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Written Question
Administration of Justice: Females
Wednesday 3rd April 2019

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure the adequacy of funding for a national network of support services for women in the criminal justice system.

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

The Female Offender Strategy sets out our vision of fewer women entering the justice system and serving short custodial sentences, and better conditions for those women in custody. Support for women to help them address the often complex needs that underlie their offending is essential to delivering the vision of the female offender strategy. This is why, across government, we are investing £5 million of funding over two years in community provision for women. This funding will help to sustain and enhance existing services, and will create new services where there is currently a gap.

Services such as women’s centres receive funding from a range of sources. We will look at the scope to increase the sustainability of the sector as we take forward implementation of our strategy.


Written Question
Probate: Charitable Donations
Monday 11th March 2019

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of increased probate fees on levels of charitable giving.

Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Fixed sum charitable donations will be unaffected by the increased probate fees; the changes will only affect those estates where the deceased has left an entire estate, or a percentage of their residuary estate to charity. No estate will ever pay more than 0.5% of its value in probate fees.


Written Question
Probate: Fees and Charges
Monday 25th February 2019

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reasons the proposed reforms to probate fees were not brought to the House in the form of primary legislation.

Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The proposed changes to probate fees do not require primary legislation, as the power to introduce these changes is provided under section 92 of the Courts Act 2003 and section 180 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. These powers expressly enable the Lord Chancellor to charge fees for anything dealt with by the courts, including the Probate Service, and at a level that exceeds the cost of that for which the fee is charged.

These powers are exercisable by the Lord Chancellor by way of secondary legislation in the form of a statutory instrument, subject to the affirmative procedure. Any income raised must be spent on funding an efficient and effective courts and tribunal service.

Our plans to raise the threshold from £5,000 to £50,000 will lift around 25,000 additional estates annually out of paying fees altogether and more than half of estates in England and Wales will pay no probate fee at all. Of those who do pay, around 60% will pay £250 – close to the current fee level – and around 80% of estates will pay £750 or less. No one will pay more than 0.5% of the total estate value and all fees are recoverable from the estate.

Any income raised must be spent on funding an efficient and effective courts and tribunal service. This allows the Government to subsidise other parts of the system that do not recover their costs in fees, including domestic violence proceedings in the family court and tribunal cases before the First-tier Tribunal concerning mental health.


Written Question
Probate: Fees and Charges
Monday 25th February 2019

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people in England and Wales in each household income band will pay (a) more or (b) less under the Government's proposed reforms to probate fees.

Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The proposed probate fees do not relate to household income, but to the value of the estate passing under the grant of representation. Therefore, no assessment has been made relating to household income.

Our plans to raise the threshold from £5,000 to £50,000 will lift around 25,000 additional estates annually out of paying fees altogether and more than half of estates in England and Wales will pay no probate fee at all. Of those who do pay, around 60% will pay £250 – close to the current fee level – and around 80% of estates will pay £750 or less. No one will pay more than 0.5% of the total estate value and all fees are recoverable from the estate.

Any income raised must be spent on funding an efficient and effective courts and tribunal service. This allows the Government to subsidise other parts of the system that do not recover their costs in fees, including domestic violence proceedings in the family court and tribunal cases before the First-tier Tribunal concerning mental health.


Written Question
Ministry of Justice: Disability
Tuesday 29th January 2019

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of staff in his Department including those employed in executive agencies and non-ministerial Departments declared a disability in 2017-18.

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

As at 31st March 2018, 9% of MoJ Staff were declared disabled. This is calculated as the number of staff who have declared themselves as disabled divided by all those who made a declaration (excluding those who answered Prefer Not to Say and those whose status is not known). This includes MoJ HQ, LAA, CICA, OPG, HMCTS and HMPPS. This information will be included in the Workforce Monitoring Report which is due to be published on 31 January.


Written Question
Ministry of Justice: Cleaning Services
Monday 28th January 2019

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which service providers are contracted to carry out third party cleaning contracts for his (a) Department and (b) executive agencies; if he will list all of the services delivered by third party contractors to his (i) Department and (ii) executive agencies; and how many people working for those third party contractors are paid less than the Living Wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation.y the Living Wage Foundation.

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

Cleaning services in the MoJ are typically undertaken by outsourced providers as part of large Facilities Management (FM) service contracts. Providers to the MoJ HQ and probation estate are OCS and Sodexo, to the court and tribunal estate are G4S and Mitie, and to the prison estate Amey, Gov Facilities Services Ltd (GFSL) and Mitie. Rates of pay for cleaners are determined by their respective employers and not held by the Ministry of Justice. All outsourced providers are required to pay as a minimum, either the National Minimum Wage or the National Living Wage.

A list of all services delivered by third party contractors to the Department is not held in a centralised location, the information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Prostitution: Prosecutions
Monday 10th December 2018

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were prosecuted under section 51A (soliciting) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 in each year between 1988 and 2018.

Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The number of people prosecuted under section 51A of the Sexual Offences Axes 2003 for the years 2010 to 2017 can be viewed in the table.

Data is provided from 2010 onwards as section 51A was inserted into the Sexual Offences Act 2003 by the Policing and Crime Act 2009 and as such did not come into effect until 1 April 2010. Therefore, 2010 is the earliest year for which data is available.

National Statistics on court outcomes for 2018 are planned for publication in May 2019.

This data relates to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When an offender has been dealt with for two or more offences at the same time the principal offence is the more serious offence.


Written Question
Begging and Vagrancy: Prosecutions
Monday 3rd December 2018

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were prosecuted under section 1 of the Vagrancy Act 1898 between 1970 and 2018.

Answered by Rory Stewart

It is not possible to identify from centrally held data the number of defendants prosecuted under section 1 of the Vagrancy Act 1898, as there is no data available under this specific Act. The Act was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003.


Written Question
Ministry of Justice: Living Wage
Wednesday 25th April 2018

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) direct employees, (b) agency staff and (c) outsourced staff working for (i) his Department and (ii) agencies of his Department are paid less than the living wage, as defined by the Living Wage Foundation.

Answered by Phillip Lee

In line with the Government’s commitment given in the budget, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will continue to ensure staff are paid at or above the statutory National Living Wage which is currently £7.83 per hour.

As of 31 December 2017, 8.7% of employees within the Ministry of Justice and its agencies excluding Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) on which there is reliable data were paid below the ‘Real’ Living Wage (RLW) as defined by the Living Wage Foundation.”

As of 31 December 2017, 1.1% of direct employees in HMPPS were paid below the RLW.

As of April 2018, 24.6% of agency and outsourced staff within the Ministry of Justice are paid less than the RLW.


Written Question
Public Health Funerals
Monday 19th March 2018

Asked by: Lord Field of Birkenhead (Crossbench - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing (a) national minimum standards and (b) eligibility criteria to the administration of public health funerals.

Answered by Phillip Lee

The Government has not made such an assessment.