Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people have been killed by someone who has previously been found guilty of homicide, imprisoned, and subsequently released, for the years for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar
The table below provides the number of people killed by offenders who were at the time on licence for an earlier homicide offence, for which they had served a prison sentence and been released. As they were on licence, when they were charged with a new offence of killing [homicide], it would have generated a formal serious further offence (SFO) notification to HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), and the number in each calendar year reflects the year in which HMPPS received the notification. The answer interprets homicide to include offences of murder, manslaughter, death by dangerous driving and death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs.
Data are not available on offenders with a previous conviction for homicide who had completed their sentence and associated statutory probation supervision by probation and then went on to commit a further homicide.
SFOs are rare. Fewer than 0.5% of offenders under statutory supervision are convicted of serious further offences. Nonetheless every single serious further offence is taken extremely seriously, and in all cases a review is carried out to identify any lessons for the better management of future cases.
Year SFO notification received | Total number of people killed in a SFO by someone convicted of homicide offences at both index offence and SFO |
2009 | 5 |
2010 | 3 |
2011 | 3 |
2012 | 0 |
2013 | 3 |
2014 | 3 |
2015 | 3 |
2016 | 0 |
2017 | 3 |
2018 | 3 |
2019[1] | 0 |
Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government on what grounds, and on whose authority, the National Savings and Investments Agency makes a decision to dishonour a cheque.
Answered by Earl of Courtown - Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
National Savings and Investments (NS&I) comply with the law relating to cheques. There are several circumstances in which NS&I would reject a cheque. These include the cheque being unsigned by the customer, out of date, or defaced. The Director of Savings, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of NS&I, is the authority responsible for administering this policy.
Premium Bond prize warrants are legally similar to cheques. As with cheques, they can be rejected if a duplicate has been issued. Due to an administrative error, a number of duplicate Premium Bond prize warrants were issued to customers in the October 2019 prize draw. NS&I have since updated their processes to prevent this error occurring in future prize draws.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the legal provisions governing the balance between (1) the freedom of passage along public highways, and (2) the right to hold public demonstrations on public highways.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Peaceful protest is a vital part of a democratic society. It is a long-standing tradition in this country that people are free to gather together and to demonstrate their views, provided that they do so within the law.
There is, of course, a balance to be struck. Protestors’ rights need to be balanced with the rights of others to go about their business. Rights to peaceful protest do not extend to unlawful activity and the police have powers to deal with any such acts.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is their policy that Her Majesty's Armed Forces should be comprised of equal numbers of men and women.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Ministry of Defence is dedicated to achieving a more diverse and representative workforce. Consequently, we have undertaken a wide range of activities to increase representation across British society, including those that have historically been under-represented. As part of this drive, we are working towards a target of 15% of recruits into the Armed Forces being female by 2020. The target is stretching and reflects the importance Defence places on having diverse Armed Forces with all the benefits this brings.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many ministers, including Government Whips, have resigned since the 2017 General Election.
Answered by Lord Young of Cookham
I refer my noble friend to my answer of 4 December 2018 [HL 11735], since when nine ministers have resigned from the Government.
The number of ministers appointed to Her Majesty's Government, and the roles to which they are appointed, will vary from time to time. Since 4 December, nine ministers have joined the Government.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they categorise antisocial or violent individuals by whether they are left wing or right wing; if so, why; and if so, what criteria they take into account when assessing whether any such individual should be described as left wing or right wing.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Government takes seriously the threat from all forms of antisocial behaviour, extremism, and violence, including terrorism, whether this is motivated by left-wing, right-wing or Islamist ideology. Our response is however threat agnostic.
It is a matter for the Police to determine whether a crime has been committed and, where a crime has been committed, how it is classified. In its analysis of extremism, the Government applies the definition of extremism set out in the 2015 Counter-Extremism Strategy equally.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the categories of food materials and products subject to import taxes or duties imposed by the EU.
Answered by Lord Bates
The EU Common External Tariff applies to all EU members.
The Tariff is the name given to the combination of the nomenclature (or classification of goods) and the duty rates which apply to each category of goods. The duty rates differ from one kind of good to another depending on what they are and where they come from. The rates also depend on the economic sensitivity of the goods.
The EU uses the World Customs Organisation’s Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) as the basis for the Tariff. The HS comprises approximately 5,300 article/product descriptions that appear as headings and subheadings, arranged in 99 chapters, grouped in 21 sections.
The EU Tariff contains the goods classification table which covers all categories of goods and the conventional import duty rates. The table is voluminous. It lists around 9500 classification codes. Food materials and products are found in Chapters 1 to 24. The type of product, the ingredients list or materials used to make it, the recipe and even the production method can affect the classification of a good.
The EU Tariff is available to view on the EU Europa website. To get the full picture, the EU’s tariff database (TARIC) is also available to view and contains all the tariff preference and trade measures.
In the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal the UK Trade Tariff, detailing the goods classification codes and duty rates for UK imports will be available, as now, on GOV.UK. Importers of goods into the UK will no longer use EU Tariff information published by the EU.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which ministers, set out by name and by ministerial responsibility, have resigned from office since the 2017 General Election.
Answered by Lord Young of Cookham
The following ministers have resigned from office since the formation of the Government on 11 June 2017:
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) oral questions, and (2) written questions, tabled by members of the House of Lords they considered not to relate to matters of Government responsibility in the last 3 months.
Answered by Lord Young of Cookham
The requested information is not readily available. The information requested can only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of studies by the British Trust for Ornithology which show that the population of starlings has fallen by 66 per cent since the 1970s.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Government is aware of the British Trust for Ornithology data on starlings. The Government’s wild bird statistics that measure relative abundance show decreases for starlings of 81% in the long term (1970-2015) and 5% in the short term (2010-2015).
The cause of the decline in starlings, although not fully understood, is likely to be linked to food availability and over winter survival. To support starlings and other birds there are agri-environment scheme options that aim to boost food availability. In the period 2008-2014, farms in Higher Level Stewardship agreements, specifically undertaking bird friendly management options, found a sustained 79% increase in starling abundance.