Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people who received a court fine in England and Wales were in receipt of Housing Benefit at the time of being fined for (1) 2016, (2) 2017, (3) 2018, (4) 2019, and (5) 2020.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We do not centrally hold data on offender income and financial circumstances, and the data requested for each question cannot be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Fines are means-tested. The value of a fine must reflect the seriousness of the offence and, when setting a fine, the court must take into account the financial circumstances of the offender, insofar as these can be assessed.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people who received a court fine in England and Wales were in receipt of Child Tax Credit at the time of being fined for (1) 2016, (2) 2017, (3) 2018, (4) 2019, and (5) 2020.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We do not centrally hold data on offender income and financial circumstances, and the data requested for each question cannot be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Fines are means-tested. The value of a fine must reflect the seriousness of the offence and, when setting a fine, the court must take into account the financial circumstances of the offender, insofar as these can be assessed.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people who received a court fine in England and Wales were in receipt of Income-related Employment and Support Allowance at the time of being fined for (1) 2016, (2) 2017, (3) 2018, (4) 2019, and (5) 2020.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We do not centrally hold data on offender income and financial circumstances, and the data requested for each question cannot be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Fines are means-tested. The value of a fine must reflect the seriousness of the offence and, when setting a fine, the court must take into account the financial circumstances of the offender, insofar as these can be assessed.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people who received a court fine in England and Wales were in receipt of Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance at the time of being fined for (1) 2016, (2) 2017, (3) 2018, (4) 2019, and (5) 2020.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We do not centrally hold data on offender income and financial circumstances, and the data requested for each question cannot be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Fines are means-tested. The value of a fine must reflect the seriousness of the offence and, when setting a fine, the court must take into account the financial circumstances of the offender, insofar as these can be assessed.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people who received a court fine in England and Wales were in receipt of Universal Credit at the time of being fined for (1) 2016, (2) 2017, (3) 2018, (4) 2019, and (5) 2020.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We do not centrally hold data on offender income and financial circumstances, and the data requested for each question cannot be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Fines are means-tested. The value of a fine must reflect the seriousness of the offence and, when setting a fine, the court must take into account the financial circumstances of the offender, insofar as these can be assessed.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people who received a court fine in England and Wales were unemployed at the time of being fined for (1) 2016, (2) 2017, (3) 2018, (4) 2019, and (5) 2020.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
We do not centrally hold data on offender income and financial circumstances, and the data requested for each question cannot be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Fines are means-tested. The value of a fine must reflect the seriousness of the offence and, when setting a fine, the court must take into account the financial circumstances of the offender, insofar as these can be assessed.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they have spent to date on (1) the design, (2) the build, and (3) the roll-out, of the Cloud Video Platform for criminal hearings; and of this sum, how much was spent on independent management and technical consultants.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Cloud Video Platform (CVP) was not developed by the Ministry of Justice, it is a service that has been procured for use by the department, initially for non-criminal cases. Any design and build costs associated with the development of this service would be to the supplier.
CVP was piloted outside of criminal jurisdiction and has only been rolled out for use in this setting due to requirements due to Covid-19. The service is currently being used across the court and prison estate.
Any costs associated with the rolling out and maintaining the CVP due to Covid-19 currently reflects its use in all settings rather than just criminal hearings. It would take a significant amount of time (and incur a disproportionate cost) to break down all costs specifically on a case by case basis to identify a specific figure for just criminal hearings.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) magistrates' courts, (2) crown courts, (3) civil courts and (4) family courts were using the Cloud Video Platform as of 1 October 2020.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Number of courts by jurisdiction that have reported using CVP as of 1 October 2020 | No. |
Civil | 75 |
Crown | 45 |
Family | 8 |
Magistrates’ | 103 |
Multi-jurisdictional court centres | 51 |
Tribunals | 37 |
Total | 319 |
Caveats:
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of hearings in courts and tribunals used audio or video technology either for the whole of the hearing, or in part, during September 2020.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The proportion of hearings in the criminal courts, that have taken place using video or audio in the month of September is 46% as shown in the HMCTS data below:
Number of hearings in courts and tribunals by method for September 2020 | Proportional Av. |
Total number of hearings held, mostly conducted face-to-face | 39% |
Total number of hearings held, mostly conducted using an audio platform | 21% |
Total number of hearings held, mostly conducted using a video platform | 25% |
Total number of other hearings conducted | 15% |
Total | 100% |