Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department collects data on the number of cells that are overcrowded in each prison.
Answered by Damian Hinds
All prisoner accommodation is certified in line with the Certified Prisoner Accommodation Framework. Cells are only shared where a Prison Group Director has certified them to be of an adequate size and condition. The process of certification requires every prison to record all cells that have been assessed as suitable for crowding, and this information is held centrally.
Crowding data is published annually as part of the HMPPS Annual Digest. The 2022/23 version of the Annual Digest is due to be published on 27 July 2023.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 7 June 2023 to Question 187087 on Prison Accommodation, for what reason it is not practicable to collect data on time out of cell for each prison in England and Wales.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Prison governors set a regime for each day specifying when prisoners will ordinarily be unlocked. There will be occasions, however, when certain prisoners will remain in their cell during these times. Reasons for this will include illness, being over retirement age, the management of operational incidents, and other operational reasons such as staff needing to be deployed to other duties.
There will also be occasions where prisoners will be out of cell at times when they are scheduled to be locked in, for example to attend medical appointments at hospital, a late arrival from court, or a transfer between prisons.
To accurately record the amount of time prisoners spend out of cell, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) would therefore be required to record information for each individual prisoner, taking into account their unique movements on a daily basis.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 9 May 2023 to Question 183237 on Prison Accommodation, what guidance his Department issues on the appropriate amount of time out of cell for prisoners.
Answered by Damian Hinds
We are committed to delivering purposeful activity within prisons: our plans for prison regime reform are set out in the Prisons Strategy White Paper - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
As noted in my reply of 9 May, there is no central requirement governing the amount of time that prisoners should spend out of their cells. Governors have the flexibility to deliver balanced regimes to meet the needs of their establishment’s population. The collection of data on time spent out of cell is not currently practicable.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of his Department holding data on time spent out of cell across all prisons in England and Wales.
Answered by Damian Hinds
We are committed to delivering purposeful activity within prisons: our plans for prison regime reform are set out in the Prisons Strategy White Paper - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
As noted in my reply of 9 May, there is no central requirement governing the amount of time that prisoners should spend out of their cells. Governors have the flexibility to deliver balanced regimes to meet the needs of their establishment’s population. The collection of data on time spent out of cell is not currently practicable.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when his Department expects to have completed its implementation of local regime leads across the entire prison estate through the National Regime Model.
Answered by Damian Hinds
All prisons will have a local regime lead in place by the end of 2023/24.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will publish data on the average time spent out of cell in each prison in England and Wales.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The information requested for adult prisoners is not held by the Ministry of Justice as collecting it would require the detailed monitoring of cell activity in each prison establishment.
There is no central requirement governing the amount of time that prisoners should spend out of their cells. Governors are instead afforded the flexibility to deliver balanced regimes that maintain an appropriate level of time out of cell on a range of activities, including association, which meet the needs of the establishment’s population.
HMPPS has introduced a Regime Dashboard which reports the percentage of prisoners receiving different levels of regime each week. We are further developing this to align to future regimes. A performance metric has also been introduced to hold prisons to account on their levels of regime delivery. Data from this are scheduled for publication in July 2023.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Justice Committee's oral evidence session on the work of the Ministry of Justice on 31 January 2023 and Question 59 on the £73.7 million attributed to a lease of undeveloped land, whether his Department plans to seek a change in the covenant to allow the land to be used for broader purposes.
Answered by Mike Freer
My officials have engaged with the landowner to seek a change to the restrictions on the lease, so that the surplus land can be put to alternative use as soon as possible. This would require the agreement of the landowner.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 6 February 2023 to Question 137767 on Ministry of Justice: Liability, what specific legal challenge caused the increase in value.
Answered by Mike Freer
The legal challenge referred to in my previous answer (Question 137767) is an appeal against a Court decision to greatly restrict the Claimant’s case that the Secretary of State ruled incorrectly on Prison Service Pay Review Body recommendations.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Department's annual report and accounts for 2021-22, for what reason his Department has increased the contingent liability for injuries to staff, prisoners and the public.
Answered by Mike Freer
The contingent liabilities in question relate to HMPPS and are in respect of claims for injuries to staff, prisoners and the public but also third-party contract disputes and other legal claims brought against the agency, where the likelihood for a liability arising is deemed possible but unlikely.
The increase in the value reported related to a specific legal challenge which does not relate to injuries.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on how many property sales were held up in England and Wales due to delays to probate decisions in 2021-22.
Answered by Mike Freer
This information is not held centrally.