HL Deb 01 November 2001 vol 627 cc183-4WA
Viscount Simon

asked the Chairman of Committees:

What progress has been made with regard to the report by the Steering Group on Management and Services. [HL1100]

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff)

On 30 October I met the Leaders, Chief Whips and the and so it is not possible to state with any certainty how many prosecutions resulted in convictions in any given year. Also, there are no centrally held records that can provide reliable information as to the maximum sentence imposed in any given year. The number of applications for consent to prosecute for each year since 1988 and the number of convictions resulting from the prosecutions are summarised in the table below.

In addition, figures published in the Crown Prosecution Service Racist Incident Monitoring Annual Report 1999–2000 shows that the number of racist incidents sent for prosecution rose from 1,603 in 1998–99 to 2,417 in 1999–2000. Prosecutions were brought against 1,832 defendants (76 per cent) on 2,651 charges. Guilty pleas were tendered on 66 per cent of the charges and there were convictions after trial on another 12 per cent of the charges. In total 2,078 (79 per cent) of the 2,651 charges prosecuted resulted in convictions.

Almost half of the prosecutions were new offences of racially aggravated crime brought under the Crime and Disorder Act 1988, which came into force in September 1999. A high proportion of the remaining offences contained admissible evidence of racial aggravation and were prosecuted under other legislation.

Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers to discuss follow-up to the report by the Steering Group on Management and Services. It was agreed that a further working group should be established to build on the work of the steering group and to bring forward detailed proposals for the reform of the domestic committee structure of the House. The working group will be chaired by me, and will include a Back-Bench member from each of the parties and from the Cross-Benches. The report of the working group will be presented to the Offices Committee in the new year.