Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to improve the condition of the court estate.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We will be investing £220m in the two years to March 2025 to improve the overall quality and enhance the resilience of the court and tribunal estate and enable us to plan major estates projects with certainty.
We are working to ensure that those buildings most in need of investment get it, and this investment is a step forward in improving the quality of the court estate.
Additionally, work is underway to create new state-of-the-art court buildings in central London and Blackpool.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made recent representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the level of legal aid funding.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Department works closely with HM Treasury to support the justice system, and ministers and officials have regular discussions with Treasury colleagues on a range of issues including legal aid. We make representations for funding in the usual way and continue to look at how to use departmental funding in a fiscally responsible way.
Last year we spent just under £2 billion on legal aid – approximately £1bn on civil and just over £900m on criminal.
In response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR) we introduced a 15% uplift across most fee schemes, increasing expenditure by up to £141 million a year and taking expected annual criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion per year.
On 25 May 2023 we published our response to the consultation on the Means Test Review. When implemented, we estimate that spending on legal aid will rise by circa £25 million.
We are also investing a further £13m into family legal aid per year, and a further £10m per year into housing legal aid through the new Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service, which launched on 01 August.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that offenders attend their sentencing hearing.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Our Criminal Justice Bill will give judges new powers to order offenders to attend their sentencing hearings and to punish those who refuse to do so without reasonable excuse. An offender in breach of this order will face up to a further 24 months’ prison time. The measure will apply to all offenders convicted of an offence which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. We are also making it clear – in law – that force can be used to make sure offenders attend their sentencing hearings where reasonable and proportionate.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that serious sexual offenders serve the whole of their custodial sentence.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Sentencing Bill, introduced on 14 November, will ensure that rapists and serious sexual offenders serve their full custodial term in prison. This expands on the current situation, whereby these offenders, when sentenced to four years’ imprisonment or more, serve two thirds of their sentence in custody, following changes made by this Government.
This is in direct contrast to the last Labour Government who, in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, legislated so all prisoners serving a standard determinate sentence – including rapists and violent criminals – were automatically released from prison at the halfway point of the sentence.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to increase sentences for violent offenders.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Since 2010, average sentence lengths have risen by 56% and this Government have introduced tougher punishments for the worst offenders – including extending whole-life orders to premeditated child murders. This Government increased the point at which those convicted of rape and serving a standard determinate sentence (SDS) of 7 years or more should be released. This was increased from 50% of the sentence to two-thirds. In the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, we went further by applying a two-thirds release point to all serious sexual offenders (including rapists) sentenced to an SDS of 4 years or more.
This is in direct contrast to the last Labour Government who, in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, legislated so all prisoners serving a standard determinate sentence – including rapists and violent criminals – were automatically released from prison at the halfway point of the sentence.
But now we are going further still and the recently introduced Sentencing Bill will ensure that rapists and serious sexual offenders serve their full custodial term in prison.
We will also introduce in the Sentencing Bill, a new duty for the court to impose a whole life order for cases of murder which are currently normally subject to a whole life order starting point, unless the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances. In addition, murders which involve sexual or sadistic conduct will be added to the types of murder that will become subject to the new duty to impose a whole life order (unless there are exceptional circumstances). These murders currently have a 30-year starting point but will, in future, be likely to attract a whole life order.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make a comparative assessment of the effectiveness of (a) short custodial sentences and (b) sentences served in the community.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
There is persuasive evidence that community orders and suspended sentence orders are more effective than sentences of immediate custody in reducing reoffending, in certain circumstances.
The department’s latest published reoffending statistics (Proven reoffending statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).) show that 55% of those released from prison after serving a custodial sentence of less than twelve months were convicted for a proven offence in the following 12 months. This compares to 32% of those serving a court order (community sentence or suspended sentence order) or 24% of those serving a suspended sentence with requirements served in the community.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to make all parole board hearings available to the public.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Any Parole Board hearing may be heard in public if the Chair of the Parole Board decides it is in the interests of justice to do so. Applications for public hearings can be made by anyone directly to the Parole Board. The criteria used by the Chair to decide public hearing applications has been published by the Parole Board on its website and the individual decisions are also published.
Not all cases will be suitable to be heard in public due, for example, to particularly sensitive evidence or the concerns of the victims, and the government believes it is right that the Parole Board has the discretion to decide which cases should be heard in public.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take legislative steps to issue automatic compensation payments to individuals wrongly convicted of serious crimes.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
There are no plans to amend section 133(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to introduce automatic payments of compensation following a qualifying miscarriage of justice. The statutory scheme sets out the eligibility criteria which must be met before an assessment of the amount of compensation can be made.
On 06 August 2023, the Lord Chancellor announced that wrongly convicted people will no longer face having “saved living costs” deducted from compensation for a miscarriage of justice. The Miscarriages of Justice Compensation Scheme guidance has been updated with immediate effect to reflect that change.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take legislative steps to issue automatic compensation payments to individuals wrongly convicted of serious crimes.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate his Department has made of the number of available Duty Solicitors providing representation at police stations in (a) England and (b) London in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning duty solicitor services and the day-to-day administration of the court and police station duty schemes. This includes keeping membership records, allocating slots and producing and maintaining duty solicitor rotas. The LAA monitors membership across individual duty schemes. Information about duty solicitor volumes broken down by individual scheme is published as part of the LAA’s quarterly statistics.
At a national level, the LAA monitors capacity across criminal legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis and, where demand is greater than the available supply, takes action to secure additional provision to ensure the continuity of legal aid-funded services.
The LAA is satisfied that there continues to be sufficient duty solicitor coverage on the duty schemes operating across England, including in London. Provision under the duty schemes is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota or other fluctuations in numbers depending on prevailing market conditions, and other internal factors such as firms merging or other consolidation activity.