Written Ministerial Statements
The following statements were received between Thursday 10 September and Monday 14 September 2009
Treasury
Debt Recovery
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Timms): This statement, which I am also making on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, sets out the plans of our two Departments to work together to recover more of the debt which is owed to the taxpayer.
For some three years our two Departments have been taking forward a programme of joint working covering a range of areas where, together, we can deliver better service to our customers and better value to the taxpayer than we could if we worked separately. One such area relates to the debts that are owed to both HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) - often by the same individuals. Accordingly, we have been examining:
ways in which we can recover debts more cost effectively (for customers and Departments) from customers who owe money to both our Departments;
joint tracing services to locate customers with debts owing to one or both Departments for whom we have no current address; and
a simpler payment method for customers owing a debt to HMRC and who are in receipt of benefit payments from DWP.
As part of this programme of work, from the Spring of 2010 HMRC will start to trial the recovery of working tax credit and self-assessment debts through deductions from DWP benefit payments. Participation in the trial will be voluntary. The new service will be offered to people who cannot afford to settle their debts with HMRC in one go and who would prefer to pay them off through a voluntary deduction from their benefits.
To do this DWP intends to make a regulation under the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987 to enable DWP to collect HMRC debts. This regulation will be subject to scrutiny by the Social Security Advisory Committee, and both Departments will consult with customer representatives when designing the trial.
The trial will enable our two Departments to assess the effectiveness of collecting HMRC debts via deductions from DWP benefit payments as well as to test our customers' response to this method of payment. The trial will involve customers who are in receipt of benefit and whose tax credit overpayment or self-assessment debt is less than £1,000. It will offer customers whose tax credit award has ended or who have a self-assessment debt the option of paying back the debt via deductions from benefit payments as an alternative to current HMRC payment methods.
Both Departments will evaluate the results of the trial before deciding whether to make this a permanent payment option.
Double Taxation Agreements
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Timms): New Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) were signed with Anguilla on 20 July 2009, Turks and Caicos Islands on 22 July 2009, Liechtenstein on 11 August 2009 and Gibraltar on 27 August 2009. Protocols to Double Taxation Agreements were signed with Singapore on 24 August 2009 and Switzerland on 7 September 2009.
The text of each TIEA and Protocol has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and made available on HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) website. The text of each will be scheduled to separate draft Orders in Council and laid before the House of Commons in due course.
On the same day that the TIEA with Liechtenstein was signed, HMRC also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Government of Liechtenstein on co-operation in tax matters. The text of the MOU is available on the HMRC website.
Monetary Policy Committee
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Sarah McCarthy-Fry): A Treasury Minute on the contingent liabilities arising from the extension of the Asset Purchase Facility is being published today. Copies are available in the Library of the House.
Justice
Home Detention Curfew (Reoffending Rates)
The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw): The purpose of this statement is to announce the publication of the results of an audit of home detention custody (HDC) releases from 1 April 2003 to March 2008 who were then subsequently recalled following further charges and convicted. That information is today published and is attached to this statement.
Home detention curfew (HDC) came into effect on 28 January 1999. Eligible prisoners primarily serving between three months and less than four years may be released on HDC up to 135 days earlier than they would be otherwise, depending on their sentence length.
Registered sex offenders and foreign national prisoners who are liable to removal are statutorily excluded. Offenders serving sentences for certain serious violent offences, including prisoners serving sentences for terrorism legislation offences and prisoners with any history of sexual offending are presumed unsuitable unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Prisoners subject to the release arrangements of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 who are sentenced to four years or more are not statutorily ineligible for release on HDC but are presumed unsuitable.
Prisoners released on HDC are subject to an electronically monitored curfew to their home, usually for 12 hours a day. Eligible prisoners must pass a risk assessment, which includes an assessment of home circumstances carried out by the probation service, before release can be granted.
Breach of curfew conditions or breach of licence conditions, including alleged further offences or behavioural issues may result in executive recall to prison.
Previous questions in the House have asked how many offenders released on HDC have been recalled following further offences and what offences have been committed by them. We have recently undertaken a very detailed interrogation of the HDC reoffending data used previously. This has shown that we over-reported the number of offences committed by offenders on the
scheme. We have taken the opportunity to revise our procedures for calculating HDC reoffending, correcting the previous errors and introducing an improved method for estimating reoffending by these offenders. Offender Management Statistical Analysis Services has assumed responsibility for collating this data in the future.
The revised annual reoffending figures for those on HDC from April 2003 to March 2008 are shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows the types of offences committed whilst on HDC.
| Table 1 Rates of reoffending while on HDC, 2003/04 - 2007/08, England and Wales | |||
| Table 2 Reoffences committed while on HDC by offence category, 2003-04-2007-08 England and Wales | |||||
| Number of offences | |||||
| 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | |
The Ministry of Justice will consult on the publication of data in respect of offenders who breach their licence conditions (including those on home detention curfew) and who are recalled. The statistical publication arising from this consultation will include data on reoffending by offenders subject to this scheme.
Details of offenders starting on HDC are taken from data recorded by the Prison Service. Data on their reoffending is taken from an extract of the police national computer (PNC) held by the Ministry of Justice. Offenders recorded in the prison data who cannot be found on the PNC are excluded from the figures. Like any large-scale recording system the PNC is subject to errors with data entry and recording. The PNC is regularly updated so that further analysis at a later date will generate revised figures.
The figures relate to offenders starting on home detention curfew in each quarter. An offender is considered to have reoffended if, during their period on HDC, he or she committed an offence that was recorded on the PNC as resulting in a caution or conviction; for the offence to count the caution or conviction has to be given within nine months of the end of the quarter in which the offender started on HDC. Offences resulting in a not guilty verdict or no further action or for which no final outcome is recorded on the PNC are not counted. Breach offences and offences from outside England and Wales are excluded.
Data on HDC start and end dates are taken from data recorded by the Prison Service. Where no end date has been recorded or where the end date gives an HDC period longer than the maximum of 135 days an estimate of the length of the HDC period has been derived as follows: for offenders recorded as receiving a custodial sentence of 18 months or longer the HDC period has been set to 135 days; for sentences of less than 18 months the HDC period has been calculated as 1/4 of the sentence length.
Michael Shields
The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw): As the House will be aware, Her Majesty graciously accepted my recommendation that Michael Shields should be granted a free pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. He was released from custody on 9 September. I have placed in the Library the statement I made to the press on that day.
In July 2005 Mr Shields was convicted in Bulgaria of the attempted murder of a Bulgarian national called Martin Georgiev. Mr Georgiev suffered a brutal and unprovoked attack in the Bulgarian resort of Varna where violence flared in the early hours of 30 May 2005. Mr Shields was sentenced to 15 years, reduced to 10 on appeal. In 2006 he was returned to England to complete his sentence here. He applied for a free pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. However, it had been the long-standing practice, on an equally long-standing legal interpretation of the 1983 Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, that the "receiving state" had to respect the decision of the sentencing state, so I did not initially entertain the application.
This approach was challenged in a judicial review and on 17 December last year the Administrative Court declared that I should consider the application and said,
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