To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 26 February (WA 107–08), how animal health charge-out rates are adjusted for productivity. [HL2741]

Charge-out rates have to recover full costs. It is accepted that a utilisation rate of 100 per cent is not achievable and so, in line with standard practice for service organisations, the charge-out rates are arrived at by assuming a productivity rate of 70 per cent.

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cases of bovine tuberculosis have been confirmed in (a) cats, (b) dogs, and (c) deer, in each of the last 15 years. [HL2564]

The number of confirmed bovine tuberculosis cases within the past 15 years for cats, dogs and deer (farmed and wild), in GB, are set out in the following table.

Suspect cases of TB in domestic animal species other than cattle and deer have only been notifiable since March 2006. As shown in this table, incidents of TB caused by Mycobacterium bovis in those species were recorded prior to this, but we will not necessarily be aware of all cases due, for instance, to misdiagnosis or lack of reporting.

*Number of bacteriologically confirmed cases of TB in deer submitted to VLA for laboratory examination (source: VLA surveillance contract SB4510 and annual reports of the CVO, Defra). Data exclude positive deer tissues or carcases submitted as part of the survey of TB in wild deer in the SW of England (2006-07) and other research projects during this period studying the prevalence of TB in wild deer.

**Data for 2008 are provisional and yet to be confirmed.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the estimated number of closed circuit television cameras operating in the United Kingdom in (a) the public sector, and (b) the private sector. [HL2698]

This information is not available centrally, although this is one of the areas which will be addressed through the National CCTV Strategy, published in October 2007.

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many convictions for drinking offences of persons aged (a) 18 or under, and (b) 18–25, there were in each Police Authority area in (1) 2000, (2) 2004, and (3) 2008. [HL2771]

The number of persons found guilty at all courts for selected drinking offences in England and Wales, by age group, police force area and period are given in table 1.

The number of persons issued with a penalty notice for disorder (PND) for selected drinking offences by age group (data are available for persons aged 16 and over), police force area and period are given in table 2. The PND scheme was implemented in all 43 police force areas in England and Wales in 2004.

Information relating to Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Office respectively.

Data are given in the tables for 2000, 2004 and 2007 (latest available). Data for 2008 will be available in the autumn of 2009.

Table 1: The number of persons found guilty for selected drinking offences⁽¹⁾ in England and Wales, by age group and period^{(2) (3)}

(1) Includes the following statutes and offence descriptions:

Licensing Act 2003 s.150(1).

Individual aged under 18 knowingly consuming alcohol.

Criminal Justice Act 1967 s.91.

Being guilty while drunk of disorderly behaviour.

Licensing Act 1872 s.12.

Being found drunk in a highway or other public place, whether a building or not, or on licensed premises.

Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 s.12 Alcohol consumption in designated public places.

(2) The statistics relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences the principal offence is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.

(3) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

(4) Staffordshire Police Force was only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates' courts for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust enough at a detailed level and have been excluded from the table.

Source: Office for Criminal Justice Reform - Evidence & Analysis Unit.

[Ref: IOS 203-09].

Table 2: The number of Penalty Notices for Disorder (PNDs) issued to persons for selected drinking offences⁽¹⁾ In England and Wales, by age group and period ⁽²⁾⁽³⁾

(1) Includes the following statutes and offence descriptions:

Licensing Act 2003 s.150(1).

Individual aged under 18 knowingly consuming alcohol.

Criminal Justice Act 1967 s.91.

Being guilty while drunk of disorderly behaviour.

Licensing Act 1872 s.12.

Being found drunk in a highway or other public place, whether a building or not, or on licensed premises.

Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 s.12 Alcohol consumption in designated public places.

(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

(3) The PND scheme was implemented in all 43 police force areas in 2004.

** Not applicable. The British Transport Police started issuing PNDs on 1st March 2006.

Source: Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Evidence & Analysis Unit.

[Ref: IOS203-09]

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Baroness Scotland of Asthal on 24 March (WA 110) stating that “the Crown Prosecution Service does not take into consideration gender, sexual orientation and ethnic origins in ensuring the most suitable candidate is appointed”, whether that principle has been applied without exception and observed across the public service since 1997. [HL2666]

Recruitment into the Civil Service is based on the principle of selection on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. Recruitment to the wider public sector is not subject to regulation by the Civil Service Commissioners.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to protect the United Kingdom from (a) a cyber-terrorist attack, and (b) cyber crime; and [HL2574]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to protect (a) public utilities companies, (b) banks, (c) the retail sector, and (d) Government departments, from cyber attacks. [HL2575]

Her Majesty’s Government have a wide ranging set of measures in place to protect the United Kingdom from all forms of electronic attack including cyber-terrorism and cyber crime.

These measures include:

CPNI: Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, provides advice on electronic or cyber protective security measures to the businesses and organisations that comprise the UK's critical national infrastructure, including public utilities companies and banks.

CESG: part of GCHQ, provides government departments with advice and guidance on how to protect against, detect and mitigate various types of cyber attack. It runs the Computer Emergency Response Team, GovCertUK, which provides warnings, alerts and assistance in resolving serious IT incidents for the public sector.

