Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of (a) barristers, (b) solicitors and (c) CILEX practitioners have (i) applied for and (ii) completed training to become a qualified legal representative under the Cross Examination Prohibition Scheme since July 2022; and whether he has made an estimate of the number these individuals that have presented cases under the scheme.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
We have assumed that both questions refer to the Qualified Legal Representative (QLR) scheme which was introduced in July 2022 and follows the Government’s Domestic Abuse Act (2021) which prohibited unrepresented perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of abuse from cross-examining their victims or alleged victims in family and civil proceedings, and vice versa. The prohibition ensures that vulnerable victims and witnesses are not traumatised by being cross-examined directly by their alleged perpetrator.
Barristers, solicitors, and CILEX practitioners can register to undertake work as part of the QLR scheme at GOV.UK: Register to be a qualified legal representative (justice.gov.uk). The statutory guidance sets out the requirement for QLRs to have undertaken advocacy and vulnerable witness training, or to have made a commitment to attend such training within six months of having registered on the court list of qualified legal representatives: Statutory Guidance for the Qualified Legal Representative Scheme. The Government encourages professionals to take up this important work to assist in both the family and civil courts.
As of 27 February 2024, in total, there were 363 QLRs registered for family cases, and 78 QLRs registered for civil cases. We do not hold monthly data on registrations, or central data on how many QLRs have completed or applied for training, which they are able to access from a range of external providers. The QLR register does not record whether practitioners are barristers, solicitors, or CILEX practitioners. We do not collect data on the number of QLRs that have presented cases under the scheme.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of (a) barristers, (b) solicitors and (c) CILEX practitioners have registered for work under the Cross Examination Prohibition Scheme in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
We have assumed that both questions refer to the Qualified Legal Representative (QLR) scheme which was introduced in July 2022 and follows the Government’s Domestic Abuse Act (2021) which prohibited unrepresented perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of abuse from cross-examining their victims or alleged victims in family and civil proceedings, and vice versa. The prohibition ensures that vulnerable victims and witnesses are not traumatised by being cross-examined directly by their alleged perpetrator.
Barristers, solicitors, and CILEX practitioners can register to undertake work as part of the QLR scheme at GOV.UK: Register to be a qualified legal representative (justice.gov.uk). The statutory guidance sets out the requirement for QLRs to have undertaken advocacy and vulnerable witness training, or to have made a commitment to attend such training within six months of having registered on the court list of qualified legal representatives: Statutory Guidance for the Qualified Legal Representative Scheme. The Government encourages professionals to take up this important work to assist in both the family and civil courts.
As of 27 February 2024, in total, there were 363 QLRs registered for family cases, and 78 QLRs registered for civil cases. We do not hold monthly data on registrations, or central data on how many QLRs have completed or applied for training, which they are able to access from a range of external providers. The QLR register does not record whether practitioners are barristers, solicitors, or CILEX practitioners. We do not collect data on the number of QLRs that have presented cases under the scheme.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the total number of claims sitting with the Tribunals Service was on 9 February 2024.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the number of open Tribunal cases administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service is published quarterly in Tribunal Statistics. The most recent date for which information is available is 31 October 2023: Tribunals statistics quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of claimants appeared before the Tribunals Service as litigants in person in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the number and proportion of litigants in person appearing before Tribunals administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service is not centrally collated.
However, information specific to the Employment Tribunal only has been published up to 2022/23:
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases before the Tribunals Service have waited more than (a) three months, (b) six months, (c) one year and (d) two years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about waiting times for Tribunal cases administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service is not centrally collated in the format requested. However, data on clearance times in the largest jurisdictions is published quarterly in Tribunal Statistics: Tribunals statistics quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when Ministers in his Department last requested information from officials on the (a) number, (b) age and (c) disabilities of children living in households subject to a Universal Credit sanction.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Ministers frequently ask officials for data and information on a wide range of subjects both informally and formally.
Statistics are published regularly showing the number of Universal Credit full-service customers with a payment that has been reduced due to a sanction. These can be found in the Universal Credit sanction rates dataset on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/login.xhtml). Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, they can also access guidance (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html) on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases the Tribunals Service has completed in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the number of Tribunal cases administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service that were disposed in each of the last five years is published in Tribunal Statistics: Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
HMCTS continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 16 October 2023 to Question 199738 on Universal Credit: Disqualification, for what reason information on the number of children living in households subject to a Universal Credit sanction is not readily available.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department records information on the number of children living in Universal Credit households and these are published every three months as part of the official Universal Credit statistics (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics). The Department also records information on the number of people who have received a sanction on Universal Credit, and these are published every three months as part of the official Benefit Sanctions Statistics (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions). These statistics are produced using different methodologies and it is not possible to provide appropriately quality assured statistics within the disproportionate cost limit.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of claims to the Tribunals Service since 1 April 2023 were not in relation to financial awards.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Tribunals administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service exercise a wide and diverse range of jurisdictions, including appeals against decisions made by public bodies and party versus party claims.
The number and proportion of claims not relating to financial awards varies by tribunal jurisdiction and a breakdown of claims by jurisdiction is published quarterly in Tribunal Statistics: Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of claims to the Tribunals Service were in relation to (a) unfair dismissal, (b) unpaid wages, (c) unpaid holiday pay and (d) unlawful discrimination since April 2023.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information on the proportion of claims accepted by the Employment Tribunal Service for the period up to September 2023 are outlined in the attached table.
Data is a subset of the published statistics.
Statistical information in relation to the Employment Tribunal can be found in our published stats: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.
We currently only have data published up to September 2023.