This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[holding answer 24 February 2014]: The case is under active consideration and a decision will be issued as soon as practicable.

I refer my hon. Friend to my written statement of 18 December 2013, Official Report, columns 101-4WS.

We will set our proposals in a report to the House of Commons in due course, for subsequent approval by the House.

As part of the Government's Transparency Agenda, the Department routinely publishes full details of average costs per prisoner and place, based on actual net resource expenditure for each private and public sector prison and in summary form for the whole of the prison estate in England and Wales after the end of the financial year. The information for financial years 2012-13 is published as an Addendum to the NOMS Annual Report and Accounts and available on the Department's website at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201213

Copies of all previous similar information are also placed in the House Library.

The Government is committed to delivering reform in our public services. The Prison Competition Phase One Programme will deliver efficiency savings, in line with other public sector prisons, over the next four years.

The Ministry of Justice does not record the average time taken to reply to letters from hon. Members. However, the Ministry does measure performance against the target of responding to 90% of their correspondence within 15 working days.

From January to September this year, the Ministry of Justice (and its agencies) has increased the overall proportion of responses that are in time from the same period last year: up from 69% in 2012 to 83% in 2013 (exceeding the target of 90% in May, June and July). This improvement is set against an increase in volumes so far in 2013.

On 8 November 2013, the total prison population was 85,337.

The table provides the average prison population and average useable operational capacity of the prison estate in each of the previous five years, up to and including 2013. The figures provided in the table include all male and female public and privately operated prisons, young offender institutions and National Offender Management Service operated immigration removal centres.

The useable operational capacity of the estate is the total of each establishment's operational capacity minus an operating margin of 2,000 places. This reflects the constraints imposed by the need to provide separate

accommodation for different classes of prisoner; i.e. by sex, age, security category, conviction status, cell sharing risk assessment and also due to geographical distribution.

Prison numbers fluctuate throughout the year and we have sufficient accommodation for the current and expected population. We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts. There will be more adult male prison capacity in May 2015 than there was at the start of this Parliament.

Prison population and capacity information is published weekly on the Government's website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prison-population-figures

These figures are drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

We will ensure that there are always enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts but at much lower cost and in the right places to deliver our ambition of reducing reoffending.

Subject to planning permission, construction of a new £250 million prison in Wrexham will begin in summer 2014. The 2,100 place establishment is expected to be fully operational by 2017.

New house blocks, are being constructed at Parc, Peterborough, Thameside and The Mount prisons. These will provide an additional 1,260 new places at an estimated construction cost of £150 million.

We are currently considering the feasibility of replacing the existing Feltham Young Offender Institution with a large new adult prison and a discrete new youth facility. The costs are not yet known.

As part of a programme to modernise the estate, this Government has opened 5,455 new prison places since 2010. This includes the opening of three new prisons at Isis and Thameside (south west London) and Oakwood (Staffordshire).

We are also building four new houseblocks (or mini-prisons) that will hold 1,260 prisoners at four existing establishments by 2015. Additionally, subject to planning, the former Firestone site in Wrexham has been chosen as the location for a new prison which will deliver 2,100 places in 2017. We are examining the feasibility of replacing Feltham young offender institution with a large new adult prison and a new, specialist youth facility.

These new places have allowed us to close 20 prisons and parts of prisons and to convert two prisons into immigration removal centres. In total, we have now closed 6,418 places.

These measures will ensure that there will be more adult male prison capacity in May 2015 than there was at the start of this Parliament in 2010.

The Government should manage the prison estate in the most efficient and effective manner. As my hon. Friend is well aware, Wellingborough prison closed in December last year. Since then, we have looked carefully at whether the site should form part of our long-term capacity plans, and we have concluded that it should not. It is therefore in the taxpayer’s interest to avoid unnecessary holding costs and to dispose of the site.

In September 2013 there were 73 referrals to the Government-funded support service for adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales administered by The Salvation Army. In the interests of victim safety only the region in which the victim was encountered is provided, and not the county or parliamentary constituency. Details are provided in the following table:

This information is published routinely in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly bulletin and can be found in Table 1.6 of the prison population tables via the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offender-management-statistics-quarterly--2

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2012, nine confirmed victims of trafficking have been returned to countries of origin outside of the EU through voluntary or enforced arrangements. As EU nationals have freedom of movement their return is not routinely tracked by the Home Office.

An analysis of the costs associated with returning a migrant to their country of origin can be found in the National Audit Office report:

http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/0809124_accenture_rept.pdf

Notes:

1. The figures quoted have been derived from management information and are therefore provisional and subject to change. This information has not been quality assured under National Statistics protocols.

2. Figures relate to main applicants only.

DWP has a full-time Jobcentre presence in both Rushden and Wellingborough town centres. DWP has no current plans to remove its Jobcentre presence. The Department will continue to review its service delivery plans and its estates in the normal course of business; and make sure that they work with partners to explore every opportunity which might be presented to reduce estate costs whilst maintaining a high standard of service.

At this stage, I have no plans to undertake a formal review of cases whereby victims of human trafficking have already been prosecuted for offences that relate to their trafficking offences. Following recent cases in the Court of Appeal in which victims of trafficking were prosecuted and convicted, having been

advised to plead guilty by their legal representative, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is considering new guidelines for prosecutors, which are to be shared with the police and other law enforcement agencies and the Law Society to ensure a more joined-up approach in these cases.

The CPS has issued comprehensive legal guidance to advise prosecutors of the steps they should take in cases where the police have arrested potential victims of trafficking who have committed criminal offences and referred them for charge. If information suggests that they have been trafficked, prosecutors are advised to make full inquiries and consider whether the case against them should be discontinued. In addition, guidance, published in 2011 by the Child Exploitation On-line Protection Centre (CEOP), advises that police should be alert to the possibility that any person, adult or child, identified in a cannabis farm could be a victim of trafficking and the steps that they should take.

[holding answer 8 July 2013]: These data are not collected centrally. Investigations involving nail bars and cannabis factories may arise as a result of suspicion of a number of different crimes, including human trafficking.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Case Management System cannot disaggregate the nature of the exploitation from its figures for offences of human trafficking. This data could be obtained only by manually examining all of the CPS's case files for human trafficking, which would incur a disproportionate cost.

Government business statistics are not collected on a sufficiently detailed level to provide data on nail bars. Such businesses are classified within "hairdressing and other beauty treatments". There were almost 28,000 enterprises in this category in 2012.