1. What steps his Department is taking to increase levels of diversity in the judiciary. (288136)

Entry to the legal profession is now well balanced in terms of women and black and Asian people. That makes it all the more frustrating and paradoxical that, since the creation of the independent Judicial Appointments Commission in 2006, the data suggest that the situation for black and Asian people has, if anything, gone backwards. To provide more robust solutions and process, in April I established an advisory panel on judicial diversity and look forward to its report later in the year.

May I welcome that rather astonishing criticism of the Judicial Appointments Commission by the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor? I agree with it—we have not made progress on judicial diversity and I was pleased that he appointed a panel to consider the issue. When does he think that its recommendations will be before him? How long will it take him to implement them and put right what has not happened with the Judicial Appointments Commission in the past few years?

I was not seeking to make an astonishing criticism of the Judicial Appointments Commission, but merely referring to the data, which—although there are big problems with some of them—suggest that the situation for black and Asian people has gone backwards. We want the panel on judicial diversity to consider carefully all the processes and bars on people who work their way through the profession to a certain point and then, whether they are women or black or Asian people, are discouraged from applying, or, if they apply, are less likely to be successful. That is particularly true of the more senior judicial appointments

May I urge the Secretary of State to avoid any form of political correctness in appointments to the judiciary? Is not it completely wrong to see people in terms of their race, gender or religion when judging them and offering them jobs? Surely all jobs, including in the judiciary, should be given on merit alone?

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am the least politically correct person I know. Of course appointments should be made on merit, but there is something slightly insulting about the implication of his question—

No, no.

Yes, there is. There is something insulting about the implication of the question that there will not be well-qualified black or Asian people. The problems that women and black or Asian people face are similar but not the same: they are very well qualified when they enter the profession, but for all sorts of reasons they may be put off from getting to the starting line for the more senior appointments. Of course, when they are on the starting line for a circuit or High Court judge appointment, their merits should be assessed in the same way as anybody else’s, but the problem is getting people to that point.

May I say at the start of questions that the Secretary of State’s enthusiasm always to engage with the question and respond fully is widely respected throughout the House, but comprehensiveness must not stray into prolixity?

2. How many magistrates courts have been in operation in each year since 2005. (288137)

The number of magistrates courts in operation at the start of each calendar year since 2005 is: 361, 361, 360, 358 and, to date, 356.

Given the reorganisation of magistrates courts in the past few years, will the Under-Secretary tell us what new initiatives have been piloted in them to tackle crime and its causes?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question because it allows me to highlight three areas where we have enjoyed particular success in introducing innovative new approaches. The dedicated drugs courts have now been extended from the pilots in Leeds and west London to elsewhere in the country—indeed, I visited one in Salford not very long ago. Specialist domestic violence courts are being rolled out across the country. We now have 122 such courts, which are successfully bringing together different agencies to deal with domestic violence. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently opened the mental health court, which will deal with mental health issues and crime. All those courts are part of our determined effort not just to bring offenders to justice but to ensure that when they have served their time they can be brought back into the community in a positive and useful way.

3. What representations he has received on levels of probation service funding for the next three years. (288140)

I have received many representations. Probation funding has increased since 1997 by 70 per cent. in real terms. The budget for probation in this financial year is £894 million, compared with an out-turn for last year of £897 million.

All prison officers are civil servants, unlike the great bulk of probation employees. As the new directors of offender management are drawn almost exclusively from the Prison Service, probation boards are budgeting for £50 million of cuts next year. Does the Secretary of State understand the angst among our public sector colleagues in probation and their unions, the National Association of Probation Officers and Unison, about the consequences for individuals in the criminal justice system of a further loss of resources and staff?

Of course I understand anxieties in probation and prison services, but let me say to my hon. Friend, first, that we have not set the budget for the year beyond next year. Secondly, over the past 12 years, the real-terms increase in the probation service has been twice as fast as that in the Prison Service.

Does the Secretary of State not recognise that the probation service is already overstretched and that the cuts are most unwelcome? How does he expect the service to ensure the safety of the public and prevent reoffending by people who have been in prison if it does not have the resources to manage them properly?

The resources are there. The budget for probation in the hon. Lady’s area of West Mercia was £9.2 million in 2001-02. In the year just finished, it was £15.7 million. Even allowing for some inflation, that is a big real-terms increase. I am working carefully with the unions nationally, including the National Association of Probation Officers, to ensure that anxieties are properly and better dealt with than they might have been.

