This statement, which I am also making on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, sets out the plans of our two Departments to work together to recover more of the debt which is owed to the taxpayer.

For some three years our two Departments have been taking forward a programme of joint working covering a range of areas where, together, we can deliver better service to our customers and better value to the taxpayer than we could if we worked separately. One such area relates to the debts that are owed to both HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) - often by the same individuals. Accordingly, we have been examining:

ways in which we can recover debts more cost effectively (for customers and Departments) from customers who owe money to both our Departments;

joint tracing services to locate customers with debts owing to one or both Departments for whom we have no current address; and

a simpler payment method for customers owing a debt to HMRC and who are in receipt of benefit payments from DWP.

As part of this programme of work, from the Spring of 2010 HMRC will start to trial the recovery of working tax credit and self-assessment debts through deductions from DWP benefit payments. Participation in the trial will be voluntary. The new service will be offered to people who cannot afford to settle their debts with HMRC in one go and who would prefer to pay them off through a voluntary deduction from their benefits.

To do this DWP intends to make a regulation under the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987 to enable DWP to collect HMRC debts. This regulation will be subject to scrutiny by the Social Security Advisory Committee, and both Departments will consult with customer representatives when designing the trial.

The trial will enable our two Departments to assess the effectiveness of collecting HMRC debts via deductions from DWP benefit payments as well as to test our customers’ response to this method of payment. The trial will involve customers who are in receipt of benefit and whose tax credit overpayment or self-assessment debt is less than £1,000. It will offer customers whose tax credit award has ended or who have a self-assessment debt the option of paying back the debt via deductions from benefit payments as an alternative to current HMRC payment methods.

Both Departments will evaluate the results of the trial before deciding whether to make this a permanent payment option.

New Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) were signed with Anguilla on 20 July 2009, Turks and Caicos Islands on 22 July 2009, Liechtenstein on 11 August 2009 and Gibraltar on 27 August 2009. Protocols to Double Taxation Agreements were signed with Singapore on 24 August 2009 and Switzerland on 7 September 2009.

The text of each TIEA and Protocol has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and made available on HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) website. The text of each will be scheduled to separate draft Orders in Council and laid before the House of Commons in due course.

On the same day that the TIEA with Liechtenstein was signed, HMRC also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Government of Liechtenstein on co-operation in tax matters. The text of the MOU is available on the HMRC website.

A Treasury Minute on the contingent liabilities arising from the extension of the Asset Purchase Facility is being published today. Copies are available in the Library of the House.

The purpose of this statement is to announce the publication of the results of an audit of home detention custody (HDC) releases from 1 April 2003 to March 2008 who were then subsequently recalled following further charges and convicted. That information is today published and is attached to this statement.

Context

Home detention curfew (HDC) came into effect on 28 January 1999. Eligible prisoners primarily serving between three months and less than four years may be released on HDC up to 135 days earlier than they would be otherwise, depending on their sentence length.

Registered sex offenders and foreign national prisoners who are liable to removal are statutorily excluded. Offenders serving sentences for certain serious violent offences, including prisoners serving sentences for terrorism legislation offences and prisoners with any history of sexual offending are presumed unsuitable unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Prisoners subject to the release arrangements of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 who are sentenced to four years or more are not statutorily ineligible for release on HDC but are presumed unsuitable.

Prisoners released on HDC are subject to an electronically monitored curfew to their home, usually for 12 hours a day. Eligible prisoners must pass a risk assessment, which includes an assessment of home circumstances carried out by the probation service, before release can be granted.

Breach of curfew conditions or breach of licence conditions, including alleged further offences or behavioural issues may result in executive recall to prison.

Previous questions in the House have asked how many offenders released on HDC have been recalled following further offences and what offences have been committed by them. We have recently undertaken a very detailed interrogation of the HDC reoffending data used previously. This has shown that we over-reported the number of offences committed by offenders on the scheme. We have taken the opportunity to revise our procedures for calculating HDC reoffending, correcting the previous errors and introducing an improved method for estimating reoffending by these offenders. Offender Management Statistical Analysis Services has assumed responsibility for collating this data in the future.

The revised annual reoffending figures for those on HDC from April 2003 to March 2008 are shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows the types of offences committed whilst on HDC.

Future Release of Data

The Ministry of Justice will consult on the publication of data in respect of offenders who breach their licence conditions (including those on home detention curfew) and who are recalled. The statistical publication arising from this consultation will include data on reoffending by offenders subject to this scheme.

