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Legal Aid: East of England

Nadine Dorries: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many applications for legal aid from residents of (a) Mid Bedfordshire constituency and (b) the East of England there have been in each of the last five years. [295414]

Bridget Prentice: Applications for civil legal aid advice are made to individual providers, and the LSC records the number of instances of advice provided, rather than the number of applications made. Applications for civil legal aid representation are made to the Legal Services Commission. Not all applications are granted. The applications received for representation for the last five years in the requested areas is as follows:

Financial year	Mid Bedfordshire constituency	East of England	England
2004-05	173	15,732	180,591
2005-06	187	15,498	182,187
2006-07	151	14,935	177,309
2007-08	114	13,365	161,206
2008-09	130	13,670	171,492

Legal Aid: Immigration

Frank Dobson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice for what reasons the Legal Services Commission does not allow consortium bids for funding on immigration cases. [294862]

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Bridget Prentice: Following consultation, the LSC proposed that consortium arrangements should only be permitted for core social welfare law categories such as debt, housing and welfare benefits. This was in order to ensure that integrated services can be provided for people who will often have multiple problems. In immigration cases, the necessary services are capable of being delivered by single providers; therefore there is not the need to allow consortium bids.

Providers will be able to bid for asylum and immigration new matter starts as part of the 2010 process and the number of starts available will vary from area to area according to demand. Providers will be required to do a minimum volume of cases in each area of law (except in Devon where only non-asylum starts will be made available).

Members: Correspondence

Sir Gerald Kaufman: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he plans to reply to the letter of 15 September 2009 from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard Mr. D Smith. [296118]

Mr. Straw: I replied to the right hon. Member on 21 October. I apologise for the delay.

Prisoners Release

Alan Duncan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners released in each year since 2000 for which figures are available had already completed (a) a community sentence, (b) one custodial sentence, (c) more than one custodial sentence and (d) more than five custodial sentences. [295843]

Maria Eagle: The following table shows actual reoffending rates and frequency of reoffending per 100 offenders who were discharged from custody in the first quarter of each year from 2000 to 2007 (latest available data), broken down by the number of previous custodial sentences. Information is not available for the number of community sentences that an offender has previously received.

Further information on the one year rates of reoffending can be found in:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/reoffendingofadults.htm.

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Table 1: Actual reoffending rates and frequency per 100 offenders for those discharged from custody, by number of previous custodial sentences, 2000, 2002-07 cohorts
Number of previous custodial sentences	Cohort year	Number of offenders released from custody	Actual reoffending rate	Number of offences per 100 offenders
No previous custodial sentences	2000 Q1	5,657	28.8	108.2
	2002 Q1	5,134	30.8	122.7
	2003 Q1	4,610	26.7	99.0
	2004 Q1	4,773	25.1	85.9
	2005 Q1	4,500	22.4	75.4
	2006 Q1	4,637	21.5	67.8
	2007 Q1	3,939	22.7	72.3
One previous custodial sentence	2000 Q1	2,475	50.8	220.5
	2002 Q1	2,342	51.6	236.3
	2003 Q1	2,039	50.4	214.4
	2004 Q1	2,232	45.2	202.0
	2005 Q1	2,000	42.0	164.2
	2006 Q1	1,927	39.4	153.1
	2007 Q1	1,767	41.3	146.0
Between two and five previous custodial sentences	2000 Q1	4,612	63.8	319.3
	2002 Q1	4,739	66.9	361.9
	2003 Q1	4,337	65.0	336.4
	2004 Q1	4,760	61.1	286.7
	2005 Q1	4,315	58.7	256.3
	2006 Q1	4,015	54.4	226.0
	2007 Q1	3,534	53.8	237.4
More than five previous custodial sentences	2000 Q1	2,973	75.4	413.4
	2002 Q1	3,350	77.8	473.4
	2003 Q1	3,360	78.9	491.2
	2004 Q1	3,984	76.8	441.6
	2005 Q1	3,764	73.8	413.9
	2006 Q1	3,785	72.3	390.2
	2007 Q1	3,570	70.8	413.9
Total	2000 Q1	15,717	51.4	245.6
	2002 Q1	15,565	55.0	288.1
	2003 Q1	14,346	53.9	279.0
	2004 Q1	15,749	51.9	253.1
	2005 Q1	14,579	49.1	228.5
	2006 Q1	14,364	46.5	208.4
	2007 Q1	12,810	47.2	223.2
Note: Please note that data are not available for 2001 due to a problem with archived data on court orders. Since it will not substantially increase the knowledge on the current progress on reoffending, no resources have been allocated to fix this problem.

Prisoners: Drugs

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people were found guilty of (a) possession of and (b) drug dealing offences involving (i) cannabis,
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(ii) ecstasy, (iii) cocaine, (iv) crack cocaine and (v) heroin in each year since 1997; and how many received (A) a custodial sentence, (B) a community sentence, (C) a treatment order, (D) a fine and (E) another punishment. [295898]

Claire Ward: The number of defendants found guilty at all courts for possession of, and dealing in, certain drugs, by sentence, England and Wales, from 1997 to 2007 (latest available) is shown in the following table.

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The statistics given relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. For example, when a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences the principal offence 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.

Court proceedings data for 2008 are planned for publication at the end of January 2010.

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