§ Dr. TongeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans the Government have to audit the costs of enforcing the law relating to illegal drugs. [142212]
§ Mr. Charles Clarke[holding answer 13 December, 2000]: Assessing the costs of anti-drugs activities is inherently difficult because these often form part of wider functional service expenditure. For instance, up to one third of all property crime is thought to be drugs related, imposing a considerable burden on the Criminal Justice System. Broad assessment of the costs imposed by illegal abuse on public services and the proactive measures centred on tackling their root causes were made in the 2000 Spending review. Indicative spending totals for the latter were published in the Spending Review White Paper (Cm 4807).
The Government are committed to improving their understanding of these totals. As part of its Service Delivery Agreement, the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for the United Kingdom Anti Drugs Co-ordination Unit, will implement a robust system for tracking total anti-drugs related expenditure and outputs by March 2002 and demonstrate that by March 2004 there will have been a 45 per cent. increase in spend on proactive effort on a 2000–01 base.
§ Dr. TongeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people, broken down by ethnic group, were convicted of dealing in illegal drugs and other offences involving illegal drugs in the UK in each of the last three years. [142294]
§ Mr. Charles Clarke[holding answer 13 December, 2000]: The requested information is not available centrally. The annual publication "Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System" to be published in January 2001 will provide some related information. For the first time, it will show, by police force area and ethnic appearance, the number of persons arrested and the number cautioned by the police in England and Wales for drugs offences in general. Copies of this publication will be available in the Library.