Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of (a) trends in the level of (i) delays and (ii) backlogs in the Planning Court and (b) the implications for his policies of the time taken to enforce a temporary stop notice.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Temporary Stop Notice (TSN) is a planning enforcement tool available to local planning authorities to halt breaches of planning control on a temporary basis while they consider whether more substantive enforcement action is required.
While the initial stages of Planning Court proceedings are generally within expected timeframes, delays persist at later stages, and substantive hearings continue to experience backlogs. The number of live cases has gradually increased over the past year.
The time taken to enforce a temporary stop notice has implications for the effectiveness of planning enforcement policy. These notices are intended to provide swift intervention to prevent unauthorised development, but delays in judicial processes can weaken their deterrent effect and undermine confidence in the planning system. Prolonged enforcement proceedings may increase costs for local authorities and frustrate wider policy objectives on development control.
The Government is working with HM Courts & Tribunals Service and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure enforcement tools remain robust and planning policy continues to operate effectively.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Statement in the House on 11 November 2025, how many personnel from his Department will form the urgent warrant query unit.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Urgent Warrant Query Unit (UWQU) will be formed out of an existing national service centre which currently answers all calls to the Magistrates’ Courts in England and Wales. Its function will be to provide a reliable and accountable route of escalation for urgent queries to HMCTS from Prisons, covering both Crown and Magistrates' Courts.
We anticipate the unit will be initially staffed with 8 members of existing staff daily based on an assessment of likely contact volumes. Staff allocated to the unit will be given additional training and flexibly deployed to the Query Unit to ensure all calls and emails to the Unit from Prisons are answered and then dealt with swiftly.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the number of interpreters used in the court system in each of the last fives years; and what languages these interpreters were for.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice uses interpreting and translation services provided under contract.
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many sexual assaults of female prisoners by biologically male prisoners took place in HMP Downview in (a) 2016, (b) 2017, (c) 2018 and (d) 2019.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
There were no recorded sexual assaults of female prisoners by biologically male prisoners at HMP & YOI Downview, during the specified periods.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the current total amount of (a) compensation and (b) civil claim payments made to families of prisoners who have died in custody while serving a sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The information requested is not held centrally. Information relating to payments relating to civil claims following the death in custody of prisoners is not broken down by sentence-type.
It remains a priority for the Government that all those on IPP sentences receive the support they need to progress towards safe release from custody or, where they are being supervised on licence in the community, towards having their licence terminated altogether. Guidance has been provided to all prison staff and partner agencies to raise the importance of recognising the heightened level of risk of self-harm and suicide amongst IPP prisoners and an IPP Safety Toolkit has been developed, with a range of resources to promote learning and to help front-line staff support and engage those serving the IPP sentence effectively.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what decisions his Department has made on the (a) scope and (b) timeline of the review of transgender prisoner policy following the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
We are reviewing transgender prisoner policy following the For Women Scotland Supreme Court ruling. Alongside this, the Office for Equality and Opportunity is currently reviewing the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s draft updated Code of Practice on single sex spaces.
If the Code is approved, it will be laid before Parliament in due course. We are working closely with the Office for Equality and Opportunity on this, and will come forward with our updated policy on transgender prisoners once this process has concluded.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what criteria his Department uses to determine placement of transgender young people within the Children and Young People's Estate.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 4 November 2025 to Question 85613.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 16 September 2025 to Question 75606 on Community Development: English Language, what estimate he has made of the cost to his Department of providing English language support in (a) 2024-25 and (b) 2025-26.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice has a statutory duty to provide Language Services to enable access to justice for users for whom English is not their first language. Language Service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers while maintaining high standards of service delivery.
The services provided under the Ministry of Justice’s contracts include face-to-face, video, and telephone interpretation for spoken foreign languages, as well as written translation and transcription.
In financial year 2024/25, the Ministry of Justice spent £36,920,721 providing these services via contract.
To date, in financial year 2025/26, the Ministry of Justice spent £20,478,950 providing these services via contract. Expenditure to date is comparable with the same point as last financial year, so we anticipate that overall spend for 2025–26 will be broadly consistent with expenditure in the previous financial year.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure safe, transparent and non-discriminatory judicial use of artificial intelligence.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The judiciary are constitutionally independent and have established their own procedures and policies governing the use of artificial intelligence. Guidance for judicial office holders on the appropriate and responsible use of AI has been issued by the judiciary and is publicly available on the judiciary’s website.
Judicial office holders, like civil servants within the Ministry of Justice, have been provided with secure versions of Microsoft Copilot. The deployment of this tool for judicial use has been subject to a data protection impact assessment to ensure compliance with data protection legislation and principles.
The judiciary’s approach to AI is designed to ensure that any use of AI by judicial office holders is safe, transparent, and consistent with the principles of fairness and non-discrimination, while preserving judicial independence.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to amend the Civil Procedure Rules to make explicit that litigants-in-person are not to be denied procedural safeguards normally afforded to represented parties, including circulation of draft reserved judgments.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Civil court rules governing judgments and orders are set out in Part 40 of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) and are supplemented by Practice Directions (PD). PD40E provides additional directions in relation to reserved judgments before they are handed down. Paragraph 2.3 of PD40E states that the court will provide a copy of the draft judgment to the parties’ legal representatives, however, paragraph 2.4 goes on to state that a copy of the draft judgment may be supplied to the parties provided that they: 1) do not disclose it or its substance to anyone else; and 2) do not take any action in relation to the judgment until it is handed down. This, therefore, provides for litigants in person to be given an embargoed/draft judgment and to engage with the steps taken before such a judgment is handed down.
It is also important to recognise that Part 1 of the CPR sets out the overriding objective of the rules. These overriding objectives include ensuring that the parties are on an equal footing and can participate fully in proceedings. This is the principal safeguard under pinning how the rules operate in practice.