My right hon. Friend may know that over the past couple of months, probation officers from across the country have been coming to meetings in the House to discuss what is happening in their areas with hon. Members. The consistent picture has been of jobs going, including compulsory redundancies in some places, and trainee probation officers not getting jobs. Will my right hon. Friend agree to meet me and a cross-party delegation from the all-party justice unions parliamentary group, to see whether we can get to the bottom of what is happening in the service?

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. I have also set up a process with the major probation trade unions, NAPO and Unison, and the Probation Association whereby I see them every month to work through local anxieties. In most cases—although not every case—that process has worked satisfactorily to allay concerns. Of course I am worried about the number of trainee probation officers for whom there currently do not appear to be jobs, but a lot of work is being done, including with the Prison Service, to ensure that jobs can be provided across the board in the National Offender Management Service.

Why does the Secretary of State look surprised that he engenders so little confidence among the public and probation staff when he cannot run his budget? The director of probation has said that he wants the maximum level of underspending. Hundreds of expensively trained probation trainees are going straight on to the scrap heap. Hundreds more staff on full pay are in the so-called surplus employment pool, yet probation officers often have only a few minutes a week to supervise serious offenders. The property maintenance system is so bureaucratic that changing a light bulb in Birmingham requires a repairman to drive from Newmarket. As accountancy is not the Secretary of State’s strong point, will he confess that public safety is very much in peril under his stewardship?

The hon. and learned Gentleman does nothing to enhance his case through gross exaggeration of the situation. As I have said, the simple fact is that probation spending has increased by 70 per cent. since 1997, compared, in real terms, with 35 per cent. for the Prison Service. Probation spending has gone up further and faster than the case load. It has gone up much faster than it ever would have done under a Conservative Government, and much faster that it ever would under a Conservative Government.

My right hon. Friend’s Department will know of the case of Sarah Moore, a constituent of mine whose husband, a police officer, was killed several years ago. The probation service and other services have been working with the victims of crime. In view of the pressures on their budgets, what reassurance can my right hon. Friend give that the mistakes that have been made in the past will not be made in the future, and that the victims of crime—and not just the criminals—will be put at the heart of the criminal justice system?

The current, rather tighter, financial situation is no excuse whatever for a lack of efficiency or concern, particularly in respect of more serious offenders. Performance among probation services varies greatly, but I am in no doubt that, if we can get the average performance up to that of the best quarter, we will be doing very well in providing the public and, particularly, victims with a better service than they have today, within available resources.

4. What recent steps his Department has taken to reduce reoffending rates among young offenders. (288141)

The £100 million youth crime action plan, among other measures, has led to a 6.6 per cent. decrease in the proportion of young offenders who reoffend, and the rate at which they reoffended fell by more than 20 per cent. By introducing the youth rehabilitation order later this year, we plan to focus a more intense effort on tackling the young people with the most challenging behaviour, to assist them in turning their lives around.

Studies by the Minister’s own Department show that the odds of reoffending increase massively when a prisoner has no employment to go to on their release. Given that statistics show that youth unemployment has increased massively—from 11 to 17 per cent.—in the past 12 months, and that employment and training opportunities for young people are being decimated during this recession, what chance does the Minister give her aspiration for further progress on cutting reoffending rates of being realised in the current climate?

Of course the climate is a challenging one, but that is not a reason to give up. We believe that we could do far more to ensure that young people get every chance to turn away from the life of crime that they might have embarked on at an early age. We are providing more assistance, through interventions, to help them to do that, and to deal with the real risk factors such as a lack of accommodation, a lack of employment and a lack of support. The figures to which I referred earlier show that we are succeeding, and we intend to continue to do so.

Will my hon. Friend tell the House how many reoffenders lack educational qualifications? What are we doing to improve their chances of gaining such qualifications?

My hon. Friend hits on an important point. Many young and slightly older people who end up in custody have problems with their educational attainment. The provisions in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which is going through the other place at present, will make local education authorities responsible for the educational attainment of people in youth custody. That will make a big difference, because it will focus the attention of education authorities on outcomes for this most disadvantaged group, which has, until now, disappeared into the youth criminal justice system because local authorities, which are primarily responsible for education, have washed their hands of the outcomes for that group.

The Minister will be aware of the commendable plan to establish a young offenders’ academy in north-east London. Why did NOMS last month refuse to release relevant financial information that would have helped that plan, despite assurances on disclosure from the Justice Secretary last November? Are the Government deliberately hiding the true cost of youth custody, in order to hide the true cost of their failure to reduce reoffending?

The hon. Gentleman is straying into conspiracy theories, which are not valid. I know of the plan to which he refers and, as far as I am concerned, my Department has made every effort to provide proper information. However, I will be happy to consider any further requests for information that he says have not been met. There might be some relevant issues relating to material that is commercial-in-confidence in a more competitive environment, but I would be happy to talk to him further about the matter.

