Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for his policies of the High Court judgement on the Law Society’s judicial review against the Ministry of Justice, [2024] EWHC 155 (Admin), handed down on 31 January 2024.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the right honourable Member to the answer I gave on 20 February to Question 14863
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress his Department has made on implementing the recommendations of the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid, published on 29 November 2021.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
On 30 November 2022, we published our full response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR) and consultation on policy proposals. This followed our interim response, which was published on 20 July 2022.
Based on CLAIR’s emphasis on swift resolution of criminal matters, we increased fees for solicitors by 15% in the police station and magistrates’ court and uplifted the basic elements of the Litigators’ Graduated Fee Scheme (LGFS) by 15%.
An additional £21.1 million has been allocated towards reform of the police station fee scheme and the Youth Court fees, subject to a consultation which is ongoing. If allocated, this will result in an overall increase of 11% for solicitors once these reforms are in place.
We also uplifted fees for defence advocates by 15%. In addition, we introduced new fees for advocates who undertake s.28 hearings (pre-recorded cross-examination of vulnerable witnesses) and allocated additional funding for special and wasted preparation (work done outside of the ordinary, in specified circumstances, or work done by an advocate but where they are unable to conduct the trial for good reason).
We anticipate that these investments will increase criminal legal aid spending by up to £141 million a year in a steady state, and take total criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion per year.
We also established the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board in October 2022, following Sir Christopher Bellamy’s CLAIR recommendation that an Advisory Board be created to take a wider view and encourage a more joined-up approach to criminal legal aid within the criminal justice system. It is chaired by former judge HH Deborah Taylor.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 156 of the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid published on 29 November 2021, whether his Department has made an estimate of the cost to his Department of increasing legal aid for criminal defence solicitors by 15% above 2021 spend.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
In responding to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR), we increased fees for solicitors by 15% in the police station and magistrates’ court, and uplifted the basic elements of the Litigators’ Graduated Fee Scheme (LGFS) by 15%. We chose not to uplift the pages of prosecution evidence and trial length elements of the LGFS, because we were considering reforms aimed at removing any perverse incentives.
An additional £21.1 million has been allocated towards reform of the police station fee scheme and the Youth Court fees, subject to a consultation which is ongoing. If allocated, this will result in an overall increase of 11% for solicitors once these reforms are in place. We expect these reforms will increase investment in the solicitor profession by £85 million every year.
In considering our response, we made estimates of the costs of these changes, and alternative options. Based on the forecasted case volumes for 2024/25, as estimated at the time of CLAIR, we assessed it would cost an additional up to £27 million per year in steady state to deliver the recommended 15% increase to criminal solicitors.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people in prison have been held on remand for longer than (a) six months, (b) 12 months and (c) 2 years by offence group.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Information relating to the time spent on custodial remand is not centrally held by the Ministry of Justice. To obtain the data to answer this question would involve a manual interrogation of court records which would result in a disproportionate cost to the department.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish a list of all court buildings constructed during the 1990s.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
As set out in the answer of 4 September 2023, Official Report, PQ 197380, Departments have been surveying properties and depending on the assessment of the presence of RAAC have decided to either continue to monitor the structure, reinforce it, or replace it. This is in line with the approach recommended by the Institution of Structural Engineers.
At this stage, the Government does not believe it would be in the public interest to pre-empt that process by releasing piecemeal information which may lead to false assumptions about individual court buildings.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the extent of the use of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in (a) courts and (b) prisons.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The professional advice from experts on Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) has evolved over time, from advice in the 1990s that RAAC did not pose a safety hazard to more recent advice on identifying and assessing structural adequacy. The Government's approach throughout has been to follow the best technical advice. Departments have been surveying properties and depending on the assessment of the RAAC, decided to either continue to monitor the structure, reinforce it, or replace it. This is in line with the approach recommended by the Institution of Structural Engineers
In line with that expert driven approach, we have been working for several months to identify where we have the potential for RAAC to be present across the HMPPS estate. We are commissioning further surveys and assessments across a number of buildings to assess as soon as possible whether RAAC is present and what further action may be required. Mitigation and action plans from those assets containing RAAC will then be put in place.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much of his Department's budget was spent on food in prisons in each of the last five years; and what proportion of the food supplied to prisons in each of those years was produced by UK farmers.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The spending information is not collected centrally and could not be provided without incurring disproportionate cost. Prison food budgets are determined locally (by the Governor in public sector prisons, or the Director in privately managed prisons) and kept under review as part of normal budget allocation planning.
While the contract requires our food supplier to provide a monthly country of origin report, it is not possible from this to disaggregate supply from British farming.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were falsely imprisoned in the last five years; and how many and what proportion of those people have been held in Serco-run prisons.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been convicted of (a) trafficking and smuggling people across the Channel and (b) facilitation offences relating to small boat crossings in each of the last five years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of convictions, for various offences including assisting illegal immigration, trafficking and slavery, for the years 2017 to 2021, in the Outcomes by the Offence pivot tool.
However, the number of offenders who were convicted for assisting illegal immigration, trafficking, and smuggling offences across the Channel, or specific to small boat crossings is not held centrally in the Court Proceedings database. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records to identify such details would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve his Department's response times to correspondence from members of the public.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Government recognises the importance of responding to members of the public in an effective and timely manner, and the Cabinet Office published an updated Guide to Handling Correspondence for government departments and agencies in July 2021.
Following publication of the updated guidance, all departments have been reminded that they must follow the processes outlined in the guidance. The guidance reasserts the standards for handling correspondence, including a 20 working day deadline for departments to respond to members of the public, criteria outlining when a response to a member of the public is required, and when a piece of correspondence from a member of the public should be transferred to another department.