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Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, but will he accept that the European Convention on Human Rights certainly protects the right to liberty, including bail, for people in this country who are being detained in this country and tried here, but that it does not protect against extraditing someone from this country to the United States, where they will be deprived of bail. The European convention is of no value to a British citizen sent to the United States and completely denied bail in some undesirable state jurisdiction. I hope that the
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Minister understands that I am seeking to explain that the European convention is of no real value in that context. It is of value in the context of the death penalty or of human and degrading treatment, but not of a complete denial of bail.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I would not want to get into an argument about the broader effect of the European convention. However, I believe that our legislation, and the Human Rights Act in particular, provides us with very important protections, and I am sure that the noble Lord will acknowledge that in this case.
Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, it does not provide protection on bail. The Minister should answer the noble Lord's point.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am not going to be drawn into answering the noble Lord's point. I shall think about it some more and provide him with a response.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before seven o'clock.
[The first three Written Ministerial Statements were received too late to be printed on Thursday 2 December.]
Written Statements
Monday 6 December 2004
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Home Office: Autumn Performance Report 2003
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): The Home Office Autumn Performance Report 2003 has been published today by command of Her Majesty. Copies of the report are available in the Library. The report is also available on the Home Office website.
The report sets out the progress we have made towards achieving our public service agreement targets.
The report shows we have made significant progress. Crime has fallen dramatically and people's fear is following suit. Police performance is improving and the justice gap is continuing to narrow. Our correctional services are operating effectively, we have expanded drug treatment and asylum is increasingly under control. Our work to increase race equality and community engagement is beginning to show real results: there are now 1.6 million more volunteers than in 2001, and more black and minority ethnic police officers than ever before.
Independent Race Monitor Annual Report
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has today placed in the Library of each House his response to the second annual report produced under Section 19E of the Race Relations Act 1976 by Mary Coussey, the independent race monitor, which was placed in the Library of both Houses in July. The race monitor has a statutory duty to report to Parliament via the Home Secretary on ministerial authorisations made under Section 19D of the Race Relations Act enabling immigration staff to discriminate on the basis of nationality or ethnic or national origin in the exercise of their functions.
Juvenile and Adult Offender Reconviction Rates
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The Home Office has today published two online national statistics reports on reconviction rates, which are the basis for measuring progress against its 2002 public service agreement target, to reduce reoffending for young offenders and for adult offenders by 5 per cent by 2005–06.
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for juveniles, a reduction in reconvictions of 4.5 per cent for those dealt with in 2001 and 3.6 per cent for 2002, both as compared to 2000;
for adults, a 1.8 per cent reduction for those starting a community sentence or discharged from custody in 2001, compared to 2000.
Both of these are encouraging and demonstrate that we are on course to meet our PSA target.
The juvenile report includes a correction of figures published in 2003 in Home Office Online Report 18/03. That report indicated that 2001 figures showed a 22.5 per cent reduction in reconvictions compared to 1997. As a result of an internal review of the methodology for calculating these figures, errors were identified and we commissioned an independent peer review, which confirmed the methodology used. The corrected figure for the fall in reconvictions between 1997 and 2001 is 7 per cent. Although lower than the previously published figure, this is nevertheless very significant progress.
War Pensions Rates 2005
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ivor Caplin) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
The new rates of war pensions and allowances proposed from April 2005 are set out in the tables below. The annual uprating of war pensions and allowances for 2005 will take place from the week beginning 11 April.
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