What evaluation has my hon. Friend made of the youth restorative disposal, which aims to get young people to apologise for their offence and to try to undertake restorative behaviour towards their victim, with the victim’s consent? I understand that this is now being piloted. Has the pilot scheme been evaluated yet?

There is evidence that this type of disposal can assist the victim to gain some satisfaction by making an impact on the person who perpetrated the crime against them. It is also important in assisting the young person to realise the full consequences of their action. This disposal is available in the youth system and can be a useful part of intensive community activity to prevent young people from going into the criminal justice system in the first place and to ensure that they turn away from the temptation to commit crime. At the time the crimes are committed, they may seem to be victimless and consequence-free, but this type of disposal can help young people to understand that they are neither. It is thus a valuable part of what we can do to turn young people away from crime.

5. How many persons convicted of a criminal offence and released on licence are in breach of the conditions of their licence. (288142)

In 2008-09, 17 per cent. of offenders on licence required breach action as a result of non-compliance during the first six months following release. That figure is based on a 20 per cent. sample of offenders released on licence, and 97 per cent. of the breached licences were enforced by the probation service within 10 working days of the breach.

Is the Minister aware that nearly 1,000 criminals, including murderers, rapists and paedophiles are on the run after disappearing while released on licence. This figures includes 19 murderers, 15 rapists, five paedophiles and 51 people accused of grievous bodily harm. Is that acceptable, and what are the Government doing to keep a track on those who are released on licence?

I am aware of those figures because my Department, having compiled them very carefully over the last few months, published them. The hon. Gentleman is right that there are 954—just short of 1,000—such people who have not been successfully returned to custody after their licence has been revoked, which is 0.7 per cent. of the total. He is also right—we do not wish to be complacent—that the police and criminal justice system is seeking those who have not been returned to custody and will do its utmost to get them back into prison, which is where they belong.

My hon. Friend must be aware that the public and victims of crime quite rightly do not like or understand it when people on licence go on to commit further crimes. What can we do to tighten up the licence system to ensure that paedophiles—and certainly rapists—do not commit further crimes. In the case of murderers, we know that some have gone on to murder again. What can the Minister do to tighten the rules, tighten the licences and put the credibility back into the system so that the public can begin to understand that we are taking it seriously?

I accept that it is nothing to be proud of when serious further offences are committed by people on licence. However, the figures on serious further offences being committed and convicted show only 0.35 per cent., so while I do not wish to sound complacent in any way, we must bear in mind the overall context, which I think is important. Much tougher and better arrangements for public protection have developed over the last 12 years: through multi-agency protection, public protection arrangements, and arrangements for IPP prisoners—those given an indeterminate sentence for public protection—those who were previously released without any supervision are now supervised regularly and can be recalled to prison if their behaviour gives any cause for concern. As I said, we are not complacent and we need to do more, but the position now is much stronger than it has ever been before.

Just two weeks ago, the Justice Secretary told us that 1,000 criminal fugitives were in breach of licence conditions, so how many have since been caught?

I cannot provide a precise figure because the police are out in their different areas trying to find the people who have not yet been found. What I can say very clearly is that in 1997, when the Government took office, under 30 per cent. of those whose licences were breached were recalled to prison. The figure is now 99.3 per cent., which is by all accounts an improvement.

Is not the truth that the Justice Secretary and the Minister have taken their eyes completely off the ball? Yesterday, the Parole Board complained that compensation claims from prisoners had reached new heights. Can the Minister confirm that the Government have increased prisoner legal aid by £20 million at the same time as they have cut front-line probation services by £21 million? Is not the truth that the Government are more interested in fuelling the compensation culture than in protecting the public?

That is absolutely not the case. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear last week, we are tightening legal aid in respect of claims of that kind.

The legal profession likes to pursue such claims. Conservative Members say that we should not, as they put it, cut legal aid, yet they complain when spending on legal aid goes up. They cannot have it both ways. We are cracking down on legal aid for prisoners with trivial and non-serious complaints, and we will continue to do so. We spend more on legal aid than any other country in the world, but we must ensure that we target our expenditure on those who need it most.

6. What recent assessment he has made of the merits of proposals for reform of the electoral system for general elections. (288143)

Last year the Government published a review of voting systems. The review considered the experience of the systems introduced in the United Kingdom since 1997, and found no definitive evidence that one system was better or worse than another. The debate on the respective merits of different electoral systems continues, and last month the Prime Minister confirmed that the Government would set out proposals for taking it further.