All government departments have access to the Government Secure Intranet (GSi), which securely connects around 200 government departments and agencies.

The Government’s Data Handling Review, published in June 2008, mandated a number of minimum data security measures for HMG such as penetration testing of government IT systems.

Strengthening the Computer Misuse Act to reflect the seriousness of offences and updating legislation to take account of technological advances.

Establishing three units that tackle crime on the internet: the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP); SOCA, deals with organised e-crime affecting the private and public sectors; and the recently set-up Police Central e-crime Unit.

Sponsoring Get Safe Online, a joint public and private sector initiative to raise awareness of internet safety among the general public and small businesses

The Cabinet Office is currently leading a cross-departmental project to develop the UK’s approach to cyber security, including ways to improve the security of key systems.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the legal basis of European Union Directives 2006/24/EC and 2002/58/EC on privacy and electronic communications. [HL2529]

Directives 2006/24/EC (Data Retention) and 2002/58/EC (Privacy and Electronic Communications) concern data processing and data retention in the electronic communications sector and the elimination of obstacles to the internal market for electronic communications, and were therefore made on a first pillar basis established by the 1992 Maastricht treaty. The legal basis of 2006/24/EC (Data Retention) was upheld in the recent European Court of Justice case (C-301/06 Ireland v Parliament). It was the opinion of the European Court of Justice that all the normal tests for using Article 95 were met.

It is important to note the 2006 directive covers the retention of communications data and not access to it. In particular, recital 25 of the Data Retention directive specifically states that law enforcement access to this retained data falls outside the scope of Community law and such access is therefore covered by UK legislation.

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 26 February (WA 107–08), how many staff work in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Shared Service Division providing back-office functions for animal health. [HL2742]

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Shared Services Directorate provides back office services to a number of customers within the Defra network. As many staff provide services to more than one customer it is only possible to provide an estimate of the resource (based on volumes of transactions) providing back office function to the Animal Health Agency. This estimate for 2008/09 of 45.7 FTE (full-time equivalent) staff includes those in support areas such as business planning and communications, in addition to those in operational roles.

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much money has been spent on procuring and developing government databases since 1997; how many databases have been planned since 1997; and how many of those have been implemented and maintained. [HL2642]

Each government department is responsible for the management of its own databases. The information requested is not held centrally and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (a) internal, and (b) external, vacancies each government department is currently advertising. [HL2810]

Civil Service vacancies are advertised widely, including on the Civil Service website. Information on the total number of jobs currently advertised is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

To ask Her Majesty's Government which information technology contracts with a value of £50 million or over have been entered into by the Scotland Office and its predecessor since 1997; and which of those have been completed to budget, to time and to specification. [HL2894]

The Scotland Office was established on 1 July 1999. It shares an information technology system (SCOTS) with the Scottish Executive, who are responsible for the development, administration and maintenance of the system; consequently, the office does not directly enter into any IT contracts.

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in (a) the north-west, (b) Greater Manchester, and (c) the City of Manchester, in each of the last five years; and [HL2701]

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people were diagnosed with dementia in (a) the north-west, (b) Greater Manchester, and (c) the City of Manchester, in each of the last five years. [HL2702]

Information on the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in the north-west, Greater Manchester and the city of Manchester, in each of the last five years, is not available in the format requested.

The national Quality and Outcomes Framework provides the number of people recorded on practice disease registers with a diagnosis of dementia, but does not distinguish between Alzheimer's disease and other possible forms of dementia. According to the publication Revisions to the General Medical Services Contract 2006/07, a copy of which has already been placed in the Library, Alzheimer's disease accounts for 50 to 75 per cent of cases of dementia, thus giving a crude indication of the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the north-west, Greater Manchester and the city of Manchester.

The register count is only available for the last two releases of the framework, covering the periods 2006-07 and 2007-08. It also includes only those practices that have chosen to participate in the framework, as participation currently operates on a voluntary basis. Information is not available for all of the areas requested, as some are not health areas. Where this occurs, information has been supplied for the health areas that best fit those requested.

The available information is shown in the following table.

The number of people recorded on practice disease registers with a diagnosis of dementia in the north-west, Greater Manchester and the city of Manchester—2006-07 to 2007-08

Source: National Quality of Outcomes Framework.

Notes:

1. Greater Manchester Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) include the following:

Ashton, Leigh & Wigan PCT

Bolton PCT

Bury PCT

Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale PCT

Manchester PCT

Oldham PCT

Salford PCT

Stockport PCT

Tameside & Glossop PCT

Trafford PCT

2. The national Quality and Outcomes Framework was introduced in April 2004, as part of the new general medical services contract. Participation by practices in the framework is voluntary, though participation rates are very high—with most personal medical services practices also taking part. The above information was derived from the quality management analysis system—a national system developed by NHS Connecting for Health.

