Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to (a) improve the process of applying for enforcement of debt payment and (b) support people having difficulties in recovering payments owed to them by debtors.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The civil courts in England and Wales already offer several different enforcement methods that a creditor may use to recover money or property owed on a court order or judgment. These are individually designed to address the differing financial circumstances of the debtor and collectively they aim to make it as difficult as possible for debtors to avoid their responsibilities.
As part of its Reform Programme, HM Courts and Tribunal Service will be reforming how court judgments and orders are enforced, which will include making the application process available online. The online enforcement service will provide improved guidance and information and will streamline the process making it simple and straight-forward for people to enforce an unpaid debt, providing users with regular and relevant updates about the progress of their case.
More widely, the Ministry of Justice is currently reviewing the implementation of the 2014 enforcement agent reforms introduced by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. The overarching aim of the reforms was to ensure that debts could be collected effectively whilst offering protection against enforcement agents who used aggressive methods. We have recently concluded a Call for Evidence on the 2014 reforms, and will set out our response by the summer recess.
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 8 March 2017 to Question 65939, whether she plans that prisoners following a prison education regime will be tested in line with the core common curriculum set nationally by accredited examination boards; and whether it is her policy that the results of prisoner examinations at GCSE or A-level will be considered in national education averages and in national examination grade curves.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Improving levels of education is an important goal for offenders. As well as applying our maths and English focussed core common curriculum which will be set nationally, prison governors will be encouraged to work with local employers and use labour market data to choose the right vocational training to help offenders into employment.
Vocational and other qualifications can play an important part in communicating an individual’s competences in a clear and reliable way and acting as signposts for the progress he or she has made. Where it makes sense to accredit education and vocational training delivered in custody through the award of a qualification, the appropriate awarding body’s curriculum will be used to prepare the learner for the end assessment leading to the award of that qualification.
GCSEs, A levels or other qualifications where studied for and achieved by adults in prisons are not included in the performance tables or national averages published by the Department for Education. Some prisoners are released on temporary licence to study at local Colleges: where a prisoner aged 18 is enrolled in learning with a mainstream provider outside the prison, qualifications achieved are included in the performance tables and national averages.
All learners that take the GCSE or A Level qualification, including those taken in custody, are considered in national examination grade curves. Their results are included within the Joint Council for Qualifications’ published figures in the summer following the exams. Although the setting of the boundaries is informed by the subset of students that are matched to their prior attainment, which is not always possible with adult learners, the boundaries apply to all students.
We intend, in future, to measure education and training in prisons by assessing a prisoner’s progress against milestones set out in their Personal Learning Plan, itself an element of the overall sentence plan. Studying for a GCSE or an A level should be part of a Personal Learning Plan where such study is appropriate. If such study is on the learner’s individual plan as a milestone, the prison’s governor will be accountable for performance towards its achievement
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2017 to Question 64327, what definition of sustainable employment her Department uses; and whether governors must adhere to a nationwide syllabus within which they have the scope to design a prisoner skills and qualifications regime.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department is currently finalising its definition of sustained employment ahead of new employment measures to be introduced later this year.
Governors will be fully responsible for education provision in their prisons once existing contracts end, commissioning the education services they think are most appropriate. They will be able to decide how to structure their educational regime, while following a core common curriculum set nationally, which will focus on maths and English.
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons manage employment, education and training systems; and at what standard those systems are running.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Education and training is available in all prisons in England. The majority of this is delivered by mainstream providers of further education and training, complemented by some in house delivery.
From April 2017 governors will be measured on the distance travelled in English and maths, as well as rates of sustainable employment, including apprenticeships, and education in the period following release. To meet these new standards governors will at the same time be given the power to deliver change, such as being able to design their regime to meet local delivery needs and target training and work in prisons to match the local labour market. Over 2017 and 2018, we will give governors control of the education budget, so that they can overhaul education and training to match the skills and qualifications prisoners need in the local labour market.
The provision is inspected by Ofsted at the invitation of HMIP, using the same set of standards used to inspect mainstream further education.
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners participate in prison systems of (a) education, (b) employment and (c) training; and what proportion of the prison population finds employment within six months of leaving prison.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
We know that prisoners who are in employment before or after custody are less likely to reoffend, yet many offenders have little or no employment experience or marketable skills. We are currently looking at the work, training and education in prison to ensure that provision prepares prisoners to enter meaningful employment on release so that they are able to make an effective contribution towards society and break the cycle of re-offending.
