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8 May 2009 : Column 483W—continued
Prisons: Discipline
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prison officers in England and Wales are (a) riot trained and (b) qualified to act as Tornado support; and at which prisons they are located. [272829]
Mr. Hanson: On 1 May a total of 2,964 prison officers were trained to Control and Restraint Advance Level. These prison officers are qualified to act as Tornado support and are located at 108 establishments throughout England and Wales.
Prisons: Smoking
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners who smoke were sharing cells with non-smokers on 1 January 2009. [272828]
Mr. Hanson: Under the terms of Prison Service Instruction 9/2007, which is available in the Library of the House, prisoners who are non-smokers must not be required to share a cell with smokers who are actively smoking. The status of a prisoner as a smoker or non-smoker should be established as part of reception procedures. Thereafter, arrangements must be made to place non-smokers and smokers in separate accommodation.
Occasionally it may be necessary to locate a smoker and a non-smoker together temporarily when there is no other accommodation available. The smoker should not be actively smoking in the cell and will be offered aids to help them refrain. There are no formal arrangements for recording this centrally, although it would normally be recorded on the individual prisoner’s history sheet. Information as to the number of smokers and non-smokers sharing cells on any given date could be obtained only by examining the record of every prisoner in custody at the time, at disproportionate cost.
Reparation by Offenders
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) hits and (b) votes have been recorded on the Community Payback website since its inception. [272824]
Mr. Hanson: The Community Payback campaign aims to raise awareness of Community Payback by inviting members of the public to vote for unpaid work to be completed by offenders in their area.
User information is held by Directgov:
The total number of visitors to the site, number of votes received online and via local pioneer areas will be available in June. Once available, I will write to the hon. Member and place in the Library of House.
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much his Department has spent on (a) advertising in all media and (b) related communications and consultancy services on the promotion of its Community Payback initiative, broken down by category of expenditure. [272825]
Mr. Hanson: The Community Payback campaign aims to raise awareness of Community Payback by inviting members of the public to vote for unpaid work to be completed by offenders in their area.
Since the creation of the Ministry of Justice, £630,000 has been spent on advertising Community Payback across 59 pioneer areas in England and Wales in March/April 2009. Funding was provided by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice incurred no costs.
In 2007-08 55,771 people successfully completed community payback sentences. This amounts to over 8 million hours of labour, which was used to benefit the community.
Leader of the House
Members: Pensions
Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Leader of the House if she will request from the trustees of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund a report on the degree to which the pooled fund has participated in stock lending in the last 12 months. [273655]
Chris Bryant: I refer the hon. Member to my answers of 16 March 2009, Official Report, column 966W and 23 March 2009, Official Report, column 43W.
The Trustees are required from time-to-time to consult the Leader of the House on a Statement of Investment Principles (SIP). I expect the Leader to receive a revised SIP from the Trustees later this year.
I also understand that the Trustees will be considering shortly the draft of the 2009 PCPF Annual Review, which is sent to all members of the PCPF. It will be proposed for the Trustees' consideration that the Review should include an article on stock lending with details of the amount of stock being lent.
Scotland
Departmental Buildings
Grant Shapps: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much was spent by his Department on furniture for departmental buildings in each of the last five years. [265395]
Ann McKechin: The Scotland Office and Office of the Advocate General expenditure on furniture for departmental buildings in the last five years is as follows:
| Cost (£) | |
Transport
Airports: Security
Mr. Tom Clarke: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the introduction of charges for priority security checks on the level of security at UK airports. [273192]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The introduction of charges for priority security checks is a decision for individual airports and airlines to make. Such a decision will not impact on the level of security in place at UK airports. The required security standards set by the Department for Transport apply equally to all passengers.
Aviation: Cyprus
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many (a) scheduled and (b) inclusive tour flights there were from British airports to (i) Cyprus, (ii) Ireland and (iii) Austria in each of the last five years. [272567]
Jim Fitzpatrick: Flights services are defined as scheduled or charter; inclusive tour flights are not separately identified.
