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3 July 2009 : Column 490W—continued
This most recent information is contained in a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report for 2007-08 detailing the proportion of food grown or reared in the UK used by Whitehall departments, including that supplied to Ministry of Justice including public sector prisons in England and Wales under contracts negotiated by HM Prison Service, now part of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).
A copy of this report was placed in the House of Commons Library and can also be obtained at the following web link:
These figures, compared to last year, show a growing trend in favour of domestically produced food used within the Ministry of Justice.
Departmental Internet
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much was spent on the maintenance of his departmental website in each year since 2007. [278140]
Mr. Straw: The Ministry does not separately identify expenditure on website maintenance in its accounting records. However, the Ministry's Electronic Service Delivery division holds offline records for the following business areas:
| £ | ||
| 2008-09 | 2007-08 | |
It is not possible to reliably distinguish website maintenance costs from other IT expenditure for HM Courts Service and the National Offenders Management Service except at disproportionate cost.
Fraud: Property
Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many convictions for offences of fraud in relation to property leases there were in (a) England and Wales, (b) the North East, (c) Teesside and (d) Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency in each of the last 10 years. [282901]
Claire Ward: The number of defendants found guilty at all courts for ‘obtaining property by deception’ in Cleveland police force area, the North East Region and England and Wales, for the years 1998 to 2007 is shown in the following table.
Data have been provided for Cleveland police force area as information for Teesside and Middlesbrough and East Cleveland constituency is not collected centrally.
The Fraud Act 2006 which was implemented in January 2007 repealed eight sections of the Theft Acts 1968-1996, including section 15 of the Theft Act 1968, Obtaining property by deception.
Government are determined to tackle the problem of fraud, whether the victim is a multi-million pound organisation or a single individual.
Following a cross-Whitehall review of fraud, Government have allocated £29 million over three years to implement the National Fraud Programme. This includes the creation of a National Fraud Strategic Authority, launched last October, which published its first National Fraud Strategy on 19 March.
The statistics provided in this answer are for fraud offences where either the statute or the offence description identifies the fraud as relating to ‘property fraud’. However, the definition of “property” under the 1968 Theft Act is as follows:
“Property includes money and all other property, real or personal, including things in action and other tangible property”.
Therefore this could include a fraudulent acquisition of anything from a mortgage to a mobile phone. A number of other fraud offences may include ‘property fraud’, but as the individual circumstances of the offence are not held on the court proceedings database maintained by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform, it is not possible to separately identify them. One example of this is Section 2 of the 2006 Fraud Act, which came into force on 14 January 2007 and states:
“Dishonestly making a false representation to make a gain for oneself or another”.
Data under this offence have not been included in the table, as it may cover offences not connected with “property”. The number of defendants found guilty under this offence in England and Wales from 14 January to 31 December 2007 was 2,574.
These data are on the principal offence basis. The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, the offence selected is the one for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
Court proceedings data for 2008 will be available in the autumn of 2009.
| Number of defendants found guilty at all courts for offences under section 15 of the Theft Act 1968, in Cleveland police force area, the North-East Region and England and Wales, 1998 to 2007( 1, 2, 3, 4) | ||||||||||
| 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007( 3) | |
| (1) These data are on the principal offence basis. (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts, and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (3) The Fraud Act 2006 repealed S15 of the Theft Act 1968 and was implemented in January 2007. (4) Staffordshire police force were only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates courts for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust enough at a detailed level and have been excluded from the table. (5) North East Region comprises Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria police force areas. Source: OCJR - E. & A: Office for Criminal Justice Reform - Evidence & Analysis Unit | ||||||||||
Judicial Appointments for England and Wales
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many recommendations for the appointment of judges have been made to him in his capacity as Lord Chancellor in each of the last three years. [282577]
Mr. Straw: In the last three financial years the number of recommendations for the appointment of judges that have been made to me are set out as follows:
| Number | |
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many appointments the Judicial Appointments Commission has made in each of the last three years. [282581]
Mr. Straw: The Judicial Appointments Commission made the following number of selections in each of the following years:
| Number | |
Life Imprisonment
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what average period of imprisonment had been served by prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment who were released in (a) 2007 and (b) 2008. [279263]
Mr. Straw: The numbers of life sentenced prisoners released in 2007 along with average period spent in custody for those on first release is shown in the following table.
| Number/years | |
These figures are taken from the “Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2007” published by Offender Management and Sentencing Analytical Services, Ministry of Justice. This bulletin is available in the Library of the House and is available at:
The 2008 figure will be published in Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2008 at the end of July
2009. The publication of this bulletin has been pre-announced on the Ministry of Justice and United Kingdom Statistics Authority websites.
National Offender Management Service: Pay
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much the National Offender Management Service has spent on staff salaries in each financial year since its establishment. [277803]
Mr. Straw: Staff in NOMS were part of the Home Office from 2004-05 until the creation of the new Ministry of Justice in May 2007. Staff salary costs for the years in question were as follows:
| £ million | |
Since October 2008, about a further 1,000 staff have returned from the Home Office to the new NOMS Agency, adding a further £19 million approximately to the paybill for the remainder of the 2008-09 financial year. This process is continuing as more Offender Management responsibilities return to the new NOMS Agency. Costs for 2008-09 will be included in the total NOMS Agency cost, figures for which will be available shortly.
Police: Hoaxes and False Alarms
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people were fined for an offence of (a) wasting police time and (b) giving a false report in each year since 2003. [282974]
Claire Ward: The number of persons issued with a fine at all courts for the offence of causing wasteful use of police time, wasting police time, and giving false report etc under Section 5 (2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 in England and Wales for the years 2003 to 2007 (latest available) is shown in table 1.
These data are on the principal offence basis. The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, the offence selected is the one for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
Court proceedings data for 2008 will be available in the autumn of 2009.
In addition, the offence can attract a penalty notice for disorder (PND). The number of persons issued with a PND in England and Wales for the years 2004 to 2007 (latest available) can be viewed in table 2.
The Penalty Notice for Disorder Scheme was made available to all forces in England and Wales from April 2004.
PND data for 2008 will be available in the autumn of 2009.
| Table 1: The number of persons Issued with a fine at all courts for the offence ‘Causing wasteful employment of the police etc’ in England and Wales, 2003 to 2007( 1,2,3) | |
| Fine | |
| (1) The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it Is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (3) Includes the following statute and corresponding offence description: Criminal Law Act 1967 Sec 5(2). Causing wasteful employment of the police etc. Source: Evidence and Analysis Unit - Office for Criminal Justice Reform, Ministry of Justice | |
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