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Written Question
Prisons: Drugs and Mobile Phones
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle the smuggling of (a) drugs and (b) communication devices into prisons.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We are committed to tackling the smuggling of all illicit items into prisons, including drugs and communication devices such as mobile phones.

We completed the £100 million Security Investment Programme in March 2022, which included funding to bolster physical security measures. This investment delivered 75 additional X-ray body scanners, resulting in full coverage across the closed adult male estate. As of October 2023, we had recorded 46,925 positive indications, helping to tackle the supply of drugs and mobile phones into prisons. We also deployed Enhanced Gate Security to 42 high-risk prisons under this investment, implementing routine searching of staff and visitors. This included 659 dedicated staff, 154 drug sniffing dogs and over 200 pieces of equipment.

We have 165 drug trace detection machines across the prison estate to prevent the smuggling of drugs, such as psychoactive substances, through the mail. The rollout of an additional 20 next-generation devices was completed in March 2024, meaning every public section prison now has this next-generation equipment.

X-ray baggage scanners have been installed at 49 sites (45 prisons and 4 learning centres) building on the rollout of our X-ray body scanners, gate security and drug trace detection machines.

New airspace restrictions took effect on 25 January 2024 to create 400 metre flight restriction zones around all closed prisons and young offender institutions in England and Wales. These will ensure swift action is taken against criminal drone activity, including the smuggling of illicit items.


Written Question
Shoplifting: Sentencing
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Swire (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the Sentencing Code with regard to shoplifting.

Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

We know there has been a worrying rise in shoplifting, which we need to address.

Police Recorded Crime figures show shoplifting offences increased by 32% in the 12 months to September 2023. However, the number of people charged with shoplifting offences in the same period rose by 34%, showing that Police are heeding the message.

The publication of the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Retail Crime Action Plan, published in October 2023, includes a commitment to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel.

Additionally, where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this through the Police National Database as standard using facial recognition technology to further aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.

The plan also includes guidance for retailers on what response they can expect from their local police, as well as how retailers can assist the police by providing evidence to help ensure cases are followed-up.

October also saw the launch of Pegasus, a unique private-public partnership that will radically improve the way retailers are able to share intelligence with policing, to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders. This will include development of a new information sharing platform and training for retailers.

The Sentencing Code is a consolidation of existing sentencing procedure law. It brings together over 50 pieces of primary legislation relating to sentencing procedure into one single piece of legislation, in the Sentencing Act 2020. It includes general provisions relating to sentencing procedure, the different types of sentences available to the courts, and certain behaviour orders that can be imposed in addition to a sentence. Since the Sentencing Act came into force, it has been amended following changes to the law relating to sentencing procedure. The Code is not designed, however, to apply to specific offences.


Written Question
Prisons: Travellers
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an assessment of the adequacy of the treatment of (a) Romani, (b) Roma and (c) Irish Traveller people in the prison estate.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) pursues an evidence-based approach to improving treatment and outcomes for prisoners, people on probation and children in our care from Romani, Roma, and Traveller Communities.

The HMPPS Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Strategy, first produced in May 2023, was drawn up, and continues to be developed, in consultation with Third Sector partners. It is informed by a range of internal and external reports and data. The strategy is implemented via a comprehensive action plan, which targets key areas for development, including data improvement, family interactions and health inequalities.

Some specific examples of activity include the further expansion of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) Forums in prisons. Forums are being regularly held in several establishments across the prison estate, providing a supportive platform for communications and helping to respond to local needs. Staff awareness continues to be improved, with Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller specific information embedded into various guides across the organisation, improving the capability of staff to respond to individuals’ needs.


Written Question
Probation: Resignations
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of new probation officers left the service within a year of joining in each year since 2014.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

A considerable majority of Probation Officers first join the Probation Service as Trainee Probation Officers. During their time as a trainee, they will spend around 15-21 months training before potentially taking up a post as a Band 4 Probation Officer. As a result of this trainee pipeline, there will only be new Probation Officers with less than one year in the Probation Service if they joined the service as a qualified Probation Officer and then left within 12 months.

