The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has responsibility for providing instructions to all prisons on the provision of meals for prisoners. The most recent guidelines are contained within Prison Service Instruction 44/2010, Catering Meals for Prisoners which became effective from 1 October 2010.

NOMS believes it provides prisoners with the opportunity to eat a healthy balanced diet. Current requirements specify a minimum set of specifications that all prisons must meet. The prison service has adopted and incorporated specific Government guidelines issued by the Department of Health (DOH) and FSA on eating a healthy diet. These initiatives are based on the recommendations from the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (COMA) and the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN).

In March 2006 the National Audit Office carried out a study on prisoner diet (NAO Report Serving Time: Prisoner Diet and Exercise, March 2006). As part of this report the NAO commissioned a team of consultants from Bournemouth university led by John S A Edwards, Professor of Food Service, to carry out research at eight prisons (four male, two female and two young offenders' institutions). The researchers analysed meals offered to prisoners, including 'vulnerable groups', for their nutritional value in terms of energy content; proportions of energy derived from carbohydrate, protein and fat, their dietary fibre content; and the amount of vitamins and minerals they contained.

The report concluded that food offered to prisoners is in line with Government recommendations on healthy eating and on the whole prisoners eat more healthily than the general population.

Currently NOMS has no plans to fund research or carry out an assessment on dietary disorders and behaviour relating to diet.

Work on the guidance for prosecutors on dealing with joint enterprise cases is ongoing, and the CPS have informed my officials that it will be available shortly. Neither the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), nor I have had any recent discussions with the Director of Public Prosecutions about this issue.

Work on the guidance for prosecutors on dealing with joint enterprise cases is ongoing, and the CPS have informed my officials that it will be available shortly. Neither the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), nor I have had any recent discussions with the Director of Public Prosecutions about this issue.

The Department makes payments to a large number of organisations, including registered charities, voluntary and community groups. It would incur disproportionate cost to research each organisation, check whether it is a registered charitable organisation or not and disclose what payments were made in the past three years. Payments in the form of grants and contracts are made to organisations that provide a wide range of services, such as the provision of support for victims of crime, mediation services, work to reduce crime and debt advice.

In 2011-12, the core Department made grant payments totalling £50 million to various organisations. Information about organisations funded through MoJ victim and witness specific funding streams from 2011-14 is available on the Ministry of Justice website at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/information-access-rights/transparency-data/victims-witnesses-funding-awards

In addition to these grants, the Department is providing Victim Support, the principal provider of support for victims and witnesses of crime, with grant funding of £38 million per year until 2014 to invest in long-term service provision focused on those victims and witnesses of the most serious crimes, those who are most vulnerable and those who are persistently targeted.

The Department also has a £2 million per year contract with The Salvation Army until 2013 to coordinate the provision of support services for victims of human trafficking.

The number of penalty notices for disorder (PND) issued for theft of goods up to the value of £200 and the number issued in total for each of the last five years can be viewed in the following table.

The recipient of a PND has 21 days either to pay the penalty or seek a court hearing. No admission of guilt

is required; by paying the penalty a recipient discharges all liability for conviction for the offence. If no action is taken a fine of one and half times the penalty amount is registered against the recipient of the notice. The courts are responsible for enforcing fines arising from unpaid PNDs in the same way as any other unpaid fine.

We can provide information on the number persons who have paid a PND in full within or outside the 21 day period, but are unable to collate information on the result of the other outcomes listed in the said table.

The offence of breaching a non-molestation order under section 42A of the Family Law Act 1996 as added by section 1 of the Domestic Violence Crime and Victims Act 2004 states: sub-section (3) where a person is convicted of an offence under this section in respect of any conduct, that conduct is not punishable as a contempt of court; and (4) a person cannot be convicted of an offence under this section in respect of any conduct which has been punished as a contempt of court.

