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23 Mar 2010 : Column 184W—continued
The Ministry of Justice does not keep information on fees paid to the Lands Tribunal for each type of appeal and hearing. However, the total fees received for each year were:
| Lands t ribunal f ees | |||||
| 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10( 1) | |
| (1 )Year to date | |||||
The current planning forecast is that fees income in each year from 2010-11 to 2013-14 will be £300,000 per year. No forecast has been prepared beyond that date. The Ministry of Justice is currently reviewing responses to a consultation(1) which proposes an increase in current fee levels. However, current forecasts do not assume any increase in income.
(1) Review of fees for the Lands Tribunal (Ref: CP44/09 2 December 2009 - 28 February 2010).
Prison Accommodation: Wales
Mr. David Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of prison accommodation in Wales. [323397]
Maria Eagle: Our most recent assessment of prison accommodation in Wales was given to the Welsh Affairs Committee in November 2009. This highlighted that North Wales is an area of strategic need for prison places within the prison estate and we are conducting a site search for a new prison in this area as well as other areas of strategic need such as London and the south-east, West Yorkshire and the north-west. We are looking to increase capacity in South Wales through the provision of a further 330 prison places at HMP Parc.
Prisons: Drugs
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make it his policy to collate at national level the (a) quantity and (b) type of illicit drugs seized in prisons in England and Wales. [322870]
Maria Eagle: The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) collates the number and type of drug seizures in prisons. The number of drug seizures in prisons in England and Wales in 2008-09 is given in the following table. Many seizures are similar in appearance and where not attributable are not categorically identified by scientific analysis. Weight is not recorded and there are no plans to record it.
| Drug | Number of seizures |
These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. The data are not subject to audit.
Probation: Per Capita Costs
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what his most recent estimate is of the average cost of probation service supervision for an individual on a 12 month (a) anger management, (b) domestic violence and (c) sex offender programme. [323908]
Maria Eagle: The funding for the supervision of offenders and the delivery of programmes in the community is part of the general grant given to probation areas or trusts. The costs will vary and depend on a number of factors including the risk presented by the individual, the level of supervision required, the programme the individual attends, and the arrangements for delivery in the particular area. It is not possible to accurately disaggregate the cost of this work. Full costs of probation services will be collected and published to benchmark the whole of the probation system by the end of 2011.
Sexual Offences Act 2003
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people received a caution for an offence under section (a) 1 and (b) 5 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 in each police force area in 2008. [322837]
Claire Ward: The number of offenders cautioned for offences under sections 1 and 5 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, by police force area in 2008 is shown in the following table.
Vetting: Charities
Harry Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether individuals with a past conviction for an offence of buggery are required to declare the conviction when applying to work with a charity involved with vulnerable people after the offence is (a) spent and (b) deleted; and if he will make a statement. [322868]
Claire Ward: The law currently requires individuals to declare all spent convictions where they are applying to work with vulnerable people as this is an area of activity falling within the Exceptions Order to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This obligation applies even if the conviction has been deleted from the Police National Computer. We are aware that a conviction for buggery, before aspects of the offence were decriminalised, may relate to consensual homosexual conduct between adults. Therefore, it is our intention to bring forward an amendment to the Exceptions Order so that an individual does not have to disclose a conviction for buggery where this was for behaviour which has subsequently been decriminalised. However, elements of the offence of buggery under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 remain criminal today; therefore the amendment will not affect the obligation to declare a conviction for buggery where the behaviour which attracted the conviction would still be a criminal offence.
Voting Rights: Armed Forces
Mrs. Laing: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when he expects his Department to receive the report of the working group on the voting rights of members of the armed forces. [323657]
Mr. Wills: The working group meets on a regular basis, most recently in early March. I have written to parliamentary colleagues who attended the meeting on service voting in December to give an interim update from the working group and share the group's consideration of the suggestions made at that meeting. The Government are consulting on longer term options to support service personnel and their families to vote in elections, and I have also written to Opposition parties, asking that the parties sign up to the commitment to consult on a cross-party basis.
Voting Systems
Sir Alan Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will take steps to ensure that implementation of the provisions proposed in Clause 90 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill does not result in the (a) ending of next-day counts in constituencies in which such counts are a long established practice and (b) counting of votes cast in several constituencies in a central location at the forthcoming general election. [323662]
Mr. Wills: Clause 90 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill was shared with Opposition representatives as it was developed, and was welcomed widely across the House. By requiring returning officers to take reasonable steps to start the counting of votes by 2 am and to give a reasoned account when they fail to do so, the clause creates a clear expectation that, in line with the clearly expressed view of Parliament on this issue, the counting of votes should start by 2 am, where possible.
It is particularly important for the purposes of the new duty that returning officers look carefully at existing arrangements and past practice and consider the additional steps which they can reasonably take in order to start the counting of votes given on ballot papers by 2 am. Past practice is not necessarily a guide to whether the duty to take all reasonable steps to start the count by 2 am will have been fulfilled. Clause 90 would preserve the operational independence of the returning officer, while providing fresh impetus towards counting votes as quickly as possible. In striking this balance, clause 90 respects the important discretion of the returning officer to make decisions to take account of local circumstances, such as the particular geography of a constituency. In this way, the location of the count remains a matter for the returning officer in each case, taking into account both the legislative framework and local circumstances.
Youth Justice: Finance
Mr. Burrowes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 15 March 2010, Official Report, column 703W, on Youth Justice: finance, how much expenditure was re-charged from the Youth Justice Board by the National Offender Management Service Service Development Group in respect of administration costs in 2009-10. [323660]
Maria Eagle: The Youth Justice Board has provided the National Offender Management Service's (NOMS) Service Development Group with £118.180 million of funding to deliver about 2,400 custodial places and associated services for all young men aged 15 to 17 and 17-year-old young women during the 2009-10 period. This includes £5.070 million for corporate overheads and £2.548 million for the NOMS Young People's Team.
Treasury
Boilers: Government Assistance
Paddy Tipping: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last met the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to discuss providing more funding for the boiler scrappage scheme. [323176]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The pre-Budget report announced £50 million to fund a £400 incentive to help up to 125,000 residential consumers who live in owned or privately rented homes in England to upgrade their boiler.
Treasury Ministers meet with colleagues regularly to discuss a range of issues as part of the process of policy development and delivery.
Departmental Computer Software
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) of 1 March 2009, Official Report, column 916W, on departmental ICT, what fonts were purchased by (a) his Department and (b) HM Revenue and Customs; and what consideration was given to using fonts available in software packages already in use in each. [323536]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The Disability Discrimination Act requires Departments to make their materials as accessible as possible and accessibility research suggests that serif fonts are more difficult to read. For the Treasury the existing fonts on the system were examined and none met the accessibility requirements. The core Treasury font was therefore changed to a sans serif font, Humanist 777, ensuring Treasury documents are more accessible.
HM Revenue and Customs purchased a package of font symbols and the cost includes licenses for all of the Department's designers (20 licences).
This new range adds to and updates the Department's library of font symbols to include more up to date images such as mobile phones, Blackberry and iPhone as these were not available in the original software package.
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