When there has been such a breakdown of trust between the electorate and those elected to serve them, it is surely fundamental that the Government should consider reform of the system that links the electorate to the people elected to serve them. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill was published on Monday. Does the Minister not think it rather absurd that a Bill that is intended to reform the constitution does not deal with that link between the electorate and their elected representatives?

I do not think it will surprise the hon. Gentleman to learn that I do not agree with him. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill tackles a range of issues that many Members on both sides of the House believe should have been tackled a long time ago. It transfers power from the Executive to the legislature, and I would expect the hon. Gentleman to welcome that.

The hon. Gentleman will be well aware—particularly if he has read the review of voting systems that the Department published last year—that all voting systems have their proponents and their various merits and disadvantages. We need a proper public debate, and we are ensuring that one is held.

Of course a proper public debate is important, but does my right hon. Friend agree that, whatever system we have and whatever reform takes place, it is also important that we retain the constituency link and constituency representation? What we do not want are any list systems.

I entirely agree. We believe that the link between Members of Parliament and their constituents is fundamental to the health of our democracy, and we certainly propose to retain it.

Does the Minister not concede that one of the worst aspects of the first-past-the-post system is the fact that it reduces the entire general election to a fight for a few swing votes in a few marginal constituencies? That in itself alienates a vast number of electors. It also leads to a large number of safe seats, which has led to a degree of complacency that has not exactly helped the House in the last few months.

We could have a protracted debate about the merits of the different systems, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is forgetting something fundamental, which relates to what his hon. Friend the. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) said a moment ago. What matters in this country is what the electorate think. In my experience and, I think, that of most Members, the electorate have a habit of getting what they want—and anyone who thinks that there are any safe seats anywhere in the country nowadays is profoundly mistaken.

But the electorate do not get what they want. Will the Minister not at least concede that another bad aspect of first past the post is that we inevitably elect Governments who are unpopular at the moment when they are elected? At the last general election, nearly two thirds of the electorate voted for a party other than the party that the Minister represents. Should there not be at least a consensus between all parties that Governments should be more popular at least when they are first elected?

I think that the hon. Gentleman is forgetting the experience of countries that operate the system of proportional representation that he wants. Parties that secure no more than 5 per cent. of the vote can determine the Government. How can such a Government be popular?

There is, of course, a far more fundamental problem than that of proportional representation: the very integrity of our electoral system. While Conservative Members welcome the measures that the Government have taken—indeed, we have pressed the Government to take such measures as individual voter registration to combat electoral fraud—the system that we are in discussing is in danger of having its integrity questioned. It has already been described as being akin to that in a banana republic. An electoral commissioner has said that it is childishly simple to commit fraud. Why will not the Government, before the next general election, look at the package of measures that we propose to tighten postal voting and the production of identification at the ballot box to make sure that our system’s integrity is protected against fraud?

I have too much respect for the hon. Lady to think that she believes the rubbish that she has just uttered. If she had read the reports from the Electoral Commission, and the most recent one from the commission and the Association of Chief Police Officers, she would know that their conclusion was that the incidence of fraud is declining. She is right on one thing; even a single incident of fraud is one too many. But she well knows that we are not complacent and she knows all of the measures that we have introduced, including postal vote identifiers. She knows that we are introducing individual voter registration, not because the Conservative party is pushing us but because it is the right thing to do.

7. What recent steps he has taken to divert children and young people from the criminal justice system. (288144)

Our approach is set out in the £100 million youth crime action plan. Last year the number of children and young people entering the criminal justice system for the first time fell by 10 per cent. Since 2000, the proportion of young offenders who reoffend has fallen by 6.6 per cent.

I welcome those figures, but is my hon. Friend aware of the report from the Prison Reform Trust that shows that of the young people locked up by the criminal justice system, 75 per cent. are either on remand or end up with a non-custodial sentence? What steps are being taken to reduce these figures?

My hon. Friend is quite right to raise the issue of custodial sentences for young people. The Government believe that diversions are necessary to remove as many children and young people as possible from custodial sentences, which is why we are looking at out-of-court disposals, a proportionate and efficient means, in appropriate cases, of dealing with low-level offending by mainly first-time offenders. We also know that as a result of out-of-court disposals, reoffending is much lower among juveniles.

Does the Minister agree that young people are far more likely to end up in the criminal justice system if they are not in employment, education or training and that the big increase in NEETs has been a major failure in the Government’s pursuit of both social justice and community safety?

The Government are doing an enormous amount for young people right across all Departments. We think it is appropriate for children and young people not to enter the criminal justice system if it is inappropriate for them to do so, which is why we are developing as many out-of-court disposals as we can to meet the needs and to allow other parts of the system, such as health and education, to work with those young people outside of custodial sentences.

