Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the report on the Southport attack by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a new offence of planning a mass casualty attack.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Government accepts and strongly supports the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation’s (IRTL) recommendation to consider creating a new offence to capture individuals intending to kill multiple people and planning for such attacks. As recognised by the IRTL, this is a complex area of law and will require working through difficult legal and ethical issues to avoid unintended consequences. We are considering carefully the best way to close the gap in the legislation.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of updating the level of remuneration for expert witnesses in family cases.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Between January 2023 and March 2025, the Ministry of Justice undertook a comprehensive review of civil legal aid. This included family legal aid. The evidence from the review indicated that the housing and debt, and immigration and asylum sectors face particularly acute challenges with service provision and high demand.
Following a consultation, we recently announced uplifts to housing and debt, and immigration and asylum legal aid fees, which will inject £20 million into the sector each year once fully implemented.
The Government keeps legal aid policy, including family legal aid and remuneration for expert witnesses, under review.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans her Department has to review the use of automatism as a legal defence.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
There are no current plans for the Government to review the defence of automatism.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders convicted of actual bodily harm and sentenced to under four years in prison have been released early from prison since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
On 7 November, the Ministry of Justice published transparency data on how many offenders were released on the first days of Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 of SDS40 (1,889 prisoners on the first day of Tranche 1, and 1,223 prisoners on the first day of Tranche 2).
Data on prison releases forms a subset of prison population data which is intended for future publication. In accordance with the requirements of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, we may not give any early indication of the contents of this statistical report.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any offenders who were convicted of actual bodily harm have been released early from prison since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Sentences for serious violent offences, such as ABH, of 4 years or more are excluded from SDS40. Shorter ABH sentences are eligible for release under SDS40. This was also the case for ECSL under the previous Government.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any offenders who were convicted of child sexual abuse have been released early from prison since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Sex offences were automatically excluded from both the End of Custody Supervised Licence Scheme which ceased on 9 September 2024 and from the current SDS40 scheme.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any offenders convicted of gang rape have been released early from prison in the last six months.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
There is no single offence for gang rape defined in legislation.
All sex offences are automatically excluded from the SDS40 scheme.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign nationals have been convicted for grooming.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on convictions for a wide range of offences, including grooming up to and including June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here:
Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK.
However, convictions data held centrally does not include if the offender is a foreign national. This information may be held in the court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to make being (a) the leader of and (b) involved in a grooming gang a statutory aggravating factor during sentencing.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile and horrific of crimes - involving rape, violence, coercive control, intimidation, manipulation, and deep long-term harm.
That is why this Government is determined to act – strengthening the law, taking forward recommendations from independent inquiries, supporting stronger police action and protection for victims.
As part of this package of measures, the Government has committed to legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, to ensure that this behaviour is reflected in the sentencing of perpetrators.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to prevent domestic abusers convicted of other offences from being released early.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
This Government inherited a criminal justice system on the brink of collapse, with prisons weeks away from overflowing. This would have meant complete gridlock of the system and impacted the police’s ability to arrest people. As a result, we were forced to bring in emergency measures that see the automatic release points for standard determinate sentences reduced to 40%.
There are a number of offences excluded from this change including serious violent offences with sentences of four years or more, sex offences and a series of offences connected to domestic abuse. Exempting domestic abuse related offences and allowing probation a number of weeks to prepare is a significant departure from the previous Government’s End of Custody Licence scheme which saw c13,000 offenders released early.
It is only possible to legally exempt specific offences and domestic abusers are prosecuted under many crimes. Our exclusions send a very clear message about how seriously this Government takes domestic abuse.