Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to take action against the management and guards of Wetherby Young Offenders Institution who permitted male officers to forcibly strip girls there, as reported by His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons in December 2023.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
There is no plan to take formal action against staff members who were responding to an emergency to preserve life. In emergencies, the first priority of staff is always to safeguard the life and safety of those in their care.
This incident was not a strip search as erroneously reported but the removal of clothing from a child who was using it to create ligatures and self-strangulate. She was placed into anti-ligature clothing to prevent causing further harm to herself.
Following the incident highlighted by H M Inspectorate, a learning review has been conducted by the Youth Custody Service’s Safeguarding Team. It focused on four main themes:
protecting the well-being of children and staff during and after incidents
further training and guidance for staff in incident management of girls
integrated care management to ensure all departments work effectively with a child
management of resources to ensure there is an appropriate gender balance of staff on night duty.
The Youth Custody Service (YCS) will oversee the action in response to the learning review. This includes the provision of additional support to HMYOI Wetherby in its management of exceptionally complex high-risk, high-harm girls, the development of specific gender-responsive operating guidance, and effective use of available resources to support children.
The YCS has revised the Minimising and Managing Physical Restraint syllabus, which is the behaviour management and restraint system used to provide youth estate staff with the ability to identify behaviour that causes concern and use de-escalation and diversion strategies to minimise the use of restraint through the application of behaviour management techniques. This has been rolled out at HMYOI Wetherby.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 18 July 2023 to Question 193876, when he plans to publish the (a) content from the deliverables, (b) details of the experiment and (c) findings from the survey conducted by Ipsos Mori.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The work under the contract with procurement reference 336036/1227987 was delayed due to difficulties with finding a survey design that would accurately answer the research question, and eventually the contract expired before a workable design was agreed.
The department is continuing to work to finalise a revised research design. The survey has not yet been conducted but the expectation is that results will be available later this year.
Asked by: Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to bring forward Orders in Council to allow judges from relevant overseas jurisdictions to be appointed to serve on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has a jurisdiction beyond the UK and serves as the final court of appeal for many Commonwealth and other jurisdictions. From time to time, the work of the Judicial Committee has been augmented with the jurisprudence and expertise brought by appellate judges from jurisdictions beyond the UK.
The Lord Chancellor welcomes and approves Lord Reed’s proposal to invite judges outside the UK to sit on the Judicial Committee, and the necessary work is in train.
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 make an assessment of the level of availability of nitazenes in prisons.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Since February 2024, all prisoners subject to mandatory drug testing in prisons have been tested for fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid. We are working closely with our contracted drug testing provider to further improve our capabilities to test prisoners for other synthetic opioids, including nitazenes.
Forensic testing of suspected drug finds was made available to all public sector prisons in April 2023. Our contracted forensic analysis provider has capability to detect synthetic opioids including all fentanyls and nitazenes.
All prisons have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs and we are aware of the threat synthetic drugs present. Our current assessment is that there is a low prevalence of Nitazenes in prison custody. However, we are alert to the risks and continue to monitor this.
Our £100 million investment in tough security measures, such as X-ray body scanners, is helping tackle the supply of illicit drugs into prisons.
To prevent the smuggling of drugs through the mail, we have also invested in next-generation drug trace detection machines. As of March 2024, every public sector prison now has this cutting-edge technology.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether mandatory random drug testing in prisons includes testing for nitrazenes.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Since February 2024, all prisoners subject to mandatory drug testing in prisons have been tested for fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid. We are working closely with our contracted drug testing provider to further improve our capabilities to test prisoners for other synthetic opioids, including nitazenes.
Forensic testing of suspected drug finds was made available to all public sector prisons in April 2023. Our contracted forensic analysis provider has capability to detect synthetic opioids including all fentanyls and nitazenes.
All prisons have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs and we are aware of the threat synthetic drugs present. Our current assessment is that there is a low prevalence of Nitazenes in prison custody. However, we are alert to the risks and continue to monitor this.
Our £100 million investment in tough security measures, such as X-ray body scanners, is helping tackle the supply of illicit drugs into prisons.
To prevent the smuggling of drugs through the mail, we have also invested in next-generation drug trace detection machines. As of March 2024, every public sector prison now has this cutting-edge technology.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison (a) officers and (b) staff have been investigated for (i) drug smuggling and (ii) corruption at HMP Parc in each of the last four years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Department's press release entitled First Rapid Deployment Cells unveiled to boost prison places, published on 3 March 2023, how many such cells have been built as of 9 May 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
As part of our commitment to build 20,000 prison places, the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era, we have so far delivered c.730 Rapid Deployment Cells (RDCs) across 13 sites, and we are pushing ahead with hundreds more.
Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to support the victims of crime.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Government is committed to supporting victims of crime.
The Victims and Prisoners Bill, which is currently in Report stage of the second House, introduces measures to better serve victims and the public, through improving victims’ experiences of the Criminal Justice System. The Bill places the overarching principles of the Victims’ Code into primary legislation and places a statutory duty on relevant agencies to provide services in accordance with the Victims’ Code, unless there is a good reason not to. The Bill sets up new oversight mechanisms to monitor and improve Code compliance through new mandatory data collection. There will be a series of consequences in place for bodies that do not comply with the Code, delivered by new local and national oversight mechanisms, with robust independent scrutiny by the Victims’ Commissioner.
