§ Baroness Faithfullasked Her Majesty's Government:
What proportion of (a) the average daily population of sentenced prisoners and (b) the average daily population of prisoners sentenced to six months or less was accounted for by fine defaulters in 1993 and 1994 respectively.
§ Baroness BlatchResponsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter to Baroness Faithfull from Mr. Brian Landers, Director of Finance, dated 22nd June 1995.
Lady Blatch has asked me, in the absence of the director general from the office, to reply to your recent Question asking what proportion of (a) the average daily population of sentenced prisoners and (b) the average daily population of prisoners sentenced to six months or less was accounted for by fine defaulters in 1993 and 1994 respectively.
The information requested is given in the table.
Fine defaulters as a percentage of the average sentenced population and average population sentenced to less than 6 months, 1993 and 19941 1993 1994 Percentage of average sentenced population 1.5 per cent. 1.2 per cent. Percentage of average sentenced population sentenced up to six months 12.6 per cent. 9.9 per cent. 1Sentenced population includes fine defaulters but excludes sentenced prisoners held in police cells.