The number of defendants found guilty at all courts for breach of a non-molestation order in England and Wales in 2009 to 2011 can be viewed in the table. Please note that there were issues in the central recording of offences resulting from a breach of a previously imposed order. These issues have now been resolved, allowing information on convictions for a breach of a non-molestation order to be collated from 2009 onwards.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers to identify the suspected breaches where the equipment was found to be faulty on investigation.

Where the curfew was a single requirement community order, in 2011 all offenders in England and Wales who committed a more serious breach of a curfew under a community order or suspended sentence were brought back to court by the electronic monitoring companies as required.

For other types of order, including pre-trial, post-release or where the curfew was part of a multi-requirement order, it is not possible to provide the number of breaches that were brought to court except at disproportionate cost. The electronic monitoring service providers are not advised of the outcomes of witness statements

provided to the supervising authority as a result of a breach. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of each authority's records.

In 2011, 67,979 subjects breached an electronic tagging order in England and Wales. This includes minor breach occasions where a warning letter was issued.

The data are from the electronic monitoring service providers. The information held refers to breaches reported to the courts or to the relevant authority such as the probation service, Prison Service, Youth Offending Service, or police, or where a warning letter was issued, and does not necessarily relate to breach action taken.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers and courts to determine the circumstances of each breach and the outcome of investigations.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers to identify the suspected breaches where the equipment was found to be faulty on investigation.

Where the curfew was a single requirement community order, in 2011 all offenders in England and Wales who committed a more serious breach of a curfew under a community order or suspended sentence were brought back to court by the electronic monitoring companies as required.

For other types of order, including pre-trial, post-release or where the curfew was part of a multi-requirement order, it is not possible to provide the number of breaches that were brought to court except at disproportionate cost. The electronic monitoring service providers are not advised of the outcomes of witness statements

provided to the supervising authority as a result of a breach. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of each authority's records.

In 2011, 67,979 subjects breached an electronic tagging order in England and Wales. This includes minor breach occasions where a warning letter was issued.

The data are from the electronic monitoring service providers. The information held refers to breaches reported to the courts or to the relevant authority such as the probation service, Prison Service, Youth Offending Service, or police, or where a warning letter was issued, and does not necessarily relate to breach action taken.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers and courts to determine the circumstances of each breach and the outcome of investigations.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers to identify the suspected breaches where the equipment was found to be faulty on investigation.

Where the curfew was a single requirement community order, in 2011 all offenders in England and Wales who committed a more serious breach of a curfew under a community order or suspended sentence were brought back to court by the electronic monitoring companies as required.

For other types of order, including pre-trial, post-release or where the curfew was part of a multi-requirement order, it is not possible to provide the number of breaches that were brought to court except at disproportionate cost. The electronic monitoring service providers are not advised of the outcomes of witness statements

provided to the supervising authority as a result of a breach. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of each authority's records.

In 2011, 67,979 subjects breached an electronic tagging order in England and Wales. This includes minor breach occasions where a warning letter was issued.

The data are from the electronic monitoring service providers. The information held refers to breaches reported to the courts or to the relevant authority such as the probation service, Prison Service, Youth Offending Service, or police, or where a warning letter was issued, and does not necessarily relate to breach action taken.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers and courts to determine the circumstances of each breach and the outcome of investigations.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers to identify the suspected breaches where the equipment was found to be faulty on investigation.

Where the curfew was a single requirement community order, in 2011 all offenders in England and Wales who committed a more serious breach of a curfew under a community order or suspended sentence were brought back to court by the electronic monitoring companies as required.

For other types of order, including pre-trial, post-release or where the curfew was part of a multi-requirement order, it is not possible to provide the number of breaches that were brought to court except at disproportionate cost. The electronic monitoring service providers are not advised of the outcomes of witness statements

provided to the supervising authority as a result of a breach. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of each authority's records.

In 2011, 67,979 subjects breached an electronic tagging order in England and Wales. This includes minor breach occasions where a warning letter was issued.

