Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people applied for compensation under the pleural plaques compensation scheme in each parliamentary constituency; and what proportion of those people settled (a) in part and (b) in full.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The pleural plaques compensation scheme ran between 2 August 2010 and 1 August 2011 and was administered by the Ministry of Justice. A total of 9511 applications were made to the scheme, of which 9018 were successful. Applications were not recorded by parliamentary constituency.
The scheme operated as an extra-statutory scheme, making £5000 payments on an ex-gratia basis to applicants who fulfilled the scheme’s criteria, namely that they were individuals who had begun, but not resolved, a legal claim for compensation for pleural plaques at the time of the House of Lords ruling in October 2007 in the case of Rothwell v Chemical & Insulating Co Ltd [2007] UKHL 39. That ruling had held that the occurrence of pleural plaques is not a compensatable disease.
Eligibility for the scheme was limited to that category of people as they would have had an understandable expectation of receiving compensation when they began their claim, an expectation which would not have been shared by those diagnosed later.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national prisoners there are in UK prisons from each of the 10 countries with the largest number of nationals in UK prisons.
Answered by Andrew Selous
Foreign national offenders who have no right to remain in the UK should be removed at the earliest opportunity and the Government has toughened the system, including by pursuing compulsory transfer agreements with European countries.
23,000 foreign offenders have been removed from the UK since 2010 and more than 600 under the 'deport first, appeal later' provisions, with many more being processed through the system. The grounds on which criminals can appeal against deportation have been cut.
Data on the number of foreign national prisoners in prisons in England and Wales is published in the Ministry of Justice’s quarterly population tables, which can be accessed via the following web link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2014
Table 1.8 of the document entitled Prison population: 31 December 2013 to 31 December 2014 gives a breakdown of the England and Wales population as of 31 December 2014 by country of nationality.
The Ministry of Justice is unable to provide data on the number of foreign nationals held in prisons in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much his Department spent on iPhones in each year since 2010.
Answered by Simon Hughes
The Department, along with every other government department, is reviewing the needs of its staff to work effectively, and is seeking the delivery of solutions to meet these needs, including flexible IT. The provision of iPhones on a trial basis to selected staff is one element of this work.
Please see below departmental spend on iPhones each year since 2010.
Financial year | Spend* |
2010/11 | Nil |
2011/12 | £732 |
2012/13 | £962 |
2013/14 | £6,639 |
2014/15 | £11,404.84 |
* Spend data relates to invoiced spend up to 3rd September 2014 and is inclusive of both hardware and voice / data costs.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions his Department has made appointments by exception since 2010; and who was appointed for each such post.
Answered by Mike Penning
Information for number of appointments by exception in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is set out in the table below.
Recruitment Exceptions | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 |
MoJ | 235 | 75 | 85 |
NOMS | 4 | 5 | 185 |
Total | 239 | 80 | 270 |
Information for 2010/2011 is not available as this data was not collated centrally.
In line with the Data Protection Act, we are also unable to provide details of who was appointed to each post.
The Recruitment Principles explain the legal requirement that selection for appointment to the Civil Service must be on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. They also set out the circumstances in which appointments can be made as exceptions to this requirement; and describe the responsibilities of departments and agencies in meeting this requirement.
The Recruitment Principles 2014 came into operation on Monday 21 April 2014. The Recruitment Principles 2012 apply to appointments made before then.
The data provided refers to the Recruitment Principles 2012 which can be accessed at the following link: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Recruitment-Principles-April-2012.pdf
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Freedom of Information requests his Department has declined to answer in full since 2010.
Answered by Simon Hughes
The Ministry of Justice publishes quarterly and annual statistical reports on the handling of requests for information made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The reports, which date back to 2010, include statistics on the number of resolvable requests (requests where it would have been possible to provide a substantive response) where the information was withheld in full. These reports can be accessed via the following webpage:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/statistics/foi/implementation.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions his Department has had requests for appointments by exception to the Senior Civil Service turned down by the Civil Service Commission since 2010; and who was appointed for each such post.
Answered by Simon Hughes
I refer the honourable member to the answer provided by my Right Honourable friend, the Minister for Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, on 10th November 2014.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much his Department has spent on legal fees over prevention of release of information requested by Freedom of Information requests since 2010.