The tables show the number of scheduled and charter flights departing from British airports to Cyprus, Ireland and Austria in each of the last five years.
| Table 1. Scheduled flights from British airports to Cyprus, Ireland and Austria | |||
| Thousand | |||
| Cyprus | Ireland | Austria | |
| Source: DFT analysis of Civil Aviation Authority data | |||
| Table 2. Charte r flights from British airports to Cyprus, Ireland and Austria | |||
| Thousand | |||
| Cyprus | Ireland | Austria | |
| Source: DFT analysis of Civil Aviation Authority data | |||
Departmental Public Relations
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the remit of his Department's communication directorate is; how many people were employed in this directorate in (a) 2007-08, (b) 2008-09 and (c) 2009-10; and what the budget for the directorate was in each such year. [273986]
Mr. Hoon: The role of the Department's Communication Directorate is set out in chapter 11 (page 177) of the Department's Annual Report 2008, Command Paper 7395, and available from TSO and the Department's website
The average number of full time equivalent (FTE) staff employed by the Department in the Communication Directorate and its net administration resource is set out in the following table.
| Communication Directorate | |||
| 2007-08( 1) | 2008-09( 1) | 2009-10( 2) | |
| (1) Average staff and resource outturn for the year. (2) Staff employed and resource budget as at 1 April 2009. (3) 2008-09 is provisional resource outturn and subject to audit. | |||
Driving Under Influence: Drugs
Mr. Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many fatal road traffic accidents involved a person (a) whose driving ability was impaired by illegal drugs and (b) who tested positive for illegal drugs in each of the last five years. [273811]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The number of fatal road accidents where the contributory factor 'impaired by drugs' was reported by the police officer at the scene of the accident are given in the table:
| Fatal accidents( 1) | |
| (1) Includes only accidents where a police officer attended the scene and in which a contributory factor was reported | |
Information on contributory factors is only available from 2005. It is not possible to distinguish whether illegal or medicinal drugs were involved.
Information on whether a person involved in a fatal road accident tested positive for illegal drugs is not available.
Mr. Goodwill: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what recent assessment he has made of the performance of the Field Impairment Test in determining whether a person is fit to drive after taking illegal drugs; [273812]
(2) whether his Department has commissioned studies of the effectiveness of roadside drug testing in other countries; and if he will make a statement. [273813]
Jim Fitzpatrick: The most recent assessment of Field Impairment Testing is in the Department’s Road Safety Research Report No. 63—Monitoring the Effectiveness of UK Field Impairment Tests which was published in April 2006. It is available on-line at:
The Department has not commissioned any studies of roadside drug testing abroad. However, the EU’s Rosita-2 project evaluated the usability and analytical reliability of roadside drug testing devices in several European countries and the USA. The project report is available online at
It concluded that no device was considered sufficiently reliable in order to be recommended for roadside screening of drivers.
Driving: Licensing
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what criteria are used to establish whether the holder of a full UK driving licence is required to retake a driving test before the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency may accept an application to renew the licence. [273757]
Jim Fitzpatrick:
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency does not require a full driving licence holder to retake a driving test as a condition of renewing a driving licence unless they have been subject to medical
restrictions, revocation of their entitlement under the terms of the ‘New Drivers’ Act or an order by a court of law to retake a driving test/extended driving test.
Heathrow Airport
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport who decided that his Department's communications directorate would gather information on those opposed to the planned expansion of Heathrow on environmental grounds; who decided that such information would be passed to the police; on what date each decision was made; and if he will make a statement. [273987]
Mr. Hoon: The Department for Transport continually seeks to understand the views of all those with an interest in transport policy. The communications directorate contributes to this process by researching material in the public domain such as websites, press releases and editorial comment and through holding public consultations.
In advance of public events, the Department often liaises with the police to seek advice on how to ensure the safety of everyone attending be it staff or members of the public. The consultation on Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport involved public events at 12 locations. It is therefore entirely appropriate that the Department discussed safety arrangements with the relevant police forces as part of the planning for those events.
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