The data are from the electronic monitoring service providers. The information held refers to breaches reported to the courts or to the relevant authority such as the probation service, Prison Service, Youth Offending Service, or police, or where a warning letter was issued, and does not necessarily relate to breach action taken.

This information is not collected centrally and would be available only at disproportionate cost. Information would only be available through a manual trawl of individual case records held by the electronic monitoring service providers and courts to determine the circumstances of each breach and the outcome of investigations.

In cases relating to electronic monitoring, the Ministry of Justice has cited evidence, and relied upon testimony, from Scientific Services Derby Ltd, a provider of forensic services.

The following table shows the numbers of Vietnamese aged 15 to 20 held in prison establishments in England and Wales, as at 30 June of each year.

The National Offender Management Service desk in the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) press office receives a significant number of bids for access to prisons for a variety of reasons. These include covering ongoing news stories, filming dramas, producing documentaries and to collect material for print features. Bids are received via email, phone and from journalists in person. They may go to individual prison staff, the NOMS desk, the MOJ press office newsdesk, Ministers' offices, charities working in prisons, service providers such as primary care trusts, the office of the Prison Service Chief Executive Officer and the private companies running prisons who have their own press offices. Bids from national media are usually channelled to the MOJ press office but some are immediately rejected before they reach press office and regional bids may be accepted by prisons without reference to press office. The MOJ press office does not collate the requests they receive, or progress, centrally.

As a result it would not be possible, without disproportionate cost, to provide a list of media requests to enter prisons for the past three years.

The Government have no current plans to bring forward proposals to make parents accountable or responsible for acts committed by children under the age of criminal responsibility.

The minimum age of criminal responsibility is 10 and the Government have no plans to alter this.

If a child under the age of 10 behaves antisocially or in a manner which would be criminal if the child were 10 or over, local authorities may seek to intervene on a voluntary basis through measures such as Youth Inclusion Support Panels (YISPs) or agreeing a parenting contract with the parent(s) of the child.

Where necessary, a local authority may apply for a child safety order which places certain requirements on the child. A parenting order can be attached to a child safety order at any point, compelling the parent(s) to attend a parenting class and take what steps they can to control the child's behaviour. Failure to comply with a parenting order is a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £1,000.

In 2011 63,164 new electronically monitored supervision orders were started as part of a community sentence in England and Wales.

It is right that offenders subject to immediate custody should be expected to take responsibility for their crimes and contribute to the costs of repairing the harm done to victims. We will put in place mechanisms to enable the surcharge to be collected from offenders in prison and ensure effective enforcement of the imposition upon release.

At the moment we do not envisage imposing additional penalties on those offenders who fail to pay the surcharge.

In June 2012 there were 46 referrals to the Government-funded support service for adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales administered by the Salvation Army. Details are as follows:

Based on those offenders in prison at the end of March 2012, the number of life sentence prisoners recorded as being in custody continuously since 1977 is 58. Of these, two are serving a whole life tariff.

This does not include those transferred under mental health legislation from prison to secure hospitals.

Adjudication procedures deal with offences against discipline alleged to have been committed by prisoners, and contribute to maintaining order and control, and a safe environment, within prisons.

Since 2010 we have no longer been able to identify drug offences separately. However, the number of proven offences for ‘unauthorised transaction/possession’ committed by females in prison and dealt with under the prison adjudication process in 2010 and 2011 were 1,198 and 1,175 respectively. These may also include possession of other unauthorised items, for example a mobile phone. These figures count the number of offences, not the number of individuals; one prisoner may be responsible for more than one offence.

This information is published in the annual tables of the Offender Management Statistics. The publication is available free of charge on the Ministry of Justice website via this link:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/statistics/prisons-and-probation/oms-quarterly

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.

Statistical information held centrally by the Ministry of Justice from the Police National Computer on cautions issued in England and Wales does not identify all the specific circumstances of each case. It is not possible to identify the specific activities behind each offence.

The number of offenders cautioned for selected prostitution related offences in Greater London, in 2011, can be viewed in the following table.

Cautions data are not available at borough level.