In our response to the new psychoactive substances expert panel’s report, published on 30 October 2014, the Government set out a timetable for delivery of a number of the actions we are taking both under the present Parliament and beyond. Some of these have already been delivered. For example, Public Health England (PHE) has already delivered a new toolkit to help local areas to prevent and respond to the use of NPS. Other actions are underway, such as work with key enforcement partners to issue and/or update guidance to further tackle the supply of NPS generally as well as in "headshops". In addition, the Government continues to ensure that the Misuse of Drugs 1971 controls keep pace with the evolving NPS market. This includes controlling MT-45 and 4,4’-DMAR as Class A drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Work has begun on developing legislative proposals for a general ban on new psychoactive substances similar to that introduced in Ireland. The Government is moving swiftly so that new legislation is ready to be introduced at the earliest opportunity, notwithstanding the lack of appropriate legislative vehicle in this Parliament. In addition, statutory consultation has been initiated with the ACMD on the legislative proposal to adopt a new definition to ban all synthetic cannabinoids based on their effects on the brain.

In our response to the new psychoactive substances expert panel’s report, published on 30 October 2014, the Government set out a timetable for delivery of a number of the actions we are taking both under the present Parliament and beyond. Some of these have already been delivered. For example, Public Health England (PHE) has already delivered a new toolkit to help local areas to prevent and respond to the use of NPS. Other actions are underway, such as work with key enforcement partners to issue and/or update guidance to further tackle the supply of NPS generally as well as in "headshops". In addition, the Government continues to ensure that the Misuse of Drugs 1971 controls keep pace with the evolving NPS market. This includes controlling MT-45 and 4,4’-DMAR as Class A drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Work has begun on developing legislative proposals for a general ban on new psychoactive substances similar to that introduced in Ireland. The Government is moving swiftly so that new legislation is ready to be introduced at the earliest opportunity, notwithstanding the lack of appropriate legislative vehicle in this Parliament. In addition, statutory consultation has been initiated with the ACMD on the legislative proposal to adopt a new definition to ban all synthetic cannabinoids based on their effects on the brain.

The Coalition Government promotes a balanced and evidence-based approach to drug policy within the UN drug control conventions. As Ambassador Brownfield made clear, it is important that the international community respects the
integrity of UN conventions in this area. We will continue to champion our balanced drug strategy, which since 2010 has focused on reducing demand, restricting supply, and building recovery. This includes at international forums, including the forthcoming UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs in 2016.

The coalition government has regular conversations with the US Government through a range of bilateral and multilateral forums. We continue to work with the US to promote a modern, balanced and evidence-based international approach to drugs within the UN drug control conventions.

Home Office Ministers have meetings with a wide variety of international partners, as well as organisations and individuals in the public and private sectors, as part of the process of policy development and delivery. Details of these meetings are passed to the Cabinet Office on a quarterly basis and are subsequently published on the Gov.uk website: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/ministerial-data-home-office.

I regret that the requested arrests data are not collected centrally.

The list of qualifying offences for the sex offender notification requirements is kept under review by the Home Office. Convicted stalkers are already captured on the Police National Computer.

In addition, the Home Secretary has established a National Oversight Group to ensure that the recommendations from HMIC’s March Review into domestic abuse are acted upon. This includes work to improve data collection and data sharing on serial abusers.

The Home Office consultation on strengthening the law on domestic abuse closed on 15 October. We are currently considering the responses and we will consider all of the issues raised in order to determine next steps to offer the best possible protection for victims.

The Terms of Reference for the Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse have been published and the geographic scope is limited to England and Wales. The protection of children is a devolved matter, and it would be inappropriate for the inquiry panel to make recommendations for Northern Ireland concerning the running of the child protection system there.

However, as the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland set out in her statement to Parliament on 21 October, the Government is determined that no stone should be left unturned to investigate serious allegations of institutional failure. She has also made clear that the Government, Ministry of Defence and the Security Services will give the Inquiry the fullest possible co-operation. We currently believe that the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry is the best place to do that in respect of Kincora and we will work closely with, the Chairman of the Inquiry, Sir Anthony Hart to help to achieve that.

We will monitor carefully the extent to which the Inquiry is able to make progress in respect of material relevant to Kincora and we will look at the
situation again if the Inquiry tells us it is unable to determine the facts.

The Coalition Government has part funded a new study by Equality Now and City University into the prevalence of female genital mutilation in England and Wales.

The interim report, published in July 2014, has estimated that approximately 60,000 girls aged 0-14 were born in England and Wales to mothers who had had FGM, and that approximately 103,000 women aged 15-49 and approximately 24,000 women aged 50 and over who have migrated to England and Wales are living with the consequences of FGM. In addition, approximately 10,000 girls aged under 15 who have migrated to England and Wales are likely to have suffered FGM.

The full report, with data disaggregated to a local level, will be released in the new year.

