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The department's method of recording this information does not necessarily mean that the prisoner was late for their court appearance. It is unusual for the court to be delayed. The prisoners are recorded late against agreed delivery time to the court, which will normally be 30 minutes before the court sits.
The figures provided cover the period December 2008 to June 2009.
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| Prisoners on Time | % Prisoners Late | |
Turkey: Democratic Society Party
Questions
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make representations to ascertain from the Government of Turkey how many members or supporters of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) have been arrested since that party's successes in the local elections of late March 2009; how many of those arrested have been charged with offences; whether any of those cases have so far been heard; and with what results. [HL4909]
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have received complaints from the Democratic Society Party of Turkey (DTP) that 500 of their members have been arrested since 14 April of whom 267 have been detained; and, if so, what action they are taking. [HL4910]
The Minister for Europe (Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead): We understand that some 300 members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) have been arrested, 54 of them party officials, within the scope of a Turkish operation against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). On behalf of the EU, the Commission delegation in Turkey has formally requested information from the Government of Turkey about the legal grounds for the arrests and detentions but has not yet received a response. It is for the Turkish courts to assess the evidence in the first instance. It would not therefore be appropriate for us to intervene in the legal proceedings but it is important that due process is followed. We are therefore following events closely.
Answers received between Monday 27 July and Monday 3 August 2009
Afghanistan
Questions
Asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick
To ask Her Majesty's Government what further steps they will take to communicate why the British Armed Forces are in Afghanistan. [HL5225]
The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): The Ministry of Defence will continue to use a range of activities to explain the value of the international mission in Afghanistan and the vital role that UK Armed Forces are playing in it. This programme includes visits by media to the operational theatre, background and on-the-record briefings by Ministers, senior officials and service personnel, speeches
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Asked by Lord King of West Bromwich
To ask Her Majesty's Government what help is available to the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan immediately after their death. [HL5263]
Baroness Taylor of Bolton: The MoD places a very high priority on the welfare of its service personnel and their families. To that end, the MoD has robust procedures in place to support immediate family members of service personnel who are killed while on operations. These procedures are under constant review to ensure that the support provided meets the needs of the recipients and reflect current MoD policy. Families are assigned a visiting officer who acts as the link between the family and the services, assisting with such matters as repatriation, funeral arrangements and expenses, and help with necessary paperwork to procure pensions etc. The visiting officers will also direct the family to the most appropriate internal and external welfare agencies for specific areas of support.
Armed Forces: Cadet Training
Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the effect of the closure of the Fremington Camp on the air cadet training programme, as there is no other facility in Somerset and Devon. [HL5098]
The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): The Fremington Training Camp facility is used by air cadet squadrons purely for their annual camps and is not used by any squadrons as a venue for their weekly training.
A new training facility already exists at St Mawgan in Cornwall, and air cadet squadrons will be entitled to use this facility for their annual camps in the same way as they did the Fremington Training Camp. The closure of Fremington Training Camp should therefore have minimal effect on the air cadet training programme.
Armed Forces: Christmas
Question
Asked by Lord Jones of Cheltenham
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the arrangements for families of military personnel serving overseas to send gifts and receive telephone calls during the Christmas period, including those personnel not from the United Kingdom. [HL5212]
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The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): There are comprehensive arrangements in place to ensure that service personnel serving overseas can communicate with their families over the Christmas period. All personnel who qualify for the Deployment Welfare Package have a weekly allowance of 30 minutes' free telephone calls to anywhere in the world throughout the year. Over the Christmas period this allowance is doubled to 60 minutes and over the past two years, the allowance has been further supplemented by an additional 30 minutes donated by the telephone provider, Paradigm, for those on operations. With regard to mail, the Enduring Families Free Mail Service enables friends and families to send packages of up to 2kg in weight out to operational theatres throughout the year. The British Forces Post Office also runs a free package service out to other remote BFPO addresses for the month running up to Christmas. Additionally most deployed personnel are able to access both the internet and the e-Bluey electronic mail system.
Armed Forces: Leave
Question
Asked by Lord Jones of Cheltenham
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the advantages and the disadvantages of allowing home leave for military personnel after shorter intervals of service in operations overseas in order to reduce the incidence of stress-related illness. [HL5208]
The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): The determination of tour lengths is a matter of military judgment. There is a balance to be struck in the conduct of operations between the needs of the mission and the need for appropriate periods of leave. Longer tours allow for greater continuity which has many operational advantages but such tours may place greater stresses on deployed personnel. The current tour length of about six months for those fighting on the front line, which is usually broken by a period of approximately 10 days' rest and recreation, is believed to achieve the correct balance.
Armed Forces: Stress-related Illness
Question
Asked by Lord Jones of Cheltenham
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they provide for the families of military personnel serving overseas in order to reduce the incidence of stress-related illness, including those personnel for whom the United Kingdom is not their home country. [HL5211]
The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): The MoD seeks to provide families accompanying service personnel overseas with services comparable to those that they would receive from the state in England. Every unit has an officer responsible for the welfare of families, and each of the
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Additional welfare support is provided to families when service personnel are deployed on operations. It is recognised that families overseas are often unable to draw on the support of their wider family, especially the families of foreign and Commonwealth personnel for whom additional help is available.
Chaplaincy support is offered to all family members of service personnel and those dealing with casualties. This support is confidential and outside of the chain of command. Chaplains provide support to all regardless of faith.
