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: 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: 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 require public authority respondents in Judicial Review hearings to confirm compliance with the duty of candour at Permission Stage.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The duty of candour is a well-established principle in judicial review, and its application is clearly set out in the Administrative Court’s Judicial Review Guide.
The duty of candour applies at all stages of judicial review proceedings. This duty requires all parties to ensure that relevant information is put before the Court, whether it supports or undermines their case. There is a particular obligation on public authorities to ensure that this duty is fulfilled given they are engaged in a common enterprise with the Court to fulfil the public interest in upholding the rule of law.
At the permission stage, public authorities are required to identify any material facts, highlight any matters of factual dispute and provide a summary of the reasoning underlying the measures in question. The Court can take into account a lack of candour in deciding whether to grant permission.
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: 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: 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 make it a statutory duty for judges to comply with guidance in the Equal Treatment Bench Book.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In line with the principle of judicial independence, it is the senior judiciary and not the Government who have statutory responsibility for judicial guidance and training.
It would therefore not be constitutionally appropriate for the Government to seek to prescribe how this responsibility should be discharged.