Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions there have been under the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015, and how many convictions secured.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions and convictions for offences under the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015, in England and Wales, up to December 2019, available in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool, which can be found here:
In the data tool linked above, use the ‘Offence code’ filter to select the following offence code:
Number of prosecutions will populate Row 31; number of convictions will populate Row 32.
Please note that this offence code includes offences under both Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015 and Microchipping of Dogs (Wales) Regulations 2015. In order to identify defendants dealt with in England, specifically, use the ‘Police Force Area’ filter to select all options excluding those in Wales (i.e. Gwent, North Wales, South Wales and Dyfed-Powys).
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many fines have been issued for offences under covid-19 legislation; and how many of those fines have been paid.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
National statistics on detailed offence level fines at court, including those relating to COVID-19 for the calendar year of 2020 are due for publication in May 2021.
The NPCC publishes statistics on the number of Coronavirus Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued by police. The latest can be found here: https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/update-on-coronavirus-fpns-issued-by-police-march-2021
Neither court nor NPCC data contains information about whether a fine has been paid.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
What recent estimate he has made of the number of cases scheduled to commence in 2022.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
We have not made any forecast listings for the Judiciary. We expect almost 100% of Magistrate Courts cases are to be heard this year and over half of Crown Court custody cases to be heard in 6 months.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many fines were (a) imposed by the courts and (b) paid in 2019.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Data on the number of fines issued at all courts (on a principal offence basis) is published in the Outcomes by Offence data tool available here. It shows that a total of 926,993 fines were issued by all courts in 2019: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/938568/outcomes-by-offence-tool-2019.xlsx
Data on the value of fines issued in 2019, the amount paid relating to the fines issued in 2019 and the amount paid that relates to fines issued in prior years, can be viewed in this table:
Value of impositions made in the period Jan to Dec 2019 | Collections received in 2019 relating to impositions made in the period Jan to Dec 2019 | Collections received in 2019 relating to impositions made prior to December 2018 | |
£000 | £000 | £000 | |
Compensation | 29,224 | 8,236 | 19,046 |
Victim Surcharge | 45,216 | 19,316 | 14,030 |
Crown Prosecution Costs | 29,281 | 11,362 | 17,364 |
Prosecutor Costs | 95,663 | 34,010 | 41,536 |
Fines | 327,004 | 102,503 | 136,345 |
Total | 526,388 | 175,427 | 228,321 |
Notes:
The data provided is all for the 2019 calendar year.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of re-opening recently closed Courts in order to help tackle the backlog in cases arising from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
On 19 July, HM Courts & Tribunals Service announced ten Nightingale court locations to provide additional capacity for the courts and tribunals estate on a temporary basis. We assessed the merits of using unsold former court buildings as Nightingale courts and are using the former Fleetwood Magistrates’ Court and former Telford County Court buildings for this purpose.
HMCTS has published an update on their response to covid-19 in the criminal courts in England and Wales (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/court-and-tribunal-recovery-update-in-response-to-coronavirus). This includes details on the use of Nightingale courts and our plans to open additional locations. We will continue to consider former court buildings as we work to increase our capacity.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of applications for probate were processed within his Department's target for processing those applications.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
There are no prescribed target times for dealing with probate applications. The average time for a grant of probate to be issued following receipt of an application for January to March 2020 is set out below
|
|
| Application submission to grant issue6 |
| Document receipt to grant issue4,6 | ||
Year | Quarter | Grants issued | Mean weeks | Median weeks |
| Mean weeks | Median weeks |
2020 | Q1 | 49,712 | 6.7 | 4.3 |
| 6.5 | 4.1 |
Source: HMCTS Core Case Data
Notes:
1) HMCTS Core Case Data came into effect at the end of March 2019, following a transition between data systems recording information regarding The Probate Service
2) The average timeliness figures are produced by calculating the time from application/document receipt (which may be from an earlier period) to the grant issued made in that period.
3) Averages presented here may be based on a small number of grants. Where this occurs, any conclusion drawn from these will be limited.
4) Document receipt occurs after payment has been made and all accompanying paperwork has been received by HMCTS
5) Due to quality issues in the transition between data systems, the breakdown by type of grant has not been published for Q2 2019 (denoted by :).
6) For digital applications the receipt is instant but no work can start until the Will is sent to us. Therefore, for digital cases the measure of waiting times is from document receipt rather than the application submission.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the Government's timescale is for allowing tribunals to sit as the covid-19 lockdown restrictions are eased.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Tribunals have continued to sit during the covid-19 lockdown restrictions by making use of online and remote technology to hear cases and ensure continued access to justice for users. Face to face hearings are now starting to resume where it is safe to do so in line with comprehensive and ongoing risk assessments.
Having responded effectively to the immediate crisis, HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is now fully focused on recovering its operations to increase courts and tribunals capacity to deal both with normal workloads across jurisdictions and outstanding cases. HMCTS has recently published a progress update on its recovery plans.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/896779/HMCTS368_recovery_-_COVID-19-_Overview_of_HMCTS_response_A4L_v3.pdf