Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for the transfer of offenders to mental health hospitals under sections 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Answered by Edward Argar
We are determined to improve the process of transfer from prison to hospital under the Mental Health Act to ensure delays are reduced. We take the mental health of prisoners extremely seriously, which is why we have increased the support available to vulnerable offenders, especially during the first 24 hours in custody. We are updating the mental health training for prison officers and so far over 24,000 new and existing prison staff have completed at least one module of the revised suicide and self-harm prevention training. HMPPS is working with NHS England and Public Health England to improve and redesign services for people in prison with mental health needs. This includes revising approaches to secure hospital transfers under section 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act when a person needs to be in a hospital setting for their mental health assessment and treatment. HMPPS and NHS England have worked together to collect new evidence and have increased understanding of where transfers work well and how delays arise, identifying areas for improvement. NHS England are currently consulting on an updated version of DHSC’s good practice guidance on transfers and remissions, which will inform our approach. In addition, the independent review of the Mental Health Act, published in December 2018, made recommendations in relation to patients in the criminal justice system, which require detailed consideration in the context of transfers from prison to hospital and we will respond to these in due course. Officials in the Mental Health Casework Section (MHCS) in HMPPS issue transfer warrants on behalf of the Secretary of State. MHCS has an internal target to produce a transfer warrant within 24 hours of receipt of all necessary information. In the vast majority of cases (96%), transfer warrants are issued within 24 hours of MHCS receiving all necessary information. By holding partners to account where information is missing, MHCS has recently reduced the average time from initial notification to the issue of a warrant from 14 calendar days to 3 calendar days. |
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people given a sentence of six months or less, have previously served (a) 19 short sentences of six months or less, (b) 20 short sentences of six months or less, (c) 50 short sentences of six months or less and (d) 100 short sentences of 6 months or less between 31 October 2017 and 1 September 2018.
Answered by Robert Buckland
For those offenders sentenced to an immediate custodial sentence of six months or less between 31st October 2017 and 1st September 2018:
a) 246 had 19 previous immediate custodial sentences of six months or less,
b) 223 had 20 previous immediate custodial sentences of six months or less,
c) 12 had 50 previous immediate custodial sentences of six months or less, and
d) 0 had 100 previous immediate custodial sentences of six months or less.
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department made of any potential conflicts of interest arising from his chairmanship of Post Office Limited.prior to the appointment of Tim Parker as Chairman of the Board of HM Courts & Tribunals Service.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Tim Parker was appointed Chairman of the HMCTS Board in April 2018 following an open and transparent recruitment process. As required under the terms of the HMCTS Framework Document, Tim’s appointment was made by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals, following the unanimous recommendation made by the recruitment panel. All of those involved in the appointment were aware of the fact that Mr. Parker is also Chairman of the Board of Post Office Limited, which they concluded did not present any conflict. HMCTS manages the administration of courts and tribunals; it has no influence on the outcome of hearings, which are decisions entirely for the independent judiciary.
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people since 2016, who have been given a sentence of six months or less, have previously served (a) 20 short sentences of six months or less, (b) 50 short sentences six months or less and (c) 100 short sentences of 6 months or less.
Answered by Rory Stewart
For those offenders sentenced to an immediate custodial sentence of six months or less between 1st January 2017 and 30th September 2018, 339 offenders had 20 previous custodial sentences of six months or less, 20 offenders had 50 previous custodial sentences of six months or less and 1 offender had 100 previous custodial sentences of six months or less.
There is a strong case to abolish sentences of six months or less, with some exceptions. We are exploring options to restrict the use of short custodial sentences, but we have not at this stage reached any conclusions.
There is persuasive evidence showing community sentences, in certain circumstances, are more effective than short custodial sentences in reducing reoffending. The MoJ study ‘The impact of short custodial sentences, community orders and suspended sentence orders on re-offending’ published in 2015 involved around 350,000 sentencing occasions over 4 years and used 130 different variables to construct matched groups of offenders and examine the effect of short sentences relative to community sentences. This study found a reduction of around 3 percentage points in proven reoffences if offenders receiving sentences of less than 12 months were to get a community order instead. This is statistically significant and equates to around 30,000 proven reoffences in total over a one-year period. This means fewer victims of crime.
Unless we tackle the underlying causes of offending, we cannot protect the public from being victims of crime. Effective community orders can address offenders’ behaviour, answer their mental health and alcohol or drug misuse needs, and provide reparation for the benefit of the wider community.
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of (a) male and (b) female prisoners released from HMP Durham were released into homelessness in each month since April 2016.
Answered by Edward Argar
This information requested is shown in the attached table.