8. What mechanism exists for the management of contracts awarded to public sector bidders for the management of market-tested prisons. (288145)

Responsibility for the management of all prisons rests with the directors of offender management and the Ministry of Justice. Each public sector prison, including those successful in a market test, is managed via a service level agreement between the relevant director of offender management and the prison.

HMP Wellingborough is being market-tested and a good bid is being put together by the local governor and the prison officers, who have ignored their national union’s advice on working together. If the bid is successful and the prison has its own market plan, how does it fit in with the overall system? Is it separate?

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his persistence on this matter. In our Adjournment debate, he described himself as an ideological Thatcherite but then went on to argue for keeping his prison in the public sector, which is an interesting example of the Conservative party facing both ways. None the less, I wish to assure him that we welcome good public sector bids. If HMP Wellingborough produces such a bid and wins, I will be very pleased.

9. When the Government plan to publish their decision following their consultation on pleural plaques. (288146)

On 30 June, the Government published to the House two reports on the medical aspects of pleural plaques, one from the chief medical officer’s expert adviser and a second from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. The Government will give further consideration to the issue of compensation for people diagnosed with pleural plaques before publishing a final response after the recess.

In addition, we are actively considering measures to make the United Kingdom a global leader in research on the alleviation, prevention and cure of asbestos-related diseases, and to help speed up compensation claims for those who develop serious asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma. The latter includes examination of the process for tracking and tracing employment and insurance records, as well as looking into the support given to individuals who are unable to trace such records.

Will the Secretary of State assure us today that pleural plaques sufferers will not be tret any differently in terms of compensation regardless of whether they lodged their claim prior to the 2007 Law Lords judgment or after it and of whether they live in Scotland, England, Wales or Northern Ireland?

As I said, we are giving active consideration to that. I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but we have to make our own decisions in this jurisdiction. I am sure that, in turn, my hon. Friend will wish to pay very careful attention to the conclusions of the expert appointed by the chief medical officer and to IIAC; they came to unanimous conclusions, including those backed by the three trade union representatives.

Following on from the Scottish Government’s decision to legislate in this area, did the Secretary of State note the recommendation of the relevant Department in the Northern Ireland Assembly that there should be a change in legislation to allow those with pleural plaques to sue in the courts and get compensation? Also, following on from what the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) said, whereas the regions of devolved government will have taken action to redress this terrible injustice to those who suffer from pleural plaques, will it not be perverse if the only area where people cannot claim is England and Wales?

As I said, or implied, in answer to my hon. Friend, it is the essence of devolution that different decisions can be made. It would be very curious indeed if the result of devolution was that each jurisdiction had to follow the decisions of the other. We are seeking to consider the evidence very carefully, and I commend the evidence of the chief medical officer’s expert’s report and IIAC to all hon. Members, whichever constituency they represent.

I hear what my right hon. Friend says about the medical evidence of IIAC, but will he look further at medical evidence during the recess, because I can tell him that the consultant who leads the charge for a national centre for asbestos-related diseases says that he believes that pleural plaques are a disease, and he sees people on a daily basis, a proportion of whom are affected by pleural plaques to the degree of having breathlessness? Will my right hon. Friend look again at fresh medical evidence over the recess?

I would be delighted to do so. In particular, I would like to facilitate a serious discussion at medical level between the medical practitioner expert to whom my hon. Friend referred and the expert appointed by the chief medical officer, because his conclusion and that of IIAC are obviously at variance at present.

11. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on proposals in his Department’s White Paper on constitutional renewal on parliamentary oversight of national security and the intelligence services. (288148)

As part of my duties, I have wide-ranging discussions with ministerial colleagues, including on all the proposals in the constitutional renewal White Paper.

Have I missed something, because it was proposed in the White Paper that there should be examination of the parliamentary oversight—of which there is none—of the security and intelligence services? The Justice Secretary has in his various ministerial portfolios always alluded to, and mooted, such oversight, and on 22 July 2008 the Prime Minister promised a joint parliamentary committee on strategy—

Is there a question?

My question is: have I missed anything—did the hon. Lady not notice that? What is happening—because nothing has happened? We have this White Paper, and the new Bill is out, but there is no mention at all of national security.

I am sure that the reply will be very much more succinct than the question.

I shall do my best, Mr. Speaker. The answer, in short, is that for once my hon. Friend has missed something. We did call for greater accountability for the Intelligence and Security Committee, which does provide parliamentary oversight, and we are delivering it. We are doing so in terms of nominations and we are about to do so in terms of public hearings. We are beefing up the Committee—there is now a new general investigator post and the number of staff has increased by a third.