In addition, since April 2014 NHS staff have been required to record in a patient’s healthcare record whenever it is identified that the patient has
suffered FGM. This applies to all NHS clinicians and healthcare professionals across the NHS. The collection became mandatory on 1 September 2014.The first aggregated monthly data return from acute hospital providers inEngland, published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, reported that in September 2014 there were 1,279 patients identified as having undergoneFGM prior to the reporting period, who were still being actively seen or treatedfor FGM-related conditions or any other non-related condition, and 467 newly identified cases of FGM nationally.

The Terms of Reference for the Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse have been published and the geographic scope is limited to England and Wales. The protection of children is a devolved matter, and it would be inappropriate for the inquiry panel to make recommendations for Northern Ireland concerning the running of the child protection system there.

However, as the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland set out in her statement to Parliament on 21 October, the Government is determined that no stone should be left unturned to investigate serious allegations of institutional failure. She has also made clear that the Government, Ministry of Defence and the Security Services will give the Inquiry the fullest possible co-operation. We currently believe that the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry is the best place to do that in respect of Kincora and we will work closely with, the Chairman of the Inquiry, Sir Anthony Hart to help to achieve that.

We will monitor carefully the extent to which the Inquiry is able to make progress in respect of material relevant to Kincora and we will look at the
situation again if the Inquiry tells us it is unable to determine the facts.

These have now been published. A copy has been placed in Parliament’s Libraries and is available online on the government’s website at: www.gov.uk.

Firearms licensing is administered by the police. The Home Office does not hold information about the time taken by forces to process firearms licences.

There is ongoing work by government and the police to improve the efficiency of the system. An important component for this is the development of an onlinesystem called eCommerce which is being developed by the police as part of a business change programme to standardise and improve turnaround times.

Information about the number of firearms certificates issued in each region of England and Wales is published in "Firearm and Shotgun Certificates in England and Wales 2013/14" which is available on the GOV.UK website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firearm-and-shotgun-certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2014/firearm-and-shotgun-certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2014

Information relating to the number of certificates issued in Scotland can be found on the Scottish Government website at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/10/4039/0

The Police Service of Northern Ireland lists its statistical outputs on the PSNI Statistics page of its website at:
http://www.psni.police.uk/directory/updates/updates_statistics.htm. However, there are no series of statistics that are directly comparable to those for England and Wales or Scotland.

Firearms licensing is administered by the police. The Home Office does not hold information about the time taken by forces to process firearms licences.

There is ongoing work by government and the police to improve the efficiency of the system. An important component for this is the development of an onlinesystem called eCommerce which is being developed by the police as part of a business change programme to standardise and improve turnaround times.

Information about the number of firearms certificates issued in each region of England and Wales is published in "Firearm and Shotgun Certificates in England and Wales 2013/14" which is available on the GOV.UK website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firearm-and-shotgun-certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2014/firearm-and-shotgun-certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2014

Information relating to the number of certificates issued in Scotland can be found on the Scottish Government website at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/10/4039/0

The Police Service of Northern Ireland lists its statistical outputs on the PSNI Statistics page of its website at:
http://www.psni.police.uk/directory/updates/updates_statistics.htm. However, there are no series of statistics that are directly comparable to those for England and Wales or Scotland.

Firearms licensing is administered by the police. The Home Office does not hold information about the time taken by forces to process firearms licences.

There is ongoing work by government and the police to improve the efficiency of the system. An important component for this is the development of an onlinesystem called eCommerce which is being developed by the police as part of a business change programme to standardise and improve turnaround times.

Information about the number of firearms certificates issued in each region of England and Wales is published in "Firearm and Shotgun Certificates in England and Wales 2013/14" which is available on the GOV.UK website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firearm-and-shotgun-certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2014/firearm-and-shotgun-certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2014

Information relating to the number of certificates issued in Scotland can be found on the Scottish Government website at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/10/4039/0

The Police Service of Northern Ireland lists its statistical outputs on the PSNI Statistics page of its website at:
http://www.psni.police.uk/directory/updates/updates_statistics.htm. However, there are no series of statistics that are directly comparable to those for England and Wales or Scotland.

The police recorded crime data that the Home Office receives from the police forces of England and Wales relate only to how many crimes are recorded and not how many reports are received. It is only possible to centrally provide figures for certain sexual offences that identify the age of the victim in statute, namely:

 Rape of a female child under 16
 Rape of a female child under 13
 Rape of a male child under 16
 Rape of a male child under 13
 Sexual assault on a female child under 13
 Sexual assault on a male child under 13
 Sexual activity involving a child under 13
 Sexual activity involving child under 16
 Sexual grooming (the victim must be under 16)

Data for these offences are provided at the community safety partnership (CSP) level in Tables A and F. Police recorded crime data are not wholly available at the local authority level although in most areas local authorities and CSPs are coterminous.

Data are provided for the financial year 2009/10 due to changes in offence codes in April 2009 and data for 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14 are provided for context (Tables B to E).

Recent increases in the overall number of recorded sexual offences have been attributed by the Office for National Statistics to a) the willingness of victims to come forward and report these crimes to the police, partly due to wider ‘operation Yewtree effect, where victims of sexual offences that are not directly connected to Yewtree are now reporting these offences to the police. and b) an improvement in crime recording by the police for these offences.

