Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the annual cost to the public purse of maintaining disused court buildings; and how many disused court buildings are currently lying empty because they have not been sold.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The Court Estate Reform Programme (CERP) was introduced in 2010 to improve efficiency through the closure of poor quality and underused court buildings. The total cumulative gross benefits expected from CERP is an estimated £152m over the SR10 period. At the end of June 2014, approximately £140m had been realised through resource savings of approximately £98m and gross capital proceeds of £42m.
There are 32 closed courts currently not in use. Of these, 27 were closed between May 2010 and March 2013 as part of CERP and business as usual closures. The full year cost of maintaining these courts in 2013/14 was £942,162. A further five courts were closed since then. The cost of maintaining these courts since their closure to date has been £122,444. All closed courts are being prepared for or undergoing sale processes.
The cost of maintaining courts following closure includes costs on rent and rates, maintenance, labour costs on facilities management, fuel and utilities and other property costs. One court, Stourbridge County Court, was closed but is being used for administrative purposes.
The Department is committed to disposing of surplus property assets expeditiously and reducing holding costs. The sale of former courts is dependent on a number of factors e.g. market, potential future use, location and the fact that some are occupied in part by the police and local authorities which also make disposal difficult. We have improved efficiency through the closure of poor quality and underused court buildings.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many foreign nationals convicted for criminal offences have re-offended over the last five years.
Answered by Lord Faulks
Proven re-offending data currently produced by the Ministry of Justice does not include information on the nationality of all offenders. To extract this information would require the manual inspection of individual offender records, and linking releavnt offender details to the Police National Computer to assess their re-offending, which could be done at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support services are currently available to victims and survivors of Northern Ireland-related acts of terrorism in Great Britain.
Answered by Lord Faulks
Individual victims and survivors of Northern Ireland related acts of terrorism who are resident in England and Wales are able to apply for funding from the Victims and Survivors Service (VSS) in Northern Ireland. The VSS is the main funder of victims’ groups in Northern Ireland and provides a tailored package to meet the individual needs of victims and survivors including counselling, physiotherapy and the purchase of equipment such as wheelchairs.
Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own devolved arrangements for supporting victims of crime.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the average annual cost of incarcerating a prisoner in each year between 2011 and 2014.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The average cost per prisoner has been reducing year-on-year since 2009-10. Between 2009-10 and 2013-14 there has been a real terms reduction of 17% in the overall average cost per prisoner.
The Department routinely publishes average costs per prisoner and prison place, based on actual net resource expenditure for each private and public sector prison and in summary form for the whole of the prison estate in England and Wales on an annual basis after the end of each financial year. This includes a breakdown of these costs by prison category and individual prison within each category.
The latest published information for the average cost of a prison place and average cost of a prisoner for financial year 2013-14, together with other information on the calculation of prison unit costs is published alongside the Management Information Addendum to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) Annual Report & Accounts. This can be accessed using the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201314
A copy of this and similar information for previous financial years can also be found in the House library.
Continuing to reduce prison unit costs is one of the key targets for the Department and we are committed to delivering prison changes designed to modernise the prison estate and further reduce prison costs.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prison transfer applications from Great Britain to Northern Ireland have been (1) sent, (2) approved, and (3) rejected, in the past 12 months.
Answered by Lord Faulks
From 1 October 2013 to the 30 September 2014 the National Offender Management Service referred a total of eight applications to the Northern Ireland Prison Service from prisoners seeking to transfer from a prison in England and Wales to one in Northern Ireland to continue serving a sentence of imprisonment or to facilitate a period of temporary visits with close family.
Of the 8 applications, two were approved and the prisoners were transferred, one application was refused, one prisoner withdrew their application and four applications remain under consideration.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been the total annual cost of imprisoning foreign national offenders in United Kingdom prisons in each of the last four calendar years.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) does not calculate separately the annual cost of imprisoning foreign nationals in England and Wales. NOMS does not analyse cost by prisoner nationality, as costs recorded on the NOMS central accounting system do not allow identification of costs attributable to holding individual prisoners.
All prison costs for Scotland and Northern Ireland are a devolved matter and the responsibility of the relevant Minister.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps are being taken to ensure that there are sufficient prison places to accommodate people who receive custodial sentences.
Answered by Lord Faulks
Prison numbers fluctuate throughout the year and we have sufficient accommodation for the current and expected population. Sensible measures have been taken to ensure that we will have sufficient capacity to deal with the projected level of the population. These measures include identifying additional places if required in prisons that can provide safe and decent conditions. This is a proportionate measure to ensure that we are able to hold all of those committed to custody by the courts.
We are planning to open an additional 2,000 places over the next nine months. We will have more adult male prison places at the end of this Parliament than we inherited. In the next Parliament, we will open a new prison in Wrexham, providing a further 2,000 places.