The Government recognises the importance of services which support victims, and so the Bill also introduces a duty on Police and Crime Commissioners Local Authorities and Integrated Care Boards to collaborate when commissioning support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and serious violence in England. Alongside this, the government has quadrupled funding for victims’ support services in cash terms since 2009/10. This includes funding to increase the number of Independent Sexual Violence Advisers and Independent Domestic Violence Advisers to around 1,000 by 2024/25, a 24/7 Rape Support Helpline, and an improved Homicide Support Service.
In addition to supporting victims directly, the Government is committed to making sure the punishment fits the crime. The average custodial sentence has increased by around 50% since 2010 and serious offenders now spend a higher proportion of their sentence in custody.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what training he plans to provide to staff responsible for assisting with the work of the upper tribunal in relocating asylum seekers to Rwanda; who will provide that training; what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of that training; and whether he plans to issue a contract for the recruitment of those staff.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
HM Courts & Tribunals Service is responsible for the administration of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber) and has been working with the Ministry of Justice to increase capacity in the justice system in preparation for the commencement of the Illegal Migration Act.
An additional 25 hearing rooms have been prepared with remote hearing technology to allow for either in-person or remote hearings to maximise flexibility.
Approximately 100 additional staff have been recruited to support the Upper Tribunal’s work and are currently undertaking training ready for the commencement of the Illegal Migration Act. These staff have been recruited on Fixed Term Contracts following external campaigns on the basis of fair and open competition. This training is being delivered internally within HMCTS as part of existing programmes of operational training.
This training is in relation to HMCTS processing of applications and appeals pertaining to individuals under the IMA scheme and is separate to any training given to Home Office staff in support of the decision making or removals of illegal migrants.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
What steps his Department is taking to reduce delays in judicial processes.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We remain committed to tackling the outstanding caseloads across our courts and tribunals and have introduced a range of measures to achieve this aim.
While the listing of cases is an independent judicial function, we have consistently invested in judicial recruitment to ensure we have the capacity to deliver effective judicial processes. Since 2018, we have recruited around 1,000 judges and tribunal members annually, across all jurisdictions.
Criminal courts
Over 90% of all criminal cases are heard at the magistrates’ courts, where we heard 100,000 cases a month on average across 2023. While the outstanding caseload in the magistrates’ courts has slightly increased in recent months due to an increase in the number of cases coming to court, the caseload remains well below its pandemic peak and stood at 370,700 at the end of December 2023, and cases continue to be progressed quickly.
To aid our efforts in the magistrates’ courts, we invested £1 million in a programme of work to support the recruitment of more magistrates. We aim to recruit 2,000 new and diverse magistrates this year, and similar numbers for each of the next couple of years.
At the Crown Court, we remain committed to reducing the outstanding caseload. We delivered 107,700 sitting days in the most recent financial year (FY23/24) and judges have worked tirelessly to complete more cases. The latest data shows cases progressed through the Crown Court more quickly throughout 2023, with the median time from receipt to completion reducing from 167 days in the first quarter of 2023, to 125 days in the last quarter.
We are also investing more in our criminal courts. In August 2023, we announced we are investing £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of our court buildings, up to March 2025.
Family Court
In March 2024 the Family Justice Board agreed a new set of priorities for the family justice system, with a clear focus on closing the longest running cases and increasing the proportion of public law cases concluding within the 26-week statutory timeline.
We announced in the Spring Budget an additional £55 million to improve productivity, support earlier resolution of family disputes and reduce the number of cases coming to court. This includes creating a digital advice tool for separating couples, piloting early legal advice and supporting the expansion of the private law Pathfinder model. The Department for Education are investing an extra £10 million to deliver new initiatives to address the longest delays in public law.
We have provided the flexibility for judges to sit virtually across regional boundaries, so that judges can be deployed where they are needed most, to reduce the caseload and waiting times.
We are also investing up to £23.6 million in the family mediation voucher scheme, which we intend will allow for its continuation up to March 2025. As of May 2024, over 28,600 families have successfully used the scheme to attempt to resolve their private law disputes outside of court.
Civil courts
With regards to civil cases, we are taking action to ensure those that do need to go to trial are dealt with quickly. We have a significant volume of judicial recruitment underway for District and Deputy District Judges, are digitising court processes and holding more remote hearings, and are increasing the use of mediation.
The requirement for small claims in the county court to attend a mediation session with the Small Claims Mediation Service will start this spring and is expected to help parties resolve their dispute swiftly and consensually without the need for a judicial hearing.
The HMCTS Reform Program has introduced technology that delivers simplified and transformed digital ways of working for civil court users and judges such as the online money claims process and the damages claims service, offering accessible and responsive services.
Tribunals
With regards to the tribunals, we continue to work with the Department for Business and Trade on further measures to address caseloads in the Employment Tribunal, where the deployment of legal officers, recruitment of additional judges and a new electronic case management system have helped the Tribunal to manage its caseload which remains below its pandemic peak.
We have rolled out the HMCTS digital reform programme in the Immigration and Asylum and Social Entitlement chambers so that anyone challenging an immigration or welfare benefits decision can lodge their appeal, track progress and receive the results all online.
HMCTS continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology.