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.