Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of rape trials that have been postponed within 24 hours' notice in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The data held centrally by the Ministry of Justice on ineffective trials does not specifically identify those that have been postponed within 24 hours' notice. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.
The Government is committed to improving the Criminal Justice System’s response to adult rape. This includes the significant progress we have made in delivering our Rape Review Action Plan. Within this plan, we set ourselves stretching ambitions to return the volumes of police referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), CPS charges and Crown Court receipts for adult rape to 2016 levels. In practice, this means more than doubling the number of cases reaching court since the Rape Review was commissioned in 2019. We are pleased to say we have already exceeded these ambitions.
We also recognise that lengthy waiting times can be particularly difficult for victims of rape and other serious sexual offences who wish to see justice done and move on with their lives. The Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales has recently announced that all rape cases outstanding for more than two years will be listed by the end of July 2024, providing certainty to those victims that their cases will be prioritised and heard as soon as possible.
Alongside the SPJ’s efforts, we continue to make sure we do more than ever to improve timeliness at court. This includes delivering over 107,000 additional sitting days in Crown Courts; opening two permanent ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough; increasing criminal legal aid spending by £141 million per year; investing over £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of court buildings (up to March 2025); and investing further in judicial recruitment and retention.
We know that support services play a critical role in supporting victims including those engaging with the Criminal Justice System. This is why we are quadrupling funding for victims and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10. The funding will allow us to increase the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors to around 1,000 by 2025.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many military personnel were waiting for medical treatment on 15 April in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many military personnel are waiting for medical treatment.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) male prisoners, (b) women prisoners and (c) young offenders were transferred to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Under sections 47/49 and 48/49 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Secretary of State may authorise by warrant the transfer of prisoners to a secure hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met by the aforementioned Act.
The requested data are set out in the tables below for the years 2013 to 2022 and are taken from an electronic casework system. Providing data for the years from 2010 to 2013 would require substantial manual checks of paper files which could be undertaken only at disproportionate cost. The data for 2023 are due to be published on 26 April.
| TRANSFER YEAR |
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SEX | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Female | 109 | 104 | 117 | 111 | 111 | 118 | 130 | 109 | 103 | 142 |
Male | 887 | 956 | 898 | 875 | 854 | 895 | 924 | 921 | 995 | 930 |
Total | 996 | 1060 | 1015 | 986 | 965 | 1013 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
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| TRANSFER YEAR |
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AGE BAND | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
18 and over | 976 | 1039 | 995 | 972 | 946 | 996 | 1028 | 1012 | 1088 | 1062 |
Under 18 | 20 | 25 | 21 | 14 | 19 | 18 | 26 | 18 | 10 | 10 |
Total | 996 | 1064 | 1016 | 986 | 965 | 1014 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
Notes
Data Source: Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)
We are committed to delivering improvements to mental health care and treatment for vulnerable offenders through non-legislative means. This includes improving oversight of the 28-day time limit for transfers to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 and increasing judicial awareness of alternatives to custody through the expansion of the Bail Information Service.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of prison leavers were homeless in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on accommodation outcomes on the first night of release from custody is published in the Community Performance Annual Statistics. Data is only available from 2017/18 onwards. From this point, accommodation performance metrics were introduced to the probation performance framework with reliable data not available for previous years. The data can be found here: Prison and Probation Performance Statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
We are delivering our ground-breaking transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), so prison-leavers have a guaranteed 12 weeks of basic, temporary accommodation to provide a stable base on release. By January 2023, the proportion of offenders housed on the first night of their release from custody was 7.6 percentage points higher in CAS3 regions versus non-CAS3 regions.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2024 to Question 17263 on Prisons: Dogs, how many times the National Dog and Technical Support Group were deployed in prisons in each year since 2015.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.