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1 Jun 2009 : Column 152W—continued
Departmental Recruitment
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether (a) UK citizens born in the UK, (b) UK citizens born abroad and (c) foreign nationals recruited to her Department and its agencies are subject to (i) UK and (ii) overseas criminal record checks; and if she will make a statement. [271978]
Jacqui Smith: All staff recruited to the Home Office and its agencies (the UK Border Agency, Identity and Passport Service and Criminal Records Bureau) undergo either pre-employment checks or national security vetting. These all include a check of UK criminal records.
Those who require security clearance for a particular post may be asked to provide a police certificate from a foreign country.
Departmental Reviews
Mr. Vara: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) review and (b) taskforce projects her Department has commissioned in each of the last five years; what the purpose of each such project is; when each such project (i) began and (ii) was completed; what the cost of each such project was; and if she will make a statement. [275980]
Mr. Woolas: Summary information on taskforces and other standing bodies is available in the annual Cabinet Office publication ‘Public Bodies’. Copies of Public Bodies 2008 are available in the Libraries of the House. Detailed information on Home Office public bodies is available at:
Information about reviews commissioned in the last five years is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Departmental Sick Leave
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many days sick leave were taken on average by staff of (a) the UK Border Agency and (b) the Identity and Passport Service in 2008. [273739]
Mr. Woolas: Average number of days of sick leave taken by a member of staff in 2008 are as follows:
UKBA: 10.41 days per full-time employee
IPS: 10.50 days per full-time employee
The answer relates to paid sick leave only.
Departmental Training
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much her Department has spent on IT training for its staff in each of the last five years. [274218]
Mr. Woolas: The requested information cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.
Deportation
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many people have been deported to (a) Pakistan, (b) Afghanistan and (c) India in each of the last five years; and how many such persons were deported on the grounds of national security; [271363]
(2) how many people were deported to Pakistan on each ground for deportation in 2008. [271364]
Mr. Woolas: The UK Border Agency is committed to ensuring that we remove those foreign nationals who pose a risk of harm to our society. It has been made clear that all those who commit crimes within the United Kingdom and meet the published criteria will be considered for deportation action.
Over the past five years the UK Border Agency has deported or removed over 15,000 foreign criminals from the UK, including a record 5,395 in 2008. A detailed breakdown of where those individuals were removed to is not collated centrally and can be obtained only through the detailed examination of individual case files at disproportionate cost.
During the same period, nine people have been deported on grounds of national security. None of that group was deported to one of the three countries named.
The chief executive of the UK Border Agency has regularly written to the Home Affairs Select Committee in order to provide all of the most robust and accurate information available on the deportation of foreign criminals, copies of which are available in the Library of the House. She will continue to write to the Committee as required.
Deportation: Offenders
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many foreign national prisoners repatriated to their country of origin under the reintegration scheme have since been returned to the UK following reconviction. [276232]
Mr. Woolas:
Those foreign national prisoners who are removed under the Facilitated Returns Scheme are issued with an exclusion order preventing them from re-entering the UK. Those who are subject to a deportation order and have not benefited from the scheme are also prevented from re-entering the UK. There is no basis
upon which a foreign government may return one of their nationals to the UK if that individual re-offends in their country.
The UK Border Agency deported or removed a record 5,400 foreign national prisoners in 2008, exceeding the Government set target. As confirmed in its 2008-09 Business Plan the Agency will continue to deport or remove even more.
Deportation: Private Sector
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many contracts her Department has with private contractors for escorted deportations. [276558]
Mr. Woolas: The UK Border Agency has three contracts with private suppliers to escort individuals removed from the United Kingdom.
Detention Centres: Internet
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the cost of providing internet access to inmates of all immigration removal centres; and when she expects this work to be completed. [273272]
Jacqui Smith: Internet access is available to individuals detained at the eight Immigration Removal Centres which are operated by private sector contractors. Use of the internet is supervised by on-site staff, supported by software-based technology to prevent access to certain inappropriate sites.
The cost of internet access has been agreed with individual contractors operating each immigration removal centre. This information is commercially confidential and is not therefore available to be disclosed publicly.
DNA: Databases
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many foreign nationals of each nationality were listed on the national DNA database on 1 April 2009. [271356]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The National DNA Database (NDNAD) stores the absolute minimum amount of personal data, and does not store the nationality or the home addresses of subject profiles. Therefore we are unable to determine how many foreign nationals are on the NDNAD.
Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people aged (a) under 10, (b) 10 to 17, (c) 18 to 20 and (d) over 20 years old in each ethnic appearance category were registered on the national DNA database in each of the last five years; and how many of these had no conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand recorded on the police national computer. [271981]
Jacqui Smith:
The following tables show how many profiles were added to the NDNAD by police forces in England and Wales in each of the last five years, broken down by age and ethnic appearance. The age groups refer to an individual's age on the date that their profile
was loaded to the NDNAD, not their current age. The ethnic appearance categories refer to the ethnic appearance recorded by the police officer who took the sample. “Unknown” means that no age/ethnic appearance was recorded by the officer who took the sample.
In accordance with my announcement on 16 December 2008, all profiles of under 10s have now been deleted from the NDNAD.
The number of profiles is not the same as the number of individuals. This is because some profiles are replicates—i.e. more than one profile is held for one individual. This
may occur if, for example, an individual gives different names, or different versions of their name, on separate arrests. The most recent estimate of the replication rate on the NDNAD is 13.5 per cent.
It is not possible to break the information in the tables down further into the number of people in each category who had no conviction, caution, formal warning or reprimand recorded on the Police National Computer (PNC). The NDNAD does not hold information on whether an individual has a conviction.
| Breakdown of profiles added to the NDNAD by England and Wales police forces in each of the last five years, broken down by age and ethnic appearance | |||||||
| 2004-05 | |||||||
| Unknown | Asian | Black | Chinese, Japanese or SE Asian | Middle Eastern | White North European | White South European | |
| 2005-06 | |||||||
| Unknown | Asian | Black | Chinese, Japanese or SE Asian | Middle Eastern | White North European | White South European | |
| 2006-07 | |||||||
| Unknown | Asian | Black | Chinese, Japanese or SE Asian | Middle Eastern | White North European | White South European | |
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