12. Which three nationalities comprise the largest number of foreign national prisoners; and how many prisoners of each such nationality there are. (288149)

As at 31 March 2009, the top three foreign nationalities held in prisons in England and Wales were Jamaica, with 1,099 prisoners; Nigeria, with 855 prisoners; and Ireland, with 620 prisoners.

Should we not be sending these countries a bill for the incarceration of their nationals in our prisons? Is not this foreign prisoner scandal an absolute national disgrace, given that 13 per cent. of the prison population in this country is made up of people from other countries, who should be returned to secure detention in the countries from which they came?

I shall desist from answering the hon. Gentleman’s first question about sending bills. [Hon. Members: “Why?”] We do not have a policy to do what he suggests. However, we deport foreign national prisoners where we have the chance to do so. In 2007-08, we deported 4,200 foreign national prisoners, and this year we aim to deport 5,800. We do our best to divest ourselves of foreign national prisoners, where it is lawful and practicable to do so. We are also negotiating prisoner transfer agreements with relevant countries. I should also point out that we currently have fewer foreign national prisoners in our jails than most other European countries.

13. What recent representations he has received on the jurisdiction of UK courts over cases involving crimes under international law committed in other countries. (288150)

The Government receive many representations from time to time about the jurisdiction of the UK courts for particular categories of crimes under international law. We have recently received representations about genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and we have responded positively to those issues.

Does the Minister believe that someone such as Felicien Kabuga, a major financier of the Rwandan genocide, should be brought to justice for his crimes? If so, why has she been unwilling to bring non-residents into the legislation on genocide and war crimes? Surely, if such war criminals are present in the UK, they should not be given sanctuary, regardless of whether they are resident.

It seems that, yet again, the hon. Lady is unable to welcome the significant move that the Government have made on this issue, which has been welcomed by a large number of her colleagues in the other House and by outside organisations. We have taken considerable steps forward on this issue. We are not persuaded that it is necessary to change the relevant definition from “residence” to “presence”, as such suspects are not using the UK as a safe haven in which to hide. The current law on these crimes applies to residents, but we have stated that we are willing to examine the definition of resident and clarify it to ensure that the sort of cases that have been discussed could well be captured by “residence” in future.

May I make another representation to my hon. Friend? The Israeli settlers in the west bank and Golan Heights are committing crimes under international law, so will she assure me that such settlers who visit the UK will be arrested and charged here?

Obviously, any decision to prosecute would be a matter for the prosecuting authorities, and it would be inappropriate for me to comment on that specifically.

14. What recent discussions he has had with the Magistrates Courts Authority on the implementation of sentencing guidelines for shoplifting. (288151)

The Magistrates Association has made clear its preference for charges of shop theft to be prosecuted in court. As the hon. Lady is aware, earlier this week I published revised operational guidance to police forces to restrict the use of fixed penalty notices for shop theft to first-time offenders who are not substance abusers where the value of the goods is less than £100 and where the goods have normally been recovered.

I am most grateful to the Lord Chancellor for that reply and for the statement that he issued last week. He has said on numerous occasions that the sentencing guidelines are about to be amended, so when does he expect that the amendments might reach the public eye?

I will write to the hon. Lady about that. I thought that her question was about the revised guidance to the police forces, for which she has been campaigning for some time. The effect of the restrictions that I announced yesterday on penalty notices for disorder will be to ensure that a greater number of those prosecuted for shop theft end up in court.

15. What plans he has to reduce levels of drug taking in prisons. (288152)

We have made great progress in reducing drug misuse in prisons. Drug misuse, as measured by random mandatory drug testing, is down by 63 per cent. since the 1996-97 financial year. Record numbers of prisoners are engaged in drug treatment. Prison drug treatment funding has increased year on year since 1996-97—a thirteenfold increase—and record numbers are engaging with such treatment.

Is it really a good idea for the Government to spend £4 million on installing automatic vending machines in many prisons, including Dartmoor prison just outside my constituency, to supply methadone to prisoners? Is that really the best way to bear down on drug abuse?

The reference to methadone dispensers—which are medically arranged treatment programmes for prisoners that ensure that each prisoner gets only the correct dose of their maintenance treatment—as vending machines is a travesty of the truth. Vending suggests selling—that is what the word means—and there is no question that the Prison Service deals in such behaviour in our prisons.

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities. (288126)

Yesterday I published the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, which includes major reforms in respect of the civil service and the ratification of treaties, ends the curious election of hereditary peers to the House of Lords, and provides for peers to resign, to be suspended or to be expelled. Further proposals for the long-term reform of the Lords will be brought forward in the autumn. With yesterday’s announcement, nearly all the proposals put to the House on 3 July 2007 have either been implemented or are well in hand in being implemented.