3. The quality management analysis system captures the number of patients on the various disease registers for each practice. The number of patients on the clinical registers can be used to calculate measures of disease prevalence, expressing the number of patients on each register as a percentage of the number of patients on practices’ lists. The above figures are just the number of patients on the disease register for dementia.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what research they have undertaken into procuring Deep Packet Inspection technologies. [HL2641]

As the national technical authority for information assurance, CESG conducts research in a number of fields to ensure the relevance and quality of advice, guidance and services provided to Her Majesty’s Government. To this end, CESG has conducted technical evaluations of Deep Packet Inspection technologies. For reasons of commercial confidentiality it would not be appropriate to discuss the results of those evaluations in any detail.

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they enforce the removal of gay men and women to Iraq. [HL2772]

The UK Border Agency looks to return to Iraq individuals from there who have no right to remain in the UK, including those who, if they have claimed international protection, have been found by the asylum decision-making and independent appeals system not to need such protection.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what differences in the sensitivity and utility of data in the national DNA database and the National Fingerprint Database account for the different rules for collection, storage and removal of personal data that apply to those databases. [HL2757]

The legal provisions governing the taking and retention of DNA samples and fingerprints for the national DNA database (NDNAD) and the national fingerprint database (IDENT1) are set out in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), as amended by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003. They provide that both DNA and fingerprints may be taken from a person arrested for a recordable offence and retained indefinitely, including for persons who are not convicted of a crime.

Policy on the retention of DNA and fingerprint records is being reviewed in the light of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of S and Marper. The Government are considering their response to the judgment in conjunction with the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers. A White Paper will be published later this year which will contain proposals on how we intend to implement the judgment.

In relation to the removal of records, under the provisions in PACE, the decision on whether to agree to a request from an individual to have their DNA profile, fingerprints and associated records removed from police databases lies with the chief officer of the force which took the DNA sample and fingerprint records.

In January 2006, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) issued guidance to chief officers on the consideration of applications for the removal of DNA samples, fingerprint records and Police National Computer records taken by forces in England and Wales. The ACPO guidelines make it clear that it is expected that DNA profiles and fingerprints which have been taken lawfully will be removed in exceptional cases only.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the status of the application for foundation trust status by the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust; and what are the next steps in the process.[HL2573]

The Secretary of State supported East Lancashire Hospitals National Health Service Trust’s application to become an NHS foundation trust in September 2008. Monitor (the statutory name of which is the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts), is now assessing the trust's application. Guidance on Monitor’s assessment process is set out in the document Applying for NHS Foundation Trust Status—Guide for Applicants (Monitor and the Department of Health, November 2008). A copy of this document has been placed in the Library.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have of the number of persons currently displaced by conflict in Swat and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan; and what contribution they have made to the United Nations Humanitarian Action Plan and other programmes to help those displaced. [HL2838]

The number of people displaced by conflict and insecurity from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and parts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), including Swat, has increased substantially during the last eight months. At the end of March 2009 the total number of internally displaced people registered in NWFP (including those from the FATA) was 547,000 (86,000 individuals in 11 formal camps and a further 461,000 outside camps).

The Department for International Development has so far committed £12 million (£6 million each to the UN—in support of the humanitarian plan—and the International Committee for the Red Cross for the internally displaced). Our funds are being used to support urgent humanitarian interventions in shelter, social protection, water and sanitation, food and health sectors.

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Patel of Bradford on 19 March (WA 82), what are the standard employer and employee contribution rates of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme; and which departments are responsible for the other four largest public sector pension schemes. [HL2520]

I refer the noble Lord to the reply I gave him on Thursday 19 March 2009, Official Report, col. WA82.

The departments responsible for the other four largest public sector pension schemes are as follows:

National Health Service Pension Scheme—Department of Health;

Teachers' Pension Scheme—Department for Children, Schools and Families;

Armed Forces Pension Scheme—Ministry of Defence; and

Local Government Pension Scheme for England and Wales—Department for Communities and Local Government.

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Patel of Bradford on 19 March (WA 82), what payments are projected to be made in the current and the next financial year to the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme by way of (a) employer contributions, and (b) other costs. [HL2817]

I refer the noble Lord to the reply I gave him on 19 March 2009, Official Report, col. WA82. Estimates of income into the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme are included in the “Supply Estimate for Cabinet Office: Civil Superannuation”.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what amount of European Union grants and loans have been allocated to each of the provinces of Turkey in each of the current and previous two years; how much of the allocation has been spent in each province; and what future funding has been agreed for the provinces of Turkey, and for Siirt. [HL2785]

A breakdown of European Union (EU) grants and loans to Turkey by province for the current and previous two years and for future years is unavailable. Information on EU financial assistance to Turkey can be found on the EU website www.ec.europa.eu and on the European Investment Bank (EIB) website www.eib.orq.

To ask Her Majesty's Government why the date of application for student visas is being set at the date of biometric registration and not the date of initial application and fee payment. [HL2323]

In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2007, where a visa application is to be accompanied by a specified fee, the application is not considered to be valid until that fee has been paid. I therefore confirm that a visa application is deemed to be lodged on the date that the required fee is paid.