Page:Hansard (UK) - Vol 566 No. 40 August 29th 2013.pdf/71

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(b) £12,600 on career transition services for staff at risk of redundancy. The breakdown by month is as follows:

(c) £1,246,266 on staff training $2$

$2$The figures given for staff training are for the total spend recorded against training account codes in the Department’s financial management system for the whole year. This expenditure could be for a variety of reasons from actual training courses to booking course venues. We have given a total for the year as the monthly breakdown indicates a negative figure for April 2013 due to accounting policies.

Richard Benyon: A number of DEFRA’s network bodies provide services to people resident in Wales or usually resident in Wales.

James Brokenshire: The Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme will evaluate the technology options during tender evaluation, and the Full Business Case will recommend a preferred solution. The Full Business Case will not be approved before March 2015.

Mr Harper [holding answer 17 June 2013]: The Secretary of State for the Home Department, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), set out in her ministerial statement on 9 July 2013, Official Report, columns 177-93 that the Government will opt out of all of the pre-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures, and then negotiate with the Commission and other member states to opt back into those individual measures which it is in our national interest to rejoin, including the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Parliament has voted on this position, and agreed to opt out of pre-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures.

In reaching its decision the Government considered how the EAW contributed to public safety and security, whether practical co-operation is underpinned by it, and whether there would be a detrimental impact on such co-operation if it were pursued by other means. We also considered the impact of each measure on our civil rights and traditional liberties. As part of this decision, the impact on the extradition of nationals of EU countries was considered. The European Convention on Extradition (1957) governed extradition relations between the UK and other EU member states prior to the adoption of the EAW. Under the ECE some member states did not extradite their own nationals to the UK and may not do so again in the future.

Mr Harper: There is no obligation to notify the person of the existence of a warrant ahead of their arrest. It is a matter of longstanding policy and practice that the United Kingdom will neither confirm nor deny that it has received, is to make or has made an extradition request, until the subject of the request has been arrested. This is because if a person wanted for extradition learnt of the request in advance of their arrest, they would be able to take action to evade justice.

Mr Harper: The asylum work in progress (WIP) number is published on an annual basis, providing a breakdown of the status of these cases. This includes figures on the number of main applicants whose cases are subject to removal action (i.e. failed asylum seekers).