As we will not meet for about three months, will the Justice Secretary tell us how the promise—that an equivalent to the oath will be administered at the Iraq inquiry—from the Prime Minister and Sir John Chilcot can be delivered? We need to know now, not three months down the road and a long way into the Chilcot inquiry.

I assume that the equivalent to an oath is that those who are witnesses—I expect to be one myself—will be invited to indicate that they are about to tell the truth. That is how it will work. If there is any difference, I will write to my hon. Friend.

T2. Given the increase in tribunals practising sharia law in this country, can the Secretary of State or one of his excellent Ministers explain how that dovetails with the law of the land? How is it compatible with our commitment to human rights and, for example, the equality of women under the laws of this country? (288127)

Any domestic tribunal, as the so-called sharia courts are, has to comply with the law of the land, and the statutory basis with which they have to comply is an Act passed under the last Conservative Administration —the Arbitration Act 1996. This Government have no less an interest than any other party in seeing the strictest observance of British law by everybody who is resident in or subject to this jurisdiction, regardless of their confessional faith.

T7. Despite the efforts of various bird-brained councillors who have not yet got the gist of the Department’s excellent new guidelines on the staking of graveyards, does the Minister welcome the fact that the Co-operative funeral service has now agreed to fix any gravestone wrongly staked over the past 10 years and consider any in its jurisdiction that have been staked at all? (288132)

As always, my hon. Friend is assiduous in pursuing this issue, and rightly so. I am absolutely delighted that the Co-op—of which I give notice I am a customer—is taking on board what he raises. I have written directly to the chief executives and leaders of local authorities, and I hope that they will take the issue seriously. I will make sure that they follow the guidance properly and do not allow views about health and safety that are unhelpfully politically correct to overcome what should be a sensible, straightforward and sensitive way of dealing with the matter.

I welcome the two written statements about legal aid that were made yesterday. One insisted that best-value tendering will not go ahead until pilots have been examined, and the other was on family law. On the very controversial issue of family legal aid, however, what will the reworking of assumptions and the further analysis amount to? What will the key considerations be?

From work done in the Legal Services Commission, it became apparent last Friday that there were problems in the analysis—although not in the basic data—that required reworking. That was why the announcement was deferred, but I say to the right hon. Gentleman and the House that there has been an extraordinary increase in expenditure on family legal aid. It is now up to £582 million—an increase of 25 per cent.—even though the case load has declined by 11 per cent. This is not a service that has been underfunded, but it is an area of legal process that has become over-elaborate. All those participating in the system have a responsibility to make it less elaborate, in the interests of the public and the children concerned.

In 2006, the Information Commissioner’s Operation Motorman referred to hundreds of journalists who had got information on people from private detectives by illegal means. Those journalists, and the newspapers that they work for, have not been named. Has the Justice Department been involved in that cover-up? Can they be named, so that the people who were the victims of those illegal activities can have some remedy against those newspapers and journalists?

To the very best of my knowledge, my Department has not been involved in any way in the matter. My hon. Friend asks about naming the individuals involved, and he may wish to consider making a freedom of information request to the Information Commissioner.

T3. May I ask the Secretary of State to return to the issue of trainee probation officers and to clear up a point of confusion? I think that he accused my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) of exaggerating the figures, but is it not true that around 1,000 trainee probation officers qualify each year for about 250 jobs? Does not that mean that hundreds of people trained up by the Government do not get jobs? (288128)

I think that the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion of the figures is slightly wide of the mark. I have accepted already that some trainee probation officers will qualify, for whom positions are unlikely to be available this year. That is due to a combination of the tighter financial climate and the recession, which means that fewer existing probation officers are moving on to other jobs. I am on the case and I am discussing the matter in detail, with the probation trade unions above all. We are anxious to use the full resources of the National Offender Management Service to ensure that qualified trainees are provided with employment wherever possible.

The Justice Secretary and I have been in correspondence about the possibility that a prison will be built in Scarisbrick in my constituency. I have received assurances from him that there will not be a Titan prison or any other sort of prison there, but it would appear that my Tory councillors will not accept that until they hear categorically that there will not be a prison in Scarisbrick. Will my right hon. Friend give me that assurance?

There will not be a prison in Scarisbrick.

T4. Twelve days ago, the Government accepted amendments in the House of Lords to abolish seditious and criminal libel. Those amendments had been sought for a long time by bodies such as PEN, Index on Censorship and Article 19; I am a trustee of the last of those organisations. May I ask the Secretary of State to ask his officials to liaise with them all to ensure that maximum publicity is given to the fact that we are going to change our law, and to set an example to those countries that maintain and use such laws? (288129)

The Government have accepted in principle the amendments tabled to the Coroners and Justice Bill. Among other things, the amendments will extend abolitions to the offences to Northern Ireland, and pick up some of the mixed consequential amendments and repeals to various linked statutory provisions. We will also look at debating and discussing some of those issues with other partners and outside stakeholders.