Methodological Note

Details of offenders starting on HDC are taken from data recorded by the Prison Service. Data on their reoffending is taken from an extract of the police national computer (PNC) held by the Ministry of Justice. Offenders recorded in the prison data who cannot be found on the PNC are excluded from the figures. Like any large-scale recording system the PNC is subject to errors with data entry and recording. The PNC is regularly updated so that further analysis at a later date will generate revised figures.

The figures relate to offenders starting on home detention curfew in each quarter. An offender is considered to have reoffended if, during their period on HDC, he or she committed an offence that was recorded on the PNC as resulting in a caution or conviction; for the offence to count the caution or conviction has to be given within nine months of the end of the quarter in which the offender started on HDC. Offences resulting in a not guilty verdict or no further action or for which no final outcome is recorded on the PNC are not counted. Breach offences and offences from outside England and Wales are excluded.

Data on HDC start and end dates are taken from data recorded by the Prison Service. Where no end date has been recorded or where the end date gives an HDC period longer than the maximum of 135 days an estimate of the length of the HDC period has been derived as follows: for offenders recorded as receiving a custodial sentence of 18 months or longer the HDC period has been set to 135 days; for sentences of less than 18 months the HDC period has been calculated as 1/4 of the sentence length.

As the House will be aware, Her Majesty graciously accepted my recommendation that Michael Shields should be granted a free pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. He was released from custody on 9 September. I have placed in the Library the statement I made to the press on that day.

In July 2005 Mr Shields was convicted in Bulgaria of the attempted murder of a Bulgarian national called Martin Georgiev. Mr Georgiev suffered a brutal and unprovoked attack in the Bulgarian resort of Varna where violence flared in the early hours of 30 May 2005. Mr Shields was sentenced to 15 years, reduced to 10 on appeal. In 2006 he was returned to England to complete his sentence here. He applied for a free pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. However, it had been the long-standing practice, on an equally long-standing legal interpretation of the 1983 Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, that the “receiving state” had to respect the decision of the sentencing state, so I did not initially entertain the application.

This approach was challenged in a judicial review and on 17 December last year the Administrative Court declared that I should consider the application and said,

“the grant of a free pardon would appear to require a conclusion that, taking the Bulgarian courts' judgment for what it is and without calling in question its correctness on the material which those courts considered, fresh evidence which the Bulgarian court did not consider, taken with the material which they did consider and their judgment upon it, justifies a conclusion that Michael Shields is morally and technically innocent”.

I accepted the judgment of the Court and sought straight away to ensure from Mr Shields' legal team that I had available all the evidence in this case. I appointed senior counsel to assist me and, with the agreement of the chief constable, Merseyside Police conducted further inquiries on my behalf.

On 2 July, after the most careful consideration of the evidence, I made a provisional decision to refuse Michael Shields' application for a free pardon. I did so because I was not satisfied that Mr Shields passed the test of "moral and technical innocence" that the Administrative Court expected me to apply. I made clear at the time that I would consider any further representations before I made a final decision. I also offered Mr Shields' parents the opportunity of a meeting so they could make representations to me in person.

Written representations I received over the course of the summer did not persuade me that my provisional decision of 2 July had been wrong. However, on 28 August I had a meeting with Mr Shields' parents. The meeting was also attended by their daughter, by Louise Ellman MP and by Councillor Joe Anderson of Liverpool City Council. At that meeting I was presented with significant new information that had not been presented to me before. Following further inquiries after the meeting, I determined the new information to be both truthful and credible. Once again Merseyside police assisted me. The new evidence profoundly changed my consideration of this matter and showed other, existing, evidence in a new light. What had not previously appeared credible now appeared to be so.

Taking all the evidence together I concluded that Michael Shields was in fact telling the truth when he said he was innocent of the attempted murder of Martin Georgiev. The test of moral and technical innocence had therefore been met so Mr Shields was granted the free pardon he sought and released from custody.

One issue that has emerged from this case is the appropriateness or otherwise of the Justice Secretary exercising a power that involves him in making findings of fact in cases where miscarriage of justice is alleged in cases from abroad. I am clear that it is not a suitable function for the Executive. Indeed, any role for a Secretary of State in referring alleged miscarriages of justice occurring within the jurisdiction to the appeal courts was removed by the 1995 Criminal Appeal Act, which established the Criminal Cases Review Commission. I intend looking at options, though I have yet to form any view as to how future such applications should be handled. I shall, of course, consult and in doing so I will want to hear the views of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and others with an interest.