The information requested is also published quarterly as part of the police recorded crime open data tables and can be accessed in an unformatted list here):

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
(see tables titled ‘Police recorded crime data by community safety partnership’).

The College of Policing sets standards and provides relevant training products and services to police forces. This includes a College of Policing training package on stalking, which was completed 56,748 times between October 2012 and 30 September 2014 by police officers and staff in England and Wales, and continues to be available.

Neither the College of Policing nor the Home Office holds information which breaks this figure down by the number of police officers and staff in England and Wales that have completed the training.

In 2013-14, 743 prosecutions were commenced under the new stalking legislation. This is a significant increase from 2012-13 and shows that the legislation is taking effect.

We are also working with the police and Crown Prosecution Service to raise awareness and improve professional knowledge.

To ensure prosecutors’ knowledge is continuously refreshed, in April 2014, the CPS launched a specific e-learning module on stalking which focused on victim support, working with the police and ensuring a strong case is built from the start. The College of Policing is also undertaking a review of how stalking incidents are investigated by the police. This will include how the police understand what constitutes a course of conduct in policing, how the police support victims, and further training on the appropriate use of Police Information Notices.

Since April 2014, offences of stalking and harassment are being reported separately in Police Recorded Crime figures. This will allow us to monitor the impact of the legislation more effectively.

Convicted stalkers will already be captured on the Police National Computer. We are working to make better use of existing databases and improve connectivity and information sharing rather than creating new databases or registers for each and every offence.

The College of Policing sets standards and provides relevant training products and services to police forces. This includes a College of Policing training package on stalking, which was completed 56,748 times between October 2012 and 30 September 2014 by police officers and staff in England and Wales, and continues to be available.

Neither the College of Policing nor the Home Office holds information which breaks this figure down by the number of police officers and staff in England and Wales that have completed the training.

In 2013-14, 743 prosecutions were commenced under the new stalking legislation. This is a significant increase from 2012-13 and shows that the legislation is taking effect.

We are also working with the police and Crown Prosecution Service to raise awareness and improve professional knowledge.

To ensure prosecutors’ knowledge is continuously refreshed, in April 2014, the CPS launched a specific e-learning module on stalking which focused on victim support, working with the police and ensuring a strong case is built from the start. The College of Policing is also undertaking a review of how stalking incidents are investigated by the police. This will include how the police understand what constitutes a course of conduct in policing, how the police support victims, and further training on the appropriate use of Police Information Notices.

Since April 2014, offences of stalking and harassment are being reported separately in Police Recorded Crime figures. This will allow us to monitor the impact of the legislation more effectively.

Convicted stalkers will already be captured on the Police National Computer. We are working to make better use of existing databases and improve connectivity and information sharing rather than creating new databases or registers for each and every offence.

The College of Policing sets standards and provides relevant training products and services to police forces. This includes a College of Policing training package on stalking, which was completed 56,748 times between October 2012 and 30 September 2014 by police officers and staff in England and Wales, and continues to be available.

Neither the College of Policing nor the Home Office holds information which breaks this figure down by the number of police officers and staff in England and Wales that have completed the training.

In 2013-14, 743 prosecutions were commenced under the new stalking legislation. This is a significant increase from 2012-13 and shows that the legislation is taking effect.

We are also working with the police and Crown Prosecution Service to raise awareness and improve professional knowledge.

To ensure prosecutors’ knowledge is continuously refreshed, in April 2014, the CPS launched a specific e-learning module on stalking which focused on victim support, working with the police and ensuring a strong case is built from the start. The College of Policing is also undertaking a review of how stalking incidents are investigated by the police. This will include how the police understand what constitutes a course of conduct in policing, how the police support victims, and further training on the appropriate use of Police Information Notices.

Since April 2014, offences of stalking and harassment are being reported separately in Police Recorded Crime figures. This will allow us to monitor the impact of the legislation more effectively.

Convicted stalkers will already be captured on the Police National Computer. We are working to make better use of existing databases and improve connectivity and information sharing rather than creating new databases or registers for each and every offence.

The National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) governs the recording of Notifiable Offences by the Police. There have been no changes to NCRS since 2010.

It is difficult to draw causality between the Licensing Act 2003 and changing behaviours. The Licensing Act 2003 came into force in November 2005. Data on offences which are ‘alcohol related’ are drawn from the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which asks victims of violent incidents whether they perceived the offender to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offence. By this measure, the number of violent incidents considered to be‘alcohol related’ has fallen from around 1.02 million incidents in 2005/06, to around 0.88 million incidents in 2012/13 (a fall of 14%).

The definition of binge drinking used by the NHS is drinking more than double the lower risk guidelines for alcohol in one session – more than 8 units for men and 6 units for women. The Opinions and Lifestyle survey, published by the Office of National Statistics provides our best measure for this. The data shows that in 2005, 23% of men and 15% of women drank over twice the lower risk guidelines on at least one day in the week before interview. This fell to 19 % of men and 11 % of women in 2012.

The Home Secretary has received the report of the Review led by Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam QC and is considering their findings ahead of the full report being published. On publication a copy of the report will be placed in the House Library.