I return to the question of compensation for pleural plaques victims. If someone worked for a UK Government Department, such as the Ministry of Defence, in Scotland or Northern Ireland, they would get compensation, but if they worked in England or Wales, they would get nothing. What is the practicality and fairness of that?

Even before devolution, there were differences in the civil law as well as the criminal law north and south of the border. That has just been a fact of life. The courts are therefore well used to dealing with some differences, which have differences of outcomes for individuals.

T5. HMP Wellingborough is having a methadone dispenser put in. Following what my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) said in an earlier question, could the Justice Secretary explain why a dispenser is better value and better for the prisoner than going to see the medical officer? I wonder whether the Secretary of State, Lord High Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister could answer that. (288130)

This is a most extraordinary confection of a story developed by some Opposition Members. I shall explain: prisoners can get methadone, whether it is dispensed through a machine or manually, only when they have been to the medical officer. What happens—I have seen this in operation—is that the dispensing machines are put in by the health service to control the issue of methadone, so that only those prisoners who have been prescribed it medically, by a medical officer, can receive it. There is an iris scan, and if the machine recognises the prisoner, his or her dose is dispensed. They have to drink it in sight of a prison officer and a medical orderly, so there is no chance—no chance—of deception of the kind that, I am afraid, takes place all too frequently otherwise in prison, especially with drugs.

What discussions has the Department had with the Crown Prosecution Service over the proposed restructuring of the Forensic Science Service? Given that we are looking at hundreds of jobs under threat and the closure of excellent laboratories such as the one in Chepstow, where many of my constituents work, does my right hon. Friend agree that we should look at the full repercussions for the CPS before any decisions are made by the Home Office?

I am very happy to pass on to my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General the concerns that have been expressed by my hon. Friend about the position of the FSS. Those concerns, if I may say, have also been expressed to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle). My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Jessica Morden) will understand that decisions on that are matters for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

T8. What action is being taken by the Ministry of Justice to address the particular needs of former armed service personnel who have been shown to be suffering from combat stress and who are caught up in the criminal justice system? (288134)

We are taking special measures to help former service personnel who are caught up in the criminal justice system because we recognise—indeed, this has emerged this morning—that the results of combat stress can often emerge many years later, and in unpredictable forms, including in offending behaviour that simply was not there before and during an individual’s service in the armed forces. I am very happy to write in more detail to the hon. Lady to set out what we are doing.

I was alarmed about the case of a constituent of mine who was the victim of an assault and robbery at a cash machine. The criminal who committed the crime was given a suspended sentence. Will my right hon. Friend look at the case if I send details to him?

Yes, I will.

T9. The people outside the House must be involved in rebuilding our broken political system. Will the Secretary of State support a citizens convention to help to map out the path for constitutional renewal, instead of leaving it solely in the hands of politicians? (288135)

The hon. Lady makes a very valuable point and I agree with a large part of what she said. It is important that we involve the British people in policy making between elections as well as at them. That is why we are bringing forward proposals for deliberative events that involve the British people in precisely the way she suggests. I do not agree with her precisely that we need to wrap it all up in one grand citizens convention, but on the spirit of what she is saying—the need to involve people in deliberative events to help formulate public policy—I agree.

Returning to electoral reform and the general election, given that our brave armed forces are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, partly in the name of democracy, will the Minister give our armed forces a commitment that they will be able to participate in the UK general election?

I am very happy to give that commitment. We are well aware that levels of registration among our armed services are not all they should be. We are making concerted efforts with the Ministry of Defence to improve that, and I have given an open invitation, which I extend to the hon. Gentleman, to Members who have large garrisons in their constituencies: if there are particular measures that they think would improve levels of registration, I ask them please to tell us, because we are very happy to engage with that process.

Does my right hon. Friend hold a view about the proposed closure of the Forensic Science Service at Chorley and the effect that it will have on the justice system that he represents, given the fact that cases may not go ahead?

Of course I am concerned, as the Member for the adjacent constituency of Blackburn, about the potential effects. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Jessica Morden), I have already made clear my hon. Friends’ concerns about the proposed closures in Newport and Chorley. Both facilities serve a wide area of population and it is crucial that in any organisation of the Forensic Science Service there is no dereliction or diminution in the service provided to the Crown Prosecution Service and through that, to the victims of crime.