On 25 June the House endorsed a package of changes to the Parliamentary pension scheme, backdated to 1 April 2009, consisting of:

(1) an increase in member contribution rates

(a) from 10 to 11.9 per cent. for a pension building up at an accrual rate of 1/40th of final salary for each year of service,

(b) from 6 to 7.9 per cent. for a pension building up at an accrual rate of 1/50th, and

(c) from 5.5 to 5.9 per cent. for a pension building up at an accrual rate of 1/60th.

(2) the application of the scheme’s maximum pension limit of two thirds of final salary to all scheme members for future service.

The rise in member contribution rates will mean an increase in the net (after tax relief) monthly contribution made by most MPs of approximately £62. Because the increase will be backdated to 1 April, arrears will be payable when the changes are implemented by the Trustees.

This package is judged by the Government Actuary to produce savings of 2.9 per cent. of payroll. The House also called on me to bring forward further proposals which will make additional savings of 1.9 per cent. of payroll, so that the Exchequer contribution to the scheme for 2009-10 will be capped at its 2008-09 level. I plan to put proposals before the House in October. These could include a further increase in member contribution rates, an increase in pension age, changes to the benefits payable on death, or a combination of all these measures.

I regret to inform the House that some of the figures in the answer I gave to Parliamentary Question 285779 on 14 July 2009, Official Report, col. 210W, about the number and length (in miles) of those schemes on motorways in August 2009 for each Region in England were incorrect as different regional divisions within the Highways Agency had reported the figures based on different definitions. The Highways Agency has checked the figures and the corrected answer is as follows.

The stated numbers of miles subject to roadworks are based on a carriageway length of motorway. Motorways generally comprise two carriageways (one in each direction) so each stated distance is the length of motorway measured in a single direction only. The figures do not include works involving only the closure of the motorway hard shoulder.

The figures above include works involving a narrowing of the existing lanes to reduce the total width of carriageway open to live traffic, thereby allowing access to adjacent sections of carriageway. This type of restriction can allow works to be carried out while maintaining the existing number of traffic lanes open to traffic, thereby helping to minimise congestion caused by the roadworks. They also include closure of a lane completely to allow works access to the carriageway.

On 16 August I announced the publication of Lord Gill’s report into the causes of the tragic factory explosion at ICL Plastics Ltd in Glasgow on 11 May 2004. At the same time I asked the Chair of the HSE and its board to consider the report’s findings and to report back to me on progress by the end of September, addressing both Lord Gill’s criticisms of its actions since the explosion and how the report’s recommendations could be taken forward. I said that I would report back to Parliament on progress in the autumn.

The HSE has now responded to me. I have placed a copy of its response in the Libraries of both Houses and it is also available on the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/gas/lpg.htm .

In the response the HSE chair acknowledges that, while primary responsibility for the tragic accident rested with the site user, there were failings within HSE which need to be addressed. The chair also reiterates the apologies that both she and the chief executive of HSE made for these failings both during and after Lord Gill’s inquiry, and explains the steps that have already been taken since the accident.

HSE has worked closely with members of UKLPG, the trade association of the liquefied petroleum gas industry, to develop plans for the replacement of buried metal pipework with polyethylene pipes, which do not carry the risk of corrosion. It has been agreed that the replacement programme will include domestic sites, which goes beyond Lord Gill’s recommendations. The programme, which is scheduled to be completed by 2015, will be prioritised using an established risk model to ensure that sites identified as high risk are dealt with first. In parallel with this, HSE is also preparing an inspection campaign with local authorities focusing on sites identified as high risk, and is working with the industry to review and update user guidance materials and codes of practice for suppliers and installers.

The HSE also launched a two-stage consultation to address those recommendations of the Gill report where action is not already underway. The initial stage of the consultation seeks views from interested stakeholders in the LPG industry, the wider business community, and those with an interest in health and safety, and will run until 19 November. I hope hon. Members will take the opportunity to feed their views into this.

Following completion of this initial stage, the Government will in the new year publish the full response to Lord Gill’s report. This will include firm proposals for action which will form the basis of the second stage of the consultation, supported by a formal impact assessment.