If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

In June, I announced a review of schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 in the light of considerable concern about the starting point for determining the minimum term for murder using a knife, which is currently 15 years. Following this review, which included the necessary consultation, I can now tell the House that I propose to introduce a new adult starting point of 25 years for murder using a knife or other weapon carried to the scene with the intention of use as a weapon. A statutory instrument introducing this change will be laid before Parliament by Christmas and will be subject to debate in both Houses soon after.

In order to protect freedom of speech and safeguard community cohesion, will the Justice Secretary put in place measures that prevent Muslim groups and organisations who condone or encourage violence against Muslims who convert to other religions or leave the Islamic faith-so-called apostates-from receiving public money?

Such arrangements ought to be in place currently, and there is very careful analysis by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, but if the hon. Gentleman has any examples, I am very happy to follow them up on his behalf.

What is the Government's most recent assessment of the success in ensuring that justice is seen to be done under the community payback and community cash-back schemes, particularly in Wolverhampton and the west midlands?

The community payback and community cash-back schemes have, I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend, been very successful. Using the minimum wage as the multiplier, I can tell him that in the west midlands, about £2.5 million-worth of unpaid labour has been carried out, involving many schemes. One of the great things about community payback is that the public can literally see offenders carrying out this work on their behalf, and increasingly they can choose which schemes the offenders should undertake.

Now that we know that shop theft costs a shocking £5 billion a year and is on the increase, especially among middle class women, will the Justice Secretary please extend the review of out-of-court disposals, which he has just instigated at the request of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Association of Chief Police Officers, to include the use of penalty notices, which should not be used in cases of persistent shop theft?

The review will indeed include penalty notices for disorder. As I have made clear to the hon. Lady-and I commend her campaign on proper compliance and a restriction on the use of PNDs, especially in respect of shop theft-I am as concerned as she is about any circumstances in which penalty notices for disorder are used for repeat offenders. The number of convictions over the last eight years has increased. The introduction of so-called out-of-court disposals is nothing to do with the prison population. Before we introduced the out-of- court disposals, most of these offenders were not dealt with at all by the police, and that was wholly ineffective. I accept that there is a problem, and we must consider it actively.

On the same theme, will my right hon. Friend's review of police cautions establish the legitimacy of these cautions, because they are a useful part of the criminal justice armoury? Will he also make it clear that the outrageous cases, such as the barmaid who was glassed and raped, can never properly be subject to police caution?

I am as surprised and shocked as anybody else by the fact that cautions have been used in indictable-only offences such as rape. Such decisions can be made only by the crown prosecutor-it is a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The review will indeed include that issue. These cautions and other out-of- court disposals were designed for lower level offences that, in the past, were not the subject of any effective police action. In the period in which we have introduced them, the number of convictions has increased significantly.

A constituent's son was tragically murdered. The mother applied for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, but was refused-including help with funeral expenses-because he had had convictions in the past that were nothing to do with his murder. Does the Secretary of State agree that it appears that we place a lower value on life when it comes to those who have made a mistake in the past and paid for those crimes?

I understand the concern of the hon. Gentleman and the family he is representing, but it has long been accepted, as part of the criminal injuries compensation scheme, that people who are the victims of crime but have themselves been offenders with relatively serious, unspent convictions cannot benefit from compensation which is available, fundamentally, for innocent members of the public.

Now that my hon. Friend Ms Butler has been made the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, with responsibility for youth citizenship, what does that mean for the Youth Citizenship Commission? More importantly, I desperately need to know who to lobby on the issue of reducing the voting age to 16.

The appointment of my hon. Friend is very good news. In any event, we are already pursuing the recommendations of the Youth Citizenship Commission. As for votes at 16, opinions differ. This is a free country, and there are free opinions in the Government on this issue. I take a slightly different view on this, and it was striking that in the opinion poll that the YCC conducted only those aged 16 and 17 showed a majority in favour of votes at 16-and it was only a narrow majority-and the other groups favoured 18. This is a debate that will run and run.

Mr. Speaker, you will be horrified to learn that last year up to 40,000 assault cases were dealt with only by a caution, in spite of official guidance stating that they should be used only for low-level offending. Will the Justice Secretary tell the Crown prosecutor that such abuse of the system should be ended forthwith, and that cautions for assault cases are totally inappropriate?

I have, indeed, just said that. I point out to the hon. Lady, however, that violence against the person as a category includes, at the one end, grievous bodily harm, which is very serious, and, at the other end, common assault, which until 1998 was regarded by the party of the previous Administration as not important enough to be a recorded offence. In my view, we need graded advice that clearly distinguishes on the one hand between common assault-it might literally be just a tap-and grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm on the other hand.

