The key issue in delivering access to clients is ensuring there are sufficient providers in the right places to deliver a good level of service. At 31 March 2008 there were a total of 3,627 civil provider offices and 2,230 crime provider offices. More importantly, the number of acts of assistance delivered to legal aid clients has increased over the last few years. Clients can also access civil legal advice from not-for-profit organisations, plus the Community Legal Advice telephone line and website.
| Table 1: Number of solicitor offices starting legal aid work as part of the CDS and CLS | ||
| CDS | CLS | |
| Table 2: Number of solicitor offices leaving the CDS and CLS plus accounts expiring | ||
| CDS | CLS | |
| (1) Although the LSC ran a civil bid round in late 2007, it can take some time for providers to start work after a successful application for a new contract, so several new providers would not have appeared on the LSC’s systems until the next financial year. (2) This is due to an exercise to clear dormant accounts. | ||
Powers of Entry: Local Government
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether the Government has plans to extend local authority enforcement powers to include the use of bailiffs to undertake forced entry. [262677]
Bridget Prentice: I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) on 3 March 2009, Official Report, column 1497W. The enforcement provisions in the Tribunals, Court and Enforcement Act 2007 are far-reaching reforms. The provisions have recently undergone a comprehensive reassessment by Ministers to ensure that they remain appropriate even under this difficult financial climate. This assessment has now been concluded and a statement will be made shortly.
Prisoners Release: Re-offenders
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners recalled from release on end-of-custody licence for re-offending have been convicted of offences committed while on licence in each prison service region since the end-of-custody licence scheme was introduced. [262558]
Mr. Straw: Figures for the numbers of prisoners on End of Custody Licence (ECL) who have been recalled for alleged re-offending and are subsequently convicted by Prison Service area are not centrally collated in most cases. To provide the information requested would involve the manual examination of hundreds of individual records which could be done only at disproportionate cost.
Data on End of Custody Licence releases, recalls and alleged re-offending is published every month on the following website:
Prisons: Drugs
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many visitors to prisons were found to be in possession of illegal drugs in each year since 1997; how many such visitors were referred to the police; and what steps were taken in respect of those not referred to the police. [262465]
Mr. Hanson: The data are not available in the format requested.
It is the National Offender Management Service’s policy for all prison visitors found in possession of illicit drugs to be referred to the police.
As a result, of which, the number of arrests made by police of prison visitors since 1999-2000 is given in the following table.
| Number of arrests | |
Data was not recorded prior to 1999-2000.
The fall in arrests from 1999-2000 to 2002-03 is most likely linked to the introduction of measures to deal with visitors and prisoners who smuggle drugs through visits through Prison Service Order 3610 (March 1999). The order introduced a consistent and robust approach to visitors smuggling drugs across the prison estate. From 2002-03 the number of arrests has stabilised. The average number of arrests from 2002-03 to 2006-07 is 419, which is similar to the number recorded for 2007-08.
The fall in visitor arrests broadly corresponds to the fall in drug misuse in prisons, as measured by random mandatory drug testing, which has declined by 63 per cent. since 1996-97. This demonstrates the success of the prisons drug strategy which has occurred in the context of an increased prison population and a corresponding increase in the number of visitors.
These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. The data are not subject to audit.
Prisons: Religion
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what provisions are made to allow prisoners who are druids to practise their beliefs in prison. [262428]
Mr. Straw: Information on the practice of religion in prisons is set out in Prison Service Order 4550, a copy of which is in the House Library and which I shall send to the hon. Member. This contains information on the various traditions within Paganism, including Druidry.
Prisons: Young Offenders
Dr. Vis: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many under-21-year-olds are being held in each prison service establishment. [261658]
Mr. Hanson: The following table shows the numbers of young adults and 15 to 17-year-olds held in each prison establishment in England and Wales at the end of January 2009.
Young adults are those aged 18-20 and those 21-year-olds who were aged 20 or under at conviction who have not been reclassified as part of the adult population.
Establishments operate a policy that young adult remands (18-21 year olds) do not cell share with adult remands. Remanded young adults are either placed into dedicated young offender institutes or into local ‘adult’ prisons. Where accommodation is within the main adult estate, young adults would not share with adults.
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing, and have been rounded to the nearest
ten. Consequently, rounded figures may not sum to totals. Only those establishments that have at least one young offender are shown.
| Prison establishments | Total young persons |
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