Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the press release entitled Families, business and industry to get energy efficiency support, published on 18 December 2023, what her Department's timeframe is for publishing the guidance on the new local authority retrofit scheme.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, with reference to paragraph 4.11 of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s report entitled UK aid’s international climate finance commitments, published on 29 February 2024, for what reason his Department has categorised 30 per cent of the funding for The Assurance and Learning Programme as international climate finance.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
To recognise the work that is being done to support resilience building in the most climate-vulnerable countries a fixed proportion of 30 per cent International Climate Finance will be applied to programmes delivering and supporting humanitarian work being done in countries that fall into the bottom 10 per cent in terms of recognised climate vulnerability rankings, including Afghanistan.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2023 to Question 3175 on Natural History: GCSE, for what reason the consultation on the subject content was not launched in early 2024; on what date it will be launched; and what support will be offered to schools to help implement Natural History GCSE by September 2025.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons entitled Report on an announced inspection of HMP Lewes by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 5–16 February 2024, published on 14 May 2024, what discussions he has had on conditions in HMP Lewes in the last six months; when did these discussions take place; and what estimate he has made of the amount of investment required to tackle rising levels of (a) violence, (b) self-harm, (c) drug misuse, (d) ageing infrastructure and (e) staffing shortfalls at the prison.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Ministers and senior officials continue to engage closely with leaders responsible for HMP Lewes in a variety of ways, not limited to in-person meetings and site visits.
The Prison Group Director for Kent, Surrey and Sussex frequently visits HMP Lewes, and his assessment of conditions at the prison informs consideration by Ministers and senior officials.
HMP Lewes is subject to estate-wide, nationally-led, security and safety improvement programmes. These include the installation of security features such as body scanners and other technology to stop illicit substances, weapons, and mobile telephones from entering prisons. Additionally, we have invested to incentivise drug-free living, and to continue work that is already under way in removing potential ligature points in cells.
A range of ongoing and planned projects to improve the infrastructure at HMP Lewes includes refurbishing showers, upgrading heating systems, replacing windows, and installing more decency features.
As these programmes and projects are funded from a variety of budgets, some of which are estate-wide, it is not possible to provide a breakdown of costs.
Our staffing position has greatly improved across the estate. At prisons where recruitment challenges remain, we will continue to offer an additional supplement to attract new Prison Officers.
More information is available in the Prisons White Paper, which can be accessed via the following link: Prisons Strategy White Paper - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners in HMP Lewes were (a) released as street homeless and (b) released and recalled (i) once and (ii) multiple times in each of the last six months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are unable to provide data on street homelessness beyond 31 March 2023 as that data is a subset of data due for future publication and releasing it at this time would breach official statistics publication rules, as outlined in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Data for the latest six-month period, October 2022-March 2023, is available is provided in table 1 below.
Table 1: Number not housed on the first night of release from HMP Lewes, with an accommodation status at release recorded as Homeless - Rough Sleeping by month of release, October 2022 to March 2023.
Month of Release | Number |
October | 9 |
November | 10 |
December | 11 |
January | 4 |
February | 10 |
March | 9 |
Total | 53 |
Notes:
1. These figures are drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent.
2. Data is consistent with metric CU150 Housed on the first night of custodial release, contained within the latest Performance Ratings publication, 2022-2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-performance-ratings-2022-to-2023
3. In order to be counted in measure CU150, the release event must be found in both Prison-NOMIS and nDelius. Unmatched release events are excluded. (I.e., the figures provided might not include all cases).
4. Release events with a missing or obsolete status are treated as "negative" in this measure, as are release events with multiple statuses.
Data source: National Delius and Prison NOMIS
We are unable to provide data on releases and recall of offenders beyond 31 December 2023 as that data is a subset of data due for future publication and releasing it at this time would breach official statistics publication rules, as outlined in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Data for the latest six-month period, July 2023 - December 2023, is available is provided in table 2 below.
