HC Deb 03 April 2000 vol 347 cc365-6W
Miss Widdecombe

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of prisoners who will be returned to prison after breaching the(a) monitoring and (b) drug testing requirements of their release on licence under the provisions of Part III of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill; and if he will make a statement. [115821]

Mr. Boateng

[holding answer 22 March 2000]: The use of the new licence conditions provided for under Part III of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill will be subject to piloting before any consideration is given to wider implementation.

Asylum applications1 received in the United Kingdom, excluding dependants, and initial decisions2 on applications, 2000
Principal applicants
Decisions
Total applications Total decisions Grants of asylum Grants of ELR Total refusals Grants of ELR underbacklog criteria Non compliance refusals under backlog criteria
Turkey 640 3 3 3 3 3 3
Poland 275 3 3 3 3 3 3
Lithuania 125 3 3 3 3 3 3
Romania 585 3 3 3 3 3 3

For full national implementation, the estimated additional number of people who would be returned to prison every year is as follows: between 200 and 600 people returned following breach of the electronic monitoring requirements of their licence, or following breach of other licence conditions identified through electronic monitoring; and between 500 and 2,700 people returned for breach of the drug testing requirements of their licence, or as a result of drug use identified through testing.

The actual figures will depend on the extent to which the new licence conditions are used, and the breach rate.