Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the over-representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic children in youth custody.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
We want people to have confidence in a justice system that is fair and open—one where no person suffers discrimination of any sort.
We continue to prioritise the understanding and tackling of disparity within the youth justice system.
The MoJ Youth Justice Policy Unit, the Youth Justice Board and the Youth Custody Service work closely together in seeking to tackle racial disparities in the youth justice system. Work in this area includes providing the tools and data to help frontline youth justice services to understand the needs of ethnic minority children, work with the Magistrates’ Association to build awareness of disproportionality among sentencers, securing over £1m in funding to use physical activity to improve outcomes for 11,000 ethnic minority children at risk of entering the criminal justice system and delivering wide-ranging work in the Youth Custody Service on workforce diversity, capturing the voices of children in setting YCS culture, driving forward local plans to address disproportionality and staff training on difference and cultural needs.
More broadly, work directly within the youth justice system can only partially address inequalities, as ‘upstream’ factors which increase the likelihood of a child appearing in the youth justice system are also disproportionate. Cross Government work on education, health and policing, all important areas upstream of MoJ’s remit, recognises the importance of equalities.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase court capacity in (a) Newport West constituency and (b) Wales.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Recovering from the impacts of Covid-19 and keeping our court and tribunal premises safe and open is HMCTS’ top priority. We have introduced a range of important measures to increase available court capacity, including the installation of plexiglass screens, the opening of Nightingale courts and use of virtual hearings.
In Wales we have opened a Nightingale court at Swansea Civic Centre, providing additional Crown Court capacity. We have installed temporary modular buildings at Caernarfon and Swansea Crown Courts to facilitate jury trials by creating additional space for deliberation, and we are utilising space at Cardiff City Hall to house jurors in waiting, thus enabling more courtrooms in Cardiff Crown Court to accommodate jury trials. We have also completed estates work that has increased our ability to hear multi-handler trials by increasing defendant dock capacity across four Crown courtrooms in Wales.
In Newport, all Crown and Magistrates Courts rooms are open with social distancing measures in place. We have also conducted estates work to increase Crown Court defendant capacity for multi-handed trials so that the court can now hear cases with up to seven defendants. Similarly, all Civil, Family and Tribunal sites in Newport are open and remote hearings are also being effectively utilised.
We continue to keep our recovery plans for Wales and Newport under close review.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what most recent steps his Department has taken to improve the (a) prosecution and (b) conviction rates for rape in (i) Newport West constituency, (ii) Wales and (iii) England.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government has recognised that the decline in the number of rape and serious sexual offences being prosecuted in England and Wales is a cause for significant concern and has carried out an end-to-end review into this topic.
The review revealed wide-ranging reasons behind the fall in cases reaching court, including delays in the investigation process, a lack of specialist and consistent support for victims, and an increase in invasive requests for their personal data. We have published an ambitious Action Plan seeks to directly address these issues and increase the number of cases being referred by the police, referred to the CPS and getting to court, no matter where they are across England and Wales.
Steps being taken include better data extraction technology, launching new pathfinder projects that involve greater focus on perpetrators’ offending patterns and further piloting of pre-recorded cross examination.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the announcement, Lord chancellor takes immediate action to move children from Rainsbrook, published on 16 June 2021, what recent steps he has taken to tackle issues at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
Following the invoking of the Urgent Notification protocol at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre (STC) last December, we ordered the provider MTC to take the immediate action necessary to address the unacceptable failings at Rainsbrook, including a focus on ensuring all children in the Reverse Cohorting Unit had a suitable amount of time out of their room. During this period, the Youth Custody Service (YCS) enhanced monitoring activity at the centre whilst deploying an experienced senior manager to the centre to provide additional support and operational oversight.
Ofsted acknowledged that issues relating to children reverse cohorting at the centre have been addressed, and that the YCS had strengthened its oversight of the STC. It is clear, however, in particular throughout May, that measures taken have not been sufficient to resolve the long-standing issues round staffing, safety, and on-site operational grip. That is why we are currently transferring all children out of the centre to alternative secure accommodation, with around a third of the children having already transferred from Rainsbrook.
Whilst our focus remains on ensuring the wellbeing of the children during the ongoing transfer process, work is separately ongoing with regard the future of the centre. A further announcement will be made on this in due course.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent steps he has taken in response to people naming victims of sexual assault.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Complainants in rape and sexual offence cases are protected by Automatic Reporting Restrictions.
There is a lifetime ban on reporting any matter likely to identify a victim, from the moment the offence is reported.
Anyone committing such an offence is liable to a fine. Interfering with the administration of justice and publicly commenting on a court case on social media or other channels may lead to a charge for the more serious offence of contempt of court where the maximum penalty is 2 years’ imprisonment.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of legal aid provision in (a) Newport West and (b) England.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Legal Aid Agency commissions and monitors legal aid services by ‘Procurement Area’ as opposed to by constituency. A full list of contracted providers in England and Wales is published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/directory-of-legal-aid-providers which can be filtered by selected geographic area.
The LAA seeks to award a minimum of 1 contract for each civil category of law for each procurement area, save in family law where the LAA seeks to award 5 contracts per procurement area. The procurement area which includes Newport West currently exceeds both standards.
The Legal Aid Agency frequently reviews market capacity to make sure there is adequate provision around the country and moves quickly to ensure provision where gaps may appear.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the increasing number of Black, Asian and ethnic minority people in the criminal justice system.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
This government is committed to tackling inequality and all forms of discrimination. No one should face discrimination, which is why we welcomed David Lammy’s 2017 review which shone a necessary light on disparity in the treatment of Black, Asian and ethnic minority individuals in the criminal justice system. The actions the Government committed to undertake in response to the 35 recommendations made in the Lammy Review have either been completed or reasonably require an extended timeframe. The range of our current work is now broader than the agenda set out by the Review. I have been working with the Home Office and Cabinet Office on the establishment of the Independent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities in addition to the focus my department is bringing to HM Prison and Probation, and the work of the Youth Justice Board with young people. A cross-governmental approach with the Criminal Justice Board also allows us to work with senior officials to assist in generating cross-system impetus to drive forward the race agenda. We are also aware that the Independent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities is looking into issues pertaining to this area.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Prime Minister, what personal representations he has made to the President of the United States on the events on Capitol Hill on Wednesday 6 January 2021.
Answered by Boris Johnson
I refer the Hon Member to the statement I made on Thursday 7 January during the coronavirus press conference.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Prime Minister, when he last spoke to President Macron of France; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Boris Johnson
This information is available on the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether the Government will seek to change the terms of reference for the Law Commission's review of marriages in response to the High Court judgement in R (Harrison and others) v Secretary of State for Justice [2020] EWHC 2096 (Admin).
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Law Commission’s terms of reference make it clear that it will not be making recommendations as to whether new groups should be allowed to conduct legally binding weddings. However, they will consider how marriages by humanist and other non-religious belief organisations could be incorporated into a revised scheme for all marriages that is simple, fair and consistent. The Government will decide on provision on the basis of the Law Commission's recommendations.
The Law Commission published its consultation paper on 3 September and will welcome contributions from all stakeholders.