Armed Forces: War-related Illnesses
Questions
Asked by Lord Morris of Manchester
To ask Her Majesty's Government what consultation there has been with ex-service organisations concerning letters sent by lawyers acting for the Ministry of Defence to service men and women seeking compensation for war-related illnesses and disabilities saying that assessments of their claims could be "undertaken covertly by surveillance"; and what is the breakdown of the costs to date of implementing that policy. [HL5253]
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many ex-service men and women seeking compensation for war-related illnesses and disabilities have had the assessment of their claims "undertaken covertly by surveillance". [HL5254]
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether public reaction to the disclosure that claims by ex-service men and women for compensation for war-related illnesses and disabilities could be "undertaken covertly by surveillance" has led the Ministry of Defence to reconsider its policy. [HL5255]
The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): The Ministry of Defence has a duty to ensure that common-law compensation claims are paid at the correct level where there is a legal liability to do so. In exceptional circumstances surveillance might be undertaken to observe the true extent of a claimant's alleged injuries in cases where there is a reasonable suspicion about the veracity of a claim or where medical evidence suggests that the claimant's disability is wholly inconsistent with the type of injury. Claims that are found to be grossly exaggerated are either repudiated or settled at a greatly reduced level of damages in line with the injury suffered and true levels of loss incurred by the claimant. Surveillance should be of no concern to claimants with a legitimate claim and where the alleged injury has not been grossly exaggerated in an attempt to extract higher levels of compensation.
About 54,000 claims for compensation have been made against the Ministry of Defence since 2000 from which 284 cases have been subject to surveillance. Such surveillance is not restricted to service personnel,
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No formal consultation was undertaken with ex-service personnel organisations, but lawyers representing claimants bringing cases against the Ministry of Defence are fully aware of the department's policy on surveillance. The average cost of surveillance is about £1,500 per case. The largest amount saved on an individual case that proved to be grossly exaggerated was about £1 million.
This policy relates only to common-law compensation claims where the claimant is suing the department, not to the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.
Banking: Bonuses
Question
Asked by Lord King of West Bromwich
To ask Her Majesty's Government what monitoring systems are in place to prevent banks in the private and public sectors from awarding excessive bonuses. [HL5264]
The Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Myners): The Government have made clear that the banking industry must develop sustainable long-term remuneration policies to prevent excessive risk-taking, both in the UK and internationally.
The FSA has published a code of practice on remuneration, which it intends to add to the FSA handbook. The consultation on the code recently closed and the FSA is reviewing responses with a view to having the code in place for firms' 2009 remuneration processes. In the Government's recent paper Reforming Financial Markets the Chancellor announced that he has asked the FSA to provide an annual report on remuneration practices, including compliance with the FSA's new code, emerging risks to financial stability, and any action that needs to be taken.
Institutional shareholders also need to be more actively engaged in monitoring the boards of the bank in which they have invested, including in respect of remuneration. In relation to the banks in which the Government have a stake, UKFI has been engaging with the banks to ensure that they offer incentives based on the Government's principles on remuneration, including no rewards for failure, and therefore protect the interest of the taxpayer as a shareholder.
Banking: Small Businesses
Question
Asked by Lord King of West Bromwich
To ask Her Majesty's Government what incentives are available to encourage banks to provide financial support to small businesses. [HL5265]
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The Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Myners): Incentives available to encourage banks to provide financial support to small businesses include the enterprise finance guarantee scheme (EFG) and the working capital scheme (WCS).
The EFG is aimed at viable companies with insufficient security at the margins of commercial lending. If a company does not have sufficient security to be offered a normal commercial loan, it may then be offered a loan through the EFG. The EFG provides a 75 per cent government guarantee on individual loans to viable businesses with less than £25 million turnover. It will enable an additional £1.3 billion of lending to businesses up to end of March 2010, on top of normal commercial lending. Under the EFG, 3,350 businesses have been offered loans totalling £327 million as of 24 June.
The WCS was announced on 14 January by BERR and guarantees have now been provided which meet the Government's commitment to provide an initial tranche of £l billion of guarantees. It offers £l billion in capital guarantees to participating banks, up to 50:50 risk share on short-term working capital loans for businesses with an annual turnover of up to £500 million.
In addition, small businesses will benefit from the legally binding lending commitments entered into by Lloyds Banking Group and RBS as a condition of these banks accessing the asset protection scheme. Lloyds Banking Group will lend an additional £14 billion, and RBS an additional £25 billion, on commercial terms over the 12 months from March 2009.
Bats
Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government in respect of the two bridges for bats constructed on the Dobwalls bypass in Cornwall, (a) what was the purpose of the bridges; (b) how much they cost to build; (c) how many bats have been monitored using the bridges; (d) how many bats used the route of those bridges before they were built; (e) how many bats cross the bypass without using the bridges; and (f) how many bats have hit cars using the bypass since the bridges were built. [HL5321]
The Secretary of State for Transport (Lord Adonis): (a) The bridges provide a linear feature over the bypass that is used by the bats to guide them along their flight lines. Previously they used the hedgerows but these were removed by the scheme.
(b) The bridges cost £300,000 to construct.
(c) Sample monitoring during 2008 and 2009 has identified that on the day of the survey on average there were between 11 and 17 bats using the bridges to cross the bypass.
(d) In 2004, prior to construction of the scheme, on the day of the survey, some 30 to 40 bat movements were recorded at the bridge locations.
(e) The monitoring exercise concentrated on bat movement at the bridge. There are consequently no specific data about how many bats cross the bypass without using the bridge.
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