House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 20 Apr 2007 (pt 0012)

Offensive Weapons: Schools

Mr. Jeremy Browne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) arrests were made and (b) convictions were secured under section 139A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 for the offence of having an article with a blade or point or an offensive weapon on school premises in each of the last five years, broken down by age group. [131219]

Mr. McNulty [holding answer 16 April 2007]: Information on arrests for recorded crime offences under s139 and 139A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (as amended by s4(1) of the Offensive Weapons Act 1996) and s1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 (as amended by s2(1) of the Offensive Weapons Act 1996) are not separately identifiable within the arrests collection held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform. The collection is based on persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences) by main offence group (i.e. violence against the person, robbery, burglary, criminal damage etc) only.

Information on the number of persons found guilty for the offences requested in England and Wales for the years 2001-05 is provided in the following table, broken down by age group.

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Number of persons found guilty at all courts for certain offences^{( 1,2,3)} , England and Wales 2001 to 2005
				Age group
	Offence description	Statute	Year	Aged 10 to 11	Aged 12 to 14	Aged 15 to 17	Aged 18 and over	All ages
811	Possession of offensive weapons without lawful authority or reasonable excuse	Prevention of Crime Act 1953, Sec 1(1) as amended by Offensive Weapons Act 1996, Sec 2(1 )	2001	4	136	976	3,765	4,881
			2002	5	113	953	4,398	5,469
			2003	4	135	832	4,432	5,403
			2004	—	134	1,047	4,576	5,757
			2005	4	124	999	4,601	5,728
826	Having an article with blade or point in public place	Criminal Justice Act 1988, Sec 139 as amended by Offensive Weapons Act 1996, Sec 3	2001	5	128	806	3,360	4,299
			2002	2	134	812	4,333	5,281
			2003	8	147	755	4,398	5,308
			2004	5	170	817	4,792	5,784
			2005	7	186	888	4,880	5,961
827	Having an article with blade or point on school premises	Criminal Justice Act 1988, Sec 139A (1)(5)(a) as amended by Offensive Weapons Act 1996, Sec 4(1)	2001	—	2	6	15	23
			2002	—	6	10	3	19
			2003	2	6	7	14	29
			2004	—	11	16	10	37
			2005	1	14	17	12	44
⁽¹⁾ These data are on the principal offence basis. ⁽²⁾ Data for "having an article with blade or point on school premises" excludes convictions for West Mercia PFA until clarification of these cases is obtained. ⁽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 and courts. 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.

Prisons: Television

David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners in (a) category C prisons, (b) category D prisons and (c) youth offender institutions have access to Sky television. [132350]

John Reid: No prisoners in category C or D prisons or young offender institutions now have access to subscription satellite TV channels in their cells. Where digital equipment is being installed, prisoners have access to selected free-to-air channels under the Sky brand name.

Serious Organised Crime Agency

David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Serious Organised Crime Agency officers are designated as having powers of arrest; and how many arrests have been made since 1 April 2006. [124767]

John Reid: On 1 April 2006, 1,821 SOCA officers were designated with the power of arrest. Since then an additional 27 SOCA officers have been designated with the power of arrest. SOCA also has a number of officers seconded from other agencies and of these 168 are designated with the power of arrest.

For the period April to September 2006, 358 people were arrested as a result of UK based enforcement activity on SOCA operations. This figure includes both arrests by SOCA officers and arrests by other agencies on behalf of SOCA.

David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 14 March 2007, Official Report, column 402W, on the Serious Organised Crime Agency, with which criminal offences the 316 people were charged. [129046]

John Reid: The information requested is in the following table.

Nature of Offence	Number of individuals charged^{( 1)}
Drugs trafficking	240
Illegal immigration	68
Money laundering	24
Fraud	1
Firearms trafficking	3
Counterfeit Currency	1
Identity Cards	3
Total	340⁽¹⁾
⁽¹⁾ The total is greater than 316 because some individuals were charged with more than one offence.

Terrorism: Money Laundering

Mr. Tyrie: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many terrorist investigations have been assisted following the introduction of the money laundering regulations 2003. [132793]

Ed Balls: I have been asked to reply.

Financial investigation is a fundamental part of all counter-terrorist investigations. The Money Laundering Regulations 2003 place a number of requirements on the regulated sector, such as to identify their customers and hold customer records,
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and to have in place other procedures which in turn support the reporting of suspicious activity, which have proved valuable in the wider terrorist effort.

House of Commons Commission

Alcoholic Drinks

Norman Baker: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission what quantity of (a) beers and ciders, (b) aperitifs, fortified wines and spirits and (c) wines were purchased by the Refreshment Department in each of the last three years; what the cost of these purchases was in each year; and what percentage of each of these items was imported. [131065]

Nick Harvey: Accounts have not yet been finalised for the full year ending March 2007, but estimated alcoholic beverage purchases during the 11 months to February 2007 were as follows:

April 2006 to February 2007^{( 1)}	Quantity (litres)	Estimated cost of purchases (£)	Percentage quantity imported
(a) beers and ciders	40,000	60,100	17
(b) aperitifs, fortified wines and spirits	5,700	80,400	12
(c) wines	57,300	379,900	98
⁽¹⁾ 11 months

Detailed purchase information is not currently available for the year 2005-06 due to technical issues that are being investigated by the software supplier. The Director of Catering Services will write to the hon. Member with the requested information when it becomes available.

The software used by the Refreshment Department does not retain historical information of purchases on a product-by-product basis for earlier years. However, I would remind the hon. Member that information about beverage purchase quantities and the percentage of imported products for the 11 months from April 2004 until February 2005 has previously been provided to him. I corrected the information originally provided by my predecessor in my letter to the hon. Member on 21 November 2005, but for ease of reference I set out in full the corrected information provided to his previous question tabled in March 2005:

April 2004 to February 2005^{( 1)}	Quantity (litres)	Percentage quantity imported
(d) beers and ciders	38,051	17
(e) aperitifs, fortified wines and spirits	4,579	8
(f) wines	56,987	95
⁽¹⁾11 months

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