Our reforms to probation are designed to encourage long-term rehabilitation and ultimately reduce reoffending – and the first step in this is ensuring that everyone leaving prison has access to secure and stable accommodation. We are improving support for offenders leaving prison with a £22 million investment in through-the-gate services which will help to strengthen ties with key partners, including the third sector, local authorities and the police.
At the same time we are investing £6m as part of the Government’s Rough Sleeping Strategy in pilot schemes bringing together prisons, local authorities, probation providers and others to plan, secure and sustain accommodation for offenders on their release.
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people under post-prison supervision as part of a 6 months sentence or less were referred to a mental health service between October 2017- September 2018 as a (a) raw number and (b) percentage of total release broken down by CRC.
Answered by Edward Argar
The mechanism by which those sentenced to a community order will access mental health treatment is through a treatment requirement. The table below shows the number of Mental Health Treatment Requirements (MHTRs) commenced under community orders and suspended sentence orders in England and Wales in 2016 and 2017. Data for 2018 will be available later this month. We are unable to provide a breakdown by CRC area.
Year Number of MHTRs commenced
2016 669 (less than 1% of all requirements commenced under community orders and suspended sentence orders in 2016)
2017 538 (less than 1% of all requirements commenced under community orders and suspended sentence orders in 2017)
There is no available published data for offenders released on licence. Other means of referrals into mental health treatment and/or services include GPs and Prison Healthcare providers however data for people released from short sentences is not recorded.
We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and Public Health England on a protocol to support the greater use of community sentences with treatment requirements in courts, including MHTRs. The Community Sentence Treatment Requirement (CSTR) protocol sets out what is expected from all relevant agencies to ensure improved access to treatment for offenders who need it. It focuses on reducing reoffending by addressing the health needs of offenders that may be contributing to their offending behaviour.
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving community sentences were referred to a mental health service between October 2017 - September 2018 asa (a) raw number and (b) percentage of total release broken down by CRC.
Answered by Edward Argar
The mechanism by which those sentenced to a community order will access mental health treatment is through a treatment requirement. The table below shows the number of Mental Health Treatment Requirements (MHTRs) commenced under community orders and suspended sentence orders in England and Wales in 2016 and 2017. Data for 2018 will be available later this month. We are unable to provide a breakdown by CRC area.
Year Number of MHTRs commenced
2016 669 (less than 1% of all requirements commenced under community orders and suspended sentence orders in 2016)
2017 538 (less than 1% of all requirements commenced under community orders and suspended sentence orders in 2017)
There is no available published data for offenders released on licence. Other means of referrals into mental health treatment and/or services include GPs and Prison Healthcare providers however data for people released from short sentences is not recorded.
We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and Public Health England on a protocol to support the greater use of community sentences with treatment requirements in courts, including MHTRs. The Community Sentence Treatment Requirement (CSTR) protocol sets out what is expected from all relevant agencies to ensure improved access to treatment for offenders who need it. It focuses on reducing reoffending by addressing the health needs of offenders that may be contributing to their offending behaviour.
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) women and (b) men serving short prison sentences of under six months have been in care.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Prison NOMIS system records 3,087 currently serving prisoners who are care leavers, 2,790 of these are men, 296 are women, and one did not specify a gender. This alert field is not mandatory, and has only been available since 2014, so we cannot be certain it captures all those in custody who have been in care.
Total weekly prison population figures can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures-2019
We cannot at this time calculate which of these prisoners were sentenced to less than six months’ imprisonment because of the way the prison case management system (NOMIS) takes account of recall.
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Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving prison sentences have previously been in care as (a) a raw number and (b) a proportion of total population with the data shown separately for (i) women and (ii) men.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Prison NOMIS system records 3,087 currently serving prisoners who are care leavers, 2,790 of these are men, 296 are women, and one did not specify a gender. This alert field is not mandatory, and has only been available since 2014, so we cannot be certain it captures all those in custody who have been in care.
Total weekly prison population figures can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures-2019
We cannot at this time calculate which of these prisoners were sentenced to less than six months’ imprisonment because of the way the prison case management system (NOMIS) takes account of recall.
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Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for benefit tribunals.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
It is important that appeals are heard as quickly as possible. The Ministry of Justice recognises that there are delays in the system and is in the process of recruiting more judicial office holders in order to increase capacity and help to reduce waiting times for appellants. In the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) jurisdiction, 225 new medical members have already been appointed and 119 disability-qualified members have recently been recruited. The SSCS jurisdiction will also benefit from the fact that 250 fee-paid judges and 100 salaried judges are being recruited across tribunals more widely. In addition, we have recently launched a new digital service with a view to enabling speedier processing of appeals and provide a better service for all parties to the proceedings. Information on the new digital service can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/appeal-benefit-decision/submit-appeal