Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have (1) to recommend non-custodial sentences whenever possible for parents of multiple children, and (2) to maintain strong family links and relationships during prison sentences, in order to reduce re-offending.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
Sentencing is entirely a matter for our independent courts. The sentencing guidelines specify ‘sole or primary carer for dependent relatives’ as a factor reducing seriousness or reflecting personal mitigation. Courts must strike a balance between the legitimate aims to be served by custody and the effect that sentence has on the family life of others, especially children.
The Probation Service’s Pre-sentence Reports help the court in their sentencing decisions and consider the potential significant impact of imprisonment on any dependants (including unborn children).
There will, however, always be some cases where the seriousness of the offending is such that a custodial sentence is necessary. We want to provide the best rehabilitative regimes possible to help break the reoffending cycle as we know maintaining positive family relationships is an important factor in reducing reoffending.
We have worked to embed all 19 of the recommendations made by Lord Farmer in his 2017 review to strengthen family ties for male prisoners and have completed 25 out of 33 recommendations from his subsequent review focused on strengthening family ties for female offenders.
Our work includes requiring prisons to produce local strategies setting out how prisoners will have access to family contact; introducing a national families performance measure; and deploying secure video calling for families across the prison estate.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the sufficiency of the £24 million of new funding for Women’s Centres announced on 1 September in (a) preventing the closure of any of the existing 40 such Centres, and (b) enabling the opening of new Centres in areas where offending by women is most prevalent; and (2) the extent to which such funding can reduce the need to provide new prison spaces for women.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
On 1 September 2022, we announced new investment of up to £24 million in the period 2022 to 2025 to support women in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system: Millions invested to support female offenders - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This includes up to £12 million available to pay the core costs of women’s community sector organisations, reflecting historic demand in the sector for running costs and overheads, which are not always covered through wider local and national funding streams. Core costs funding will be allocated to the twelve probation regions in England and Wales in proportion to women’s community caseload in each region.
In addition, up to £8.4 million is available to invest in new services and interventions.
The continued existence and viability of the women’s community sector is vital to support the delivery of the main aims of the Government’s Female Offender Strategy, particularly fewer women entering the criminal justice system and fewer women in custody, especially on short-term sentences, and a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully.
New accommodation that is decent, safe and secure and supports the modernisation of the prison estate is under development to improve custodial conditions for women. Should these places not be required in future we have committed to using them to close down existing older, less suitable accommodation in the women’s estate.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to restore (1) education programmes, and (2) access to (a) training, and (b) the arts, for prisoners, where those have been restricted by (i) COVID-19, and (ii) staff shortages.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
Staff recruitment was suspended from March 2020 until August 2020 whilst we implemented Covid-19 secure practices in response to Government guidelines on social distancing and non-essential travel. While this created a gap in our pipeline of new officers, once the process restarted, we used initiatives such as the accelerated launch of 60+ recruitment campaigns and the use of targeted overtime and mutual aid across prisons, to ensure establishments facing the greatest challenges received the most support.
Although face-to-face teaching was temporarily suspended due to safety concerns at the start of the pandemic, education continued via remote learning. With the pandemic National Framework for Prison Regimes and Services having been lifted on 9 May 2022, we are now getting increasing numbers of learners back in the classroom and participating in activities, like the arts, that support rehabilitation where it is safe to do so.
As set out in the Prisons Strategy White Paper, published on 7 December 2021, we are committed to improving education in prisons and we are delivering a Prisoner Education Service within this Parliament to raise prisoners’ levels of numeracy, literacy, skills and qualifications with the aim of helping them secure jobs upon release and drive down reoffending. This work includes investment in digital infrastructure, more training that delivers the skills employers need, more education experts to support Governors and improved support for prisoners with additional learning needs.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by St Martin in the Fields, London Prisons Mission and Prison Reform Trust Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison, published in October 2020; and what steps they intend to take in response.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We welcome the findings from the Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison report. Our Prisons Strategy White Paper sets out our vision that no-one subject to probation supervision, including female offenders, is released from prison homeless.
To achieve this, HM Prison and Probation Service launched a new transitional accommodation service providing up to 12 weeks’ accommodation and support for those leaving prison at risk of homelessness. The service was initially launched last July in five probation areas in England. From 2024-5, we will invest £200m per year to transform our approach to rehabilitation. This includes expanding the transitional accommodation service across England and Wales to support the thousands of people who leave prison each year without accommodation and provide improved access to employment support through rolling out dedicated employment leads in all resettlement prisons, as announced in the Prison Strategy White Paper published in December 2021.
The transitional accommodation takes account of the needs of women, including those with complex needs, with accommodation provision dedicated to single gender usage as required.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether compensation has been paid to victims of (1) exploitation, and (2) abuse, following recent convictions connected with modern slavery; and if so, whether any such payments came from (a) the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, or (b) from assets seized.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We are unable to comment on individual cases.