Retention of Probation staff is a priority for the service. A national standardised approach to exit interviews has been implemented to better understand the key drivers of attrition and feedback from these interviews helps shape and determine retention interventions at a local and national level.

The Probation Service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve a challenging recruitment and retention position. The pay increases differ for each job role, but to provide an example Probation Officers will see their starting salary rise from £30,208 in 2021/22 to £35,130 by 2024/25.

The table below shows only those Probation Officers who joined the service as qualified Probation Officers and so will not include any Probation Officers who joined as trainees (who will all have been in the service for longer than a year by the time they qualify as a Probation Officer). The Probation Service unified in June 2021, bringing together the National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies. As a result, figures pre- and post-June 2021 are not comparable because of the change in the workforce makeup.

Table 1 - Number of Band 4 Probation Officer joiners to HMPPS and those who left HMPPS within 1 year: 2022-2023

Year

All joiners

Staff who left within 1 year

2022

42

3

2023

44

5


Written Question
Prison and Probation Service: Labour Turnover
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to help increase the retention rate of staff in HM Prison and Probation Service.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Safe, decent, rehabilitative prisons require excellent and experienced staff, as does supervising offenders in the community to keep the public safe.

We want them to stay in the Prison Service and to support retention, we have:

  • Accepted every penny of the Prisons Service PRB pay recommendations for 2023/24.

  • Injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to support Probation staff to deliver more robust supervision.

  • Rolled out BWV to every officer, to help protect staff by defusing volatile situations.

  • Introduced a New Colleague Mentor scheme to help new recruits feel supported in their early weeks and months.

Retention for prison officers is improving, with the staff resignation rate dropping from around 10.7% to around 8.3% over the last year to December 2023.


Written Question
Prison Accommodation
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish the (a) locations and (b) number of places per location of all planned prison places.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

To date, we have delivered c.5,900 places. This includes our two new prisons HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way. By the end of 2025, we are on track to have delivered around 10,000 places in total. This will include our third new prison, HMP Millsike, delivering c.1,500 places, new houseblocks at HMPs Stocken and Rye Hill, as well as hundreds more Rapid Deployment Cells.

Under current plans, we are scheduled to deliver at the following sites from 21 March 2024:

Programme

Site

Places

New Prisons

HMP Millsike

1,468

Garth Wymott 2*

1,715

Gartree 2

1,715

Grendon 2

1,468

HMP Gartree Houseblock **

247

HMP Fosse Way Houseblock

245

Private prisons – houseblock

HMP Rye Hill

458

HMP Parc**

320

Houseblocks

HMP Bullingdon

247

HMP Channings Wood

494

HMP Elmley

247

HMP Hindley

494

HMP Highpoint

741

HMP Wayland

121

HMP Guys Marsh

180

HMP Stocken

214

Refurbishments

HMP Birmingham

301

HMP Norwich

171

HMP Liverpool

350***

Rapid Deployment Cells

HMP Erlestoke

40

HMP Foston Hall

40

HMP The Verne

40

HMP Northumberland

60

HMP Springhill

40

HMP Kirklevington Grange

153

HMP Prescoed

80

Category D

HMP Hatfield

60

HMP Leyhill **

240

HMP Springhill **

180

HMP Sudbury

120

HMP Ford **

420

HMP Standford Hill **

240

Small Secure Houseblocks

HMP Brinsford

120

HMP Humber

120

HMP Lancaster Farms

240

HMP Morton Hall

60

HMP Northumberland

240

HMP Onley

180

HMP Ranby

120

HMP Erlestoke

180

  • * This site is subject to an ongoing planning appeal.

  • ** Delivery at these sites is subject to planning permission.

  • *** A wing-by-wing refurbishment is ongoing, with some places already delivered.

  • Any additional sites not listed here are commercially sensitive and information released about these would prejudice the department’s negotiating position and ability to achieve value for money in these developments.


