To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many defendants in courts in England and Wales have been sentenced to (a) a disposal under Section 190 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (b) a disposal under Section 190 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 together with a suspended sentence of imprisonment and (c) a stand alone suspended sentence of imprisonment under Section 190 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 since the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 2003; and if he will make a statement. (116632)

[holding answer 18 January 2007]: Between April 2005 and July 2006, 22,500 Suspended Sentence Orders were made which commenced under probation service supervision. Section 190 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 allows the courts to impose requirements under a Suspended Sentence Order. Suspended Sentence Orders cannot be made in isolation, without requirements being added to them.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT 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, and the totals have been rounded.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 relating to the abolition of committal for trial and the extension of Section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 are planned to come into effect. (116633)

[holding answer 18 January 2007]: These procedural reforms in Schedule 3 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 are connected with another provision in that Act that would increase magistrates sentencing powers, and it was announced last year that the implementation of these provisions would be reviewed together. The Government are committed to ensuring that cases are dealt with as efficiently as possible in the appropriate court. Discussions are continuing about how best to achieve this, and an announcement about the way forward will be made in due course.