The GB-wide Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (the Scheme) provides state-funded compensation to victims of violent crime who may be unable to access compensation from other routes. Payments are available for physical or psychological injuries resulting directly from a crime of violence. Compensation under the Scheme is not dependent on the conviction of the perpetrator, and is separate to any order made by the sentencing court.
Victims of modern slavery who have been conclusively identified as such (through the National Referral Mechanism) may be eligible for compensation under the Scheme regardless of residence status or nationality, subject to wider eligibility criteria. The crime committed must constitute a crime of violence as defined under Annex B of the Scheme. Victims are compensated for the injuries they have sustained rather than the nature of the incident (with the exception of sexual assault or abuse). The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority which operates the Scheme does not hold data on compensation awarded to victims of modern slavery.
The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 provides police forces and other enforcement agencies with the statutory framework to recover the proceeds of crime from criminals and those engaged in unlawful conduct. This includes powers which allow courts to confiscate the proceeds of crime following a criminal conviction. A court imposing a Confiscation Order can also order an offender to pay compensation to the victim of their crime. If the offender does not have the means to satisfy both a Confiscation Order and a Compensation Order, the court can order that the Compensation Order be paid from the sums recovered as part of the Confiscation Order.
Data is not held on compensation paid to victims from modern slavery related asset recoveries.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to issue sentencing guidelines to prevent harm to dependent children of those being sentenced, particularly mothers; and what plans they have to table amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill for that purpose.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
Sentencing guidelines are issued by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, which is independent of Parliament and Government. When sentencing, courts are required by law to follow any relevant guidelines, unless satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so.
Reflecting the principles established by the Court of Appeal in R v Petherick, the Council’s Imposition of Community and Custodial Sentences sentencing guideline is clear that, where an offender is on the cusp of custody, imprisonment should not be imposed where there would be an impact on dependants which would make a custodial sentence disproportionate to achieving the aims of sentencing. Even where the impact on dependants would not make a custodial sentence disproportionate, the Imposition guideline makes clear that the court should determine the shortest custodial sentence commensurate with the seriousness of the offence and also requires sentencers to consider whether a sentence can be suspended. The factors for sentencers to consider which might indicate circumstances in favour of suspending a custodial sentence include ‘realistic prospect of rehabilitation’, ‘strong personal mitigation’ and ‘where immediate custody will result in significant harmful impact upon others’.
Sentencing guidelines also specify that being a ‘sole or primary carer for dependent relatives’ is a mitigating factor, which can be taken into consideration by the courts when determining a sentence. In 2019, the Council issued an expanded explanation for this factor which clarifies that where custody is unavoidable, consideration of the impact on dependants may be relevant to the length of the sentence imposed and whether the sentence can be suspended. It also makes clear that when a court is sentencing an offender who is pregnant, relevant considerations may include the effect of the sentence on the health of the offender and the unborn child.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that all HM Prisons provide a weekly chapel service.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
Prison Service Instruction 05/2016, Faith and Pastoral Care for Prisoners, states that all prisoners may participate in the main religious observance of the week for the faith in which they are registered should they wish to - safety, security and other concerns permitting.
This requirement was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic because of infection prevention and control measures. Alternative arrangements were put in place, including making available in-cell faith resources and the use of technology. Chaplains continued to make themselves available to prisoners on a daily basis and chapels have remained open for individual worship and pastoral care throughout the pandemic.
Establishments are reintroducing weekly collective worship or meditation taking into account Covid safety measures and security considerations, as well as other factors, such as available staffing in multi-faith chaplaincy teams and the physical space available.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have (1) to improve awareness of restorative justice throughout the criminal justice system, and (2) to increase the capacity of (a) professional, and (b) volunteer, restorative justice practitioners.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
The Government continues to support the provision of good quality, victim-focussed restorative justice to help victims cope and recover from the effects of crime.
Under the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (Victims’ Code), all victims have the right to receive information about how to access restorative justice services in their local area.
The new Victims’ Code, which was published in November last year and came into force on 1 April this year, includes information which explains what restorative justice is and how it works. As part of the launch of the new Code, the Ministry of Justice engaged in publicity to raise awareness of the Code and victims’ rights therein. Criminal justice agencies also used internal communications to raise awareness of victims’ rights among practitioners.
The Ministry of Justice funds Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) to provide victim support services including commissioning restorative justice services to meet local need. Individual PCCs determine the capacity of restorative justice services required and the model of service appropriate for their area. PCCs are also able to utilise other funding streams outside of their MoJ grant for restorative justice.
In addition to the PCC commissioned schemes, the Government-funded national Homicide Service includes access to restorative justice services as part of the package of support it provides to families bereaved by homicide. Further restorative justice capacity is also made available in the youth justice system and by HM Prison and Probation Service.