Written Question
Secure Accommodation
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of moving children from youth offenders institutes into secure children homes.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The youth secure estate currently has three distinct types of establishments: young offender institutions (YOIs), secure training centres and secure children’s homes (SCHs). We will also open a Secure School this spring, which is also a registered SCH. This enables the Youth Custody Service (YCS) to make placements that are best suited to the needs of the individual child or young person. SCHs accommodate boys and girls aged between 10 and 17 who have complex needs. These placements can be made by local authorities. In addition, children and young people who have been sentenced or remanded to custody may be placed by the YCS in eight of the 14 SCHs in England and Wales. A SCH can decline to accept a placement if it feels it is not able to meet the needs of the individual child, or if accepting the placement would inhibit its ability to meet the needs of other children already accommodated at the home.

The YCS Placement Team considers each child’s placement on a case-by-case basis. It reviews information provided by the child’s Youth Offending Team, looking at the child’s needs, as well as any possible risks to, or originating with the child. The team will also try to consider geographical location and proximity to home as part of their decision making, though other factors may take precedence in terms of decision making. This evidence, together with the child’s immediate presentation following the court appearance, is considered in order to identify a placement that will meet the best interests of the child.

Children and young people are likely to be more suited to one type of accommodation than another. For example, a SCH placement could be more suitable for children with a lower level of maturity, or with complex needs that require a higher level of support; a YOI placement might be considered appropriate where the young person has been observed to pose a risk towards peers and/or members of staff, or needs to access a specific programme or programmes provided at the YOI.


Written Question
Convictions: Young People
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many convictions of young people there were in (a) the North West, (b) Lancashire and (c) Preston in each of the last five years; and what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the trend in the number of such convictions.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice holds information on convictions by age group and Police Force Area, covering the period requested. The latest data available, until year ending June 2023, can be obtained in the following published tool: Outcomes by Offence tool: June 2023.

The tool linked above will allow you to select particular age groups of interest through the age group filter, and areas of the country through the police force area filter.

It is not possible to separately identify all convictions in Preston courts specifically, as those at magistrates’ courts in Preston are counted within the wider geographical area of Lancashire outlined in the first part of the question. Figures for the rest of 2023 will be available in the next update of the Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly publication, expected in May 2024.

The Ministry of Justice has not carried out any recent location-specific assessment of on how our policies have influenced the trend in the number of children convicted since 2019 in Preston, Lancashire and the North West. However, there has been analysis of the broader national trend, which is a fall in the overall number of children entering the criminal justice system more generally in recent years. Since 2012, the number of first-time entrants to the youth justice system has declined by 72%. This can be attributed to a number of drivers. These include changes to policing and criminal justice practices intended to increase police discretion to divert children who had committed low-level offences from the formal justice system, prevention programmes to support vulnerable families and Youth Offending Teams undertaking prevention work with children perceived to be at risk of offending.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release: Drugs
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps HM Prison and Probation Service take to ensure prisoners released on end of custody supervised licence can continue to access drug addiction treatment programs when they are released from prison.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We know that supporting offenders to engage in drug and alcohol treatment is vital to reduce reoffending and we are working with health partners on a range of interventions to strengthen continuity of care for prison leavers. We have recruited over 50 Health and Justice Co-ordinators nationwide to improve links between prison and community treatment services, procured 650 laptops to enable prisoners to speak to community treatment providers before release and we are rolling out the Probation Notification Actioning Project (PNAP) which will make probation aware of prison leavers who have been referred to community treatment so probation can support continued engagement.

The lower-level offenders released on ECSL will have a release plan put together by probation, and where appropriate this release plan will include access to drug and alcohol treatment. It remains at the discretion of the prison service to block or delay the ECSL release of any prisoners where doing so would result in losing access to essential services such as drug and alcohol treatment.


Written Question
Young Offenders: Women
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Samantha Dixon (Labour - City of Chester)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of accommodating young female offenders in all-male young offender institutions on the wellbeing of those female offenders.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The safety of all those in our custodial estate, including young female offenders is a key priority.

Girls currently make up less than 1% of children and young people within the youth estate which has a range of mixed gender settings. In HMYOI Wetherby, girls live separately from boys but attend education and activities together, as occurs in the community.

Girls in the youth estate can communicate trauma-related stress through internalising behaviours such as self-harming. Professionals work hard to deliver effective care.

The YCS is further developing gender-responsive guidance and training both at HMYOI Wetherby and for the wider youth estate.