The graveyards of Britain are still littered with inappropriate and unsafe stakes. Will the Minister consider giving another significant kick to the cemetery authorities that have failed in their duty to remove the stakes?

I will take great pleasure in giving that kick to those authorities. My hon. Friend has campaigned long and hard on that issue, and he is absolutely right. We have sent out guidance on at least two occasions, and if necessary we will do so again and hope that, this time, they pay some attention.

Although the number of deaths on our roads is at its lowest since records began, every life lost is one too many. The grief of families, however, is made worse when frequently they do not know what has happened to the driver of the vehicle in which their loved-one died. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is necessary for sentencing in all court cases in which a life has been lost, irrespective of the charge or whether the person has pleaded guilty, to be done at the Crown court?

I cannot say that, because it would raise bigger issues. However, I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that bereaved victims in such circumstances have every right to know the outcome of the case. There should be a duty on the prosecutors and police, with help from Victim Support, to see that they do.

Since Ben's death, Debbie and George Kinsella have been campaigning for an increase in sentences for those guilty of knife crime. I know that my right hon. Friend has had meetings with the family, and with their priest, Father Jim Kennedy. On their behalf, and that of the people of Islington, I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement today.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know how hard she has sought to represent the bereaved Kinsella family and the community. As I explained to the House in my statement, schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 provides for a minimum starting-point tariff of 15 years for adults. In the light of the Kinsella murder and the sentences, understandable concern was raised about the fact that the starting point was too low for knife murders involving people who have gone out with a knife with the intention of committing a serious crime. I am glad to say that, in the light of the review, I propose to raise the tariff to 25 years. I am afraid that nothing can undo the loss suffered by the Kinsella family, but it does at least show-I hope-respect for them and the community that it has been possible to respond as we have.

What prisoner exchange relationships do we have with Venezuela? I have an 18-year-old constituent awaiting trial there. His mental age is below 18, and we are worried about whether he is going to get a fair trial. If he is convicted, is there any mechanism to bring him back to the UK, so that he can finish his sentence here?

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, because I cannot answer his question directly without notice. However, I will follow it up, including with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. There are normally arrangements with almost all countries for prisoner transfer. Under long-standing arrangements that pre-date this Government, those arrangements require the consent of the sentencing state, receiving state and, usually, the prisoner-although we are trying to change that. However, I shall write to him with advice on that.

Will the Secretary of State please reaffirm what he said in his answer to me on 21 July, which is that there will be no prison-neither a Titan prison nor any other size of prison-in Scarisbrick? Will he also confirm that in writing for the benefit of Tory councillors-colleagues of Opposition Members-who seem not to be able to believe in the record according to Hansard?

There will not be a prison at Scarisbrick, Titan or otherwise, and I will write to my hon. Friend about that.

I have a constituent who has been released on life licence and has been homeless for six years. Can Ministers reassure me that there is proper co-ordination between their Department and the Department for Communities and Local Government, so that housing previous offenders is seen as a social priority for everybody?

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. Housing previous offenders is one of the pathways to reducing reoffending that we are taking action to deal with. That is not to say that every prisoner who comes out will find settled and secured housing, as that case illustrates, but 86 per cent. do.

Derry Irvine has spoken out for the first time about the abolition of the ancient office of Lord Chancellor and how it was done without consultation or proper appreciation of the consequences. Would the latest Lord Chancellor challenge Lord Irvine's account in any way?

I am living proof that the office has not been abolished. As for challenging Lord Irvine's account, I was abroad at the time.

The Ministry of Justice is spending £4 million installing vending machines in prisons to allow prisoners access to methadone, through the iris or fingerprint system. Why are the Government spending more on prisoners' drug habits than on abstinence-based rehabilitation?

May I say to the hon. Gentleman- [ Interruption. ] Sorry, but he is obscured by the corporeal presence of his hon. Friend Sir Patrick Cormack, just in front of him. I invite the hon. Gentleman to come to prison and see those dispensers, which are part of ensuring the tight control of drugs in prison. There are some addicted prisoners for whom medical practitioners have determined that methadone-not heroin but methadone, which is a recognised and acceptable substitute-should be prescribed, in order to control and cut down their addiction. The idea of the dispensing machines is to provide absolute certainty about who receives the methadone. As I have witnessed, the prisoner's identity is checked at the point at which the drug is dispensed and he or she has to consume it in the presence of two prison officers and a nurse.