| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Obscene Publications
Mr. Prior: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the effectiveness of legislation relating to obscene publications. [56096]
Mr. Boateng: The Obscene Publications Act 1959, as amended, has shown itself capable of reflecting changing standards and of adapting to developments in technology. The Government are determined to ensure that the criminal law is effective in protecting people from harmful material and, with this in mind, keep the legislation under review.
Mr. Prior: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been convicted under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, for publishing obscene literature, in the last year for which figures are available. [56098]
Mr. Boateng: Provisional data for 1997 show that 189 offenders were convicted in England and Wales under section 2 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 as amended by section 1(1) of the Obscene Publications Act 1964. Information on the type of obscene matter (book, magazine, Internet etc.) used for such an offence is not collected centrally.
Mr. Prior: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to prevent obscene publications from reaching young people. [56099]
Mr. Boateng: The Government are determined to protect young people from potentially obscene material by ensuring the effectiveness of the existing law.
All publications--including material available via the Internet--are subject to the Obscene Publications Act 1959, which makes it a criminal offence to publish an obscene article; that is, an article which in the view of the court has a tendency to 'deprave and corrupt' those likely to read, see or hear it. In the first instance, it is the responsibility of the police to decide whether there are sufficient grounds to launch a criminal investigation, and that of the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to prosecute those alleged to be responsible for the publication.
In respect of material which is not potentially obscene but which may, nevertheless, be unsuitable for young people, the Government support non-statutory schemes, such as the voluntary Code of Practice under which newsagents refuse to sell 'adult' magazines to persons under the age of 18, and the Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel which oversees a binding set of guidelines on how editors of teenage magazines should deal with sexual matters.
Mr. Prior:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the role of the police in investigating the publication of obscene literature. [56100]
Mr. Boateng:
Under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, it is the responsibility of the police in individual
2 Nov 1998 : Column: 388
cases to decide whether there are sufficient grounds to launch a criminal investigation, and that of the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to prosecute those alleged to be responsible for the publication.
Under section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959, the police are also granted certain powers of search and seizure with respect to obscene articles.
Three police forces have units dedicated to the investigation of obscene publications: the Metropolitan Police Service; Greater Manchester police; and West Midlands police. These units investigate the production and distribution of pornography, including pornography on the Internet, supervise licensed and unlicensed sex shops, supervise divisional obscene publication cases and provide advice in relation to obscene publication matters to other forces. Police operations are increasingly targeting mail order and duplicating premises in order to tackle the problem at source.
Mr. Prior:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will establish a body to classify the suitability of literature for children in the same way as films are classified. [56097]
Mr. Boateng:
The Government recognise the importance of protecting children from unsuitable material. The criminal law, booksellers, publishers and parents all have a part to play. The criminal law, through legislation such as the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955, protects children from material which is likely to deprave or corrupt them. Responsible booksellers generally place children's books in a designated area within the store, thus reducing the possibility that children--or their carers--would seek to purchase age-unsuitable material. In addition, publishers of teenage magazines have developed a binding set of guidelines dealing with the portrayal of sexual matters. It is also a responsibility of parents to guide their children's reading and to guard against their exposure to unsuitable material.
The Government believe that this offers the best approach and that the establishment of a body to classify works of literature would be likely to pose immense practical problems, given the number of such works which are available and which are produced each year.
Mr. Reed:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has for changes to the 1998-99 cash and running costs limits within his responsibilities. [58109]
Mr. Straw:
Subject to Parliamentary approval of the necessary token Supplementary Estimate, the cash limit for Class VII, Vote 1 (Home Office administration, police probation, immigration and other services, England and Wales) will be reduced by £2,588,000 from £4,836,378,000 to £4,833,351,000 and the running costs limit inside the control total will be increased by £3,981,000 from £1,883,450,000 to £1,887,431,000.
2 Nov 1998 : Column: 389
The changes in the cash limit are the net effect of the following transfers: £193,000 from the Cabinet Office, Class XVIII, Vote 2 in relation to Communications Electronics Security Group charges; £1,153,000 to the Crown Prosecution Service, Class VIII, Vote 4 and £1,648,000 to the Lord Chancellor's Department Class VIII, Vote 1 in respect of costs relating to the Crime and Disorder Act; £14,000 to the Scottish Office, Class XIII, Vote 5 and £4,000 to the Northern Ireland Office, Class XV, Vote 1 in respect of the European Year Against Racism. The Supplementary Estimate will also cover transfer of responsibility for the Freedom of Information Unit from the Cabinet Office, Class XVII, Vote 1.
The increase in the running costs limit is the net effect of payments of £3,500,000 from the Metropolitan Police, £442,000 from the Cabinet Office, £95,000 from the Welsh Office for information services and from the Northern Ireland Office for legal services and £39,000 from the Lord Chancellor's Department.
The increases will be offset by transfers and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.
Mr. Syms:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of (a) those dealt with by the youth court and (b) all juvenile offenders fall within the definition of persistent young offenders. [57512]
Mr. Boateng:
Specific figures are not available for the number of persistent young offenders dealt with in the youth court. However, in 1997 in England and Wales a total of 79,151 persons (provisional figures) aged 10 to 17 were found guilty of offences in magistrates' courts and the Crown Court combined--including the youth court. Also, an exercise carried out in 1997 to establish the average length of time taken to deal with persistent young offenders from arrest to sentence identified a total of 16,090 occasions on which persistent young offenders were dealt with. Taken together, these figures, which are on a broadly comparable basis, suggest that persistent young offenders account for 20 per cent. of occasions on which young offenders were dealt with by the courts in 1997.
Mr. Syms:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the basis and methodology of the calculation of the benchmark figure of 142 days, against which progress to halve the time from arrest to sentence for persistent young offenders will be measured; what progress has been made to date; and what definition will apply of persistent young offenders. [57513]
Mr. Boateng:
The calculation for the baseline figure of 142 was based on a representative sample of almost 1,500 occasions during 1996, at which slightly over 900 persistent young offenders were sentenced for almost 4,500 offences across England and Wales. The dates on which the sampled persistent young offenders were sentenced were obtained from the Police National Computer, Phoenix. Because Phoenix does not generally hold information on arrest dates, arrest dates were
2 Nov 1998 : Column: 390
surveyed directly from police forces. For offences where there was no arrest, dates of laying of information were collected instead. The arrest to sentence time for each occasion on which a persistent young offender was sentenced was then calculated as follows. The date of arrest for the sentencing occasion was defined as the earliest date of arrest (or date of laying information where there was no arrest) related to the offences for which a sentence was passed. The time from arrest to sentence is then the difference (in calendar days) between the date of sentence and the date of arrest. The national baseline was calculated as the mean arrest to sentence time for the sampled sentencing occasions.
The data for 1997 show signs of improvement. The annual figure for 1997 as a whole shows a reduction to 141 days, while improvements from 1 May 1997 reduced the average time to 138 days. To monitor progress towards the pledge the Government have put systems in place to produce regular data on the time between arrest and sentence for persistent young offenders. These will produce usable data from late 1999.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |