To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what procedures are in place for those people who cannot afford to pay a penalty disorder notice when issued with one. (120597)

[holding answer 9 February 2007]: Penalty Notices for Disorder (PND) provide the police with a swift non-bureaucratic disposal option to deal with minor offences. They are fixed penalty. There is no means test as part of the process of issuing PNDs and it would be impractical and overly bureaucratic to seek means information before issuing a ticket. Payment must be made in full; the current PND computer processing system precludes payment by instalments. If the recipient does not pay the penalty or request a court hearing, a fine at one and a half times the penalty amount is registered against the recipient and enforced in the same way as any other fine. However, operational guidance to the police advises officers that PNDs may not be appropriate for a suspect who appears to be destitute.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many penalty disorder notices were issued (a) in England and Wales and (b) by the West Midlands Police Authority in each of the last three years. (120598)

[holding answer 9 February 2007]: The penalty notices for disorder (PND) scheme was brought into effect in England and Wales in 2004 to provide police with a quick and effective means of dealing with a number of minor disorder offences. Under the scheme, a fixed penalty is issued to the offender who has 21 days to either pay the fine or seek a court hearing

Data on the number of PNDs issued for all offences in (a) England and Wales and (b) the West Midlands Police Authority in 2004 and 2005, as well as provisional data for January to June 2006 are provided in the following table. Full provisional data for 2006 will be available in April 2007.