Answered by Simon Hughes
This information is not held centrally. To obtain this information each Ministry of Justice business area would need to review every Freedom of Information request it had handled since 2010 to establish if any legal fees had been paid and, if they had, if any of those fees related to cases where the information had been withheld. Therefore, it would only be possible to provide this information at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Instant Rewards of what value were given to his Department's officials in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Simon Hughes
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) rewards individuals for exceptional contributions which further the aims and objectives of the department or meet an exceptional shorter-term operational challenge. The MoJ currently offers two types of reward and recognition: cash awards and voucher awards. Cash awards are payments of non-consolidated performance pay for amounts of up to £100 for a once-off contribution or payments of £100 - £500 for sustained outstanding contribution. Voucher awards are vouchers up to the value of £50 to recognise outstanding once-off contributions, or contributions which a benchmarking panel considers deserve recognition but do not warrant a higher payment. For the financial year April 2013 to March 2014 4,555 cash awards were made, the total value of which was £968,751. 21,898 vouchers were awarded, the total value of which was £639,260. Information on reward and recognition is collated on an annual basis so the data for March 2014 to date is not currently available. Like other organisations, we use a full range of pay and reward mechanisms which will reward exceptional performance from our staff both in year and for a sustained level of performance over the year. Both ensure responsible use of public money. Since 2010 we have reduced our spend on instant rewards by almost 30%, with significant saving for the taxpayer.Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on what occasions each Minister within his Department has taken domestic flights on official business since May 2010.
Answered by Simon Hughes
The table below details domestic flights taken on official business booked through the Department’s business travel contracts for each Minister within the Department since May 2010. The Crown Dependencies (Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey and the Isle of Man) although not part of the United Kingdom, fall with the Common Travel Area and as such are treated as domestic flights.
Name | Itinerary | Date of Travel |
Chris Grayling | London Gatwick - Aberdeen | 10/09/2012 |
Chris Grayling | Aberdeen - London Heathrow | 10/09/2012 |
Chris Grayling | London Gatwick - Belfast City | 06/02/2013 |
Chris Grayling | Belfast City - London Gatwick | 06/02/2013 |
Chris Grayling | London Gatwick - Guernsey | 23/09/2013 |
Chris Grayling | Guernsey - Jersey | 23/09/2013 |
Chris Grayling | Jersey - London Gatwick | 24/09/2013 |
Chris Grayling | London Gatwick - Isle Of Man | 07/07/2014 |
Chris Grayling | Isle Of Man - Manchester | 08/07/2014 |
Chris Grayling | London Gatwick - Belfast Intl | 05/09/2014 |
Chris Grayling | Belfast City - London Gatwick | 05/09/2014 |
Shailesh Vara | London Gatwick - Belfast City, Belfast City - London Gatwick | 20/05/2014 |
Lord Edward Faulks | London City - Isle Of Man, Isle Of Man - London City | 04/04/2014 |
Lord Edward Faulks | London Gatwick - Guernsey | 19/06/2014 |
Lord Edward Faulks | Guernsey - London Gatwick | 21/06/2014 |
Lord Edward Faulks | London Gatwick - Jersey, | 04/08/2014 |
Lord Edward Faulks | Jersey - London Gatwick | 05/08/2014 |
Jeremy Wright | Exeter - Manchester, Manchester - Exeter | 02/10/2013 |
Lord Tom McNally | London Gatwick - Guersney, Guersney - London Gatwick | 08/06/2012 |
Lord Tom McNally | London Gatwick - Jersey, Jersey - London Gatwick | 26/07/2012 |
Lord Tom McNally | London Gatwick - Isle Of Man | 15/11/2012 |
Lord Tom McNally | Isle Of Man - Blackpool | 16/11/2012 |
Lord Tom McNally | London Gatwick - Guernsey, Guernsey - London Gatwick | 16/04/2013 |
Lord Tom McNally | London Gatwick - Jersey, Jersey - London Gatwick | 14/11/2013 |
Simon Hughes | London City - Glasgow | 11/08/2014 |
Asked by: Lord Walney (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many senior civil servants appointed to positions in his Department since 2010 were previously (a) political appointees within that Department and (b) employed by a political party.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
We are unable to provide the number of civil servants appointed to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) who were previously (a) political appointees and (b) employed by a political party. As this information is not held centrally, to collate this information as a whole would incur disproportionate costs.