Table 2: The number of first-time releases from HMP Lewes from July- December 2023, and subsequent recalls by 31 December 2023
Month of release | Number of releases | Number of offenders recalled once | Number of offenders recalled more than once |
July | 47 | 17 | * |
August | 45 | 16 | 6 |
September | 42 | 11 | * |
October | 52 | 18 | 3 |
November | 49 | 10 | * |
December | 43 | 10 | 0 |
Notes:
1. Offenders are counted once in each month of release. There could be a handful of offenders counted twice across different months where they were released for the first time on different sentences.
2. Recalls are counted from date of release up to 31 December 2023. Where further recalls have occurred beyond 31 December 2023, these recalls are not included.
3. Given releases in later months have a shorter time for recalls to occur, direct comparisons across months are biased. The months have different lengths of time for recalls to occur.
4. Disclosure control: An asterisk (*) has been used to suppress values of one or two. This is to prevent the disclosure of individual information. Further suppression may be applied where needed.
5. Data quality: The figures in these tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Data source: P-NOMIS and Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)
We know that having a safe place to stay helps cut crime which is why we are investing in our transitional accommodation service so prison leavers can have a guaranteed 12 weeks of basic, temporary accommodation to provide a stable base on release.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Point of Order by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion of 21 May 2024 and the report entitled Protecting our Democracy from Coercion, HC 775, published on 21 May 2024, if he will amend page 1 of that report to include the registered interests of the UK Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Lord Walney is the UK Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.
Lord Walney’s report, published on 21 May and entitled Protecting our Democracy from Coercion, is an independent report. Therefore, the Home Secretary is not able to make any amends to it.
It would be for Lord Walney as the report’s author to consider any necessary alterations.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish the (a) members, (b) terms of reference, (c) agendas and (d) summaries of meetings of his Department's Biodiversity Expert Committee.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Biodiversity Expert Committee is a subgroup of Defra’s Science Advisory Council; and members, terms of reference and meeting notes will be published on their website in due course. Upcoming agendas are not published as they can be reactive.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 20 February 2023 to Question 142657 on Mental Health Services: Children and Young People, what progress has been made on work to (a) establish the feasibility and associated risks of introducing new mental health waiting time standards for (i) adult's and (ii) children and young people’s community-based mental health services and (b) support the development of a baseline position for waiting times.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England will publish new core community all-age mental health waiting time metrics from autumn 2024, which will encompass activity data from April 2024. It will cover the percentage of patients receiving meaningful help within four weeks of referral to community mental health services. Once published, NHS England will focus on improving data quality, including ensuring appropriate Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine data is flowed to show when patients are receiving meaningful help. Improved data quality within community mental health services will provide greater insights into the frequency and types of therapeutic provision.
The publication of the new community waiting times metrics is expected to increase transparency and local accountability on waiting times for community mental health services. Furthermore, NHS England expect that publication of the data will improve the quality of the data, so that the Department and NHS England will be in a better position to assess the costs and benefits of introducing performance standards against these metrics.
Systems have also been asked to focus on reducing long waits in community mental health services and to develop local plans to support this, including by improving data quality. We will work with systems to develop an agreed baseline and improvement trajectories for waits over 104 weeks in autumn 2024, as referenced in NHS England’s 2024/25 Operational Planning Guidance.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 16 May 2024 to Question 25822 on War Crimes: Gaza and with reference to paragraph 2.13 of the Ministerial Code, updated on 22 December 2022, if she will hold discussions with the Prime Minister on the potential merits of using her authority to publish summaries of advice provided to him on alleged war crimes in Gaza since 1 April 2024.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
As per my previous answer to UIN 25822 tabled on Thursday 16 May, and as reflected in the Ministerial Code, I do not confirm publicly whether I or any other Law Officer has advised on a particular issue or the content of any advice, save where I, as a Law Officer, explicitly consent. That consent is rarely given.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, whether she has written to the Prime Minister on Gaza and war crimes since 1 April 2024.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
I cannot answer your question as to do so would be in breach of the Law Officers’ Convention.
Paragraph 2.13 of the Ministerial Code clearly states that the fact that the Law Officers have advised or have not advised and the content of their advice must not be disclosed outside Government without their authority.