To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what (a) estimate of the number and (b) assessment of the causes his Department has made of technical failures of the tags used in the Home Detention Curfew Scheme in the last five years. (117857)

The technology used for electronic monitoring has been shown to be reliable over several years. All equipment designs are tested independently before operational deployment.

Where there are suspected technical failures the Home Office has required suppliers to rectify the problem and sought independent advice on a case-by-case basis. No systematic records of failure numbers have been kept to date, but we are setting up a logging system.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what procedure exists for (a) reporting and (b) identifying the causes of technical faults in tags used in the Home Detention Curfew Scheme. (117858)

The electronic monitoring service providers inform the Home Office of all equipment malfunctions, including those caused by accidental or deliberate damage. We have started to put in place a procedure for recording systematically how many malfunctions are caused by a technical fault rather than damage by the offender. However, technical faults are rare because all equipment types are rigorously tested before operational use.