In 2015/16, on average 11,000 prisoners and detainees were working in custody at any one time across public sector prisons, contracted-out prisons and Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs). They delivered 16 million hours of work during the course of the year. These figures relate solely to industrial work, which is defined as work carried out in prison workshops (normally on the internal market, commercial work or for other government departments). There are also significant numbers of prisoners in other learning, vocational training or work opportunities within prison on tasks such as cooking, serving meals, maintenance and cleaning which can help them find a job on release and support their rehabilitation. The figures also exclude work placements undertaken by offenders on release from prison on temporary licence.
The latest statistics relating to offender participation in education are published and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/further-education-and-skills-january-2017
Further data relating to offender education participation can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fe-data-library-further-education-and-skills
We currently do not record the proportion of prisoners in employment. As set out in the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper, we will be measuring prisons against the progress made in maths and English as well as the rate of prisoners in employment and apprenticeships on release. We envisage that these measures will be introduced in 2017.
Ensuring that offenders gain the skills and qualifications inside prison to enable them to get jobs outside prison is a key part of our reform plans and we intend to launch an employment strategy later this year.
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that people with learning difficulties or disabilities are accommodated in available prison employment, education or training systems.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Government is committed to making prisons work, so that offenders come out of prison better able to find work and support their families, and less likely to reoffend.
We have already taken steps to improve the support available to offenders with learning difficulties. NOMS, in conjunction with Calderstones NHS Trust and a number of other partners, are engaged in a project on learning difficulties and disabilities to improve outcomes for offenders both in custody and in community.
In the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper, we set out our plans to tailor educational input to suit the needs of the offender through a renewed focus on screening those offenders accessing prison education in order to identify learning difficulties or disabilities. Changing the way prisons are run creates an opportunity to refocus on offenders with learning difficulties and disabilities and how best they can be engaged with education in different types of prison environment. We will set out further details in the employment strategy that will be launched later this year.
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent steps her Department has taken to ensure that more prisoners leave prison with an identified employment, education or training outcome.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The government is committed to ensuring that prisoners gain the skills and qualifications they need so that they come out of prison better able to find work, better able to support their families and ready to turn their lives around.
To ensure prisoners are prepared for life on release, from April 2017 governors will be measured on the rates of sustainable employment, including apprenticeships, and education in the period following release.
To help governors to meet the standards to reform offenders and prepare prisoners for life on release, we are giving them freedom to design their regime to meet local delivery needs and target education, training and work in prisons to match the skills and qualifications prisoners need in the local labour market. Over 2017 and 2018, we will give governors control of the education budget to enable this. Prisoners could also, for example, work shift patterns to deliver new commercial contracts.
Progress made in maths and English will also be measured, starting with qualifications gained from April 2017 and we are introducing testing on entry and exit in the longer term.
In our Employment and Education Strategy, which will be published later this year, we will outline our plans to support prisoners in gaining the skills and experience they need to prepare them for employment on release.
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders from each other EU member state serving a custodial sentence in the UK in each of the last 10 years have been transferred to serve the remainder of their sentence in another EU member state.
Answered by Andrew Selous
It is right that foreign criminals who break our laws are properly punished but this shouldn’t be at the expense of the British taxpayer.
Since 2007, a total of 402 foreign national offenders have been transferred from England and Wales to other EU Member States to complete their sentence, 73 under the EU Prisoner Transfer Agreement
The table below shows the number transferred to complete their sentence in each year since 2007. The comparable information is not available for the prior years.
EU Member States | Year of transfer 2007 | Year of transfer 2008 | Year of transfer 2009 | Year of transfer 2010 | Year of transfer 2011 | Year of transfer 2012 | Year of transfer 2013 | Year of transfer 2014 | Year of transfer 2015 |
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| 1 |
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| 1 |
| 10 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 |
| 3 | 24 |
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| 1 | 1 |
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| 2 |
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| 1 |
| 1 | 1 |
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| 5 |
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| 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 |
| 1 | 10 |
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| 1 | 1 |
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10 France | 3 | 4 | 4 |
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| 1 | 1 |
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| 13 |
| 2 |
| 4 |
| 1 |
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| 1 | 8 |
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| 1 |
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| 1 | 1 | 3 |
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5 | 4 | 1 |
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| 2 | 1 |
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| 13 | |
| 1 |
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| 1 |
| 1 | 1 | 4 |
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| 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| 1 |
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| 4 |
| 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 12 |
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| 1 |
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| 1 |
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| 1 |
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| 1 |
| 75 | 42 | 25 | 24 | 12 | 20 | 16 | 12 | 12 | 238 |
| 1 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 14 |
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| 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 6 |
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| 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 14 |
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| 3 | 9 | 12 |
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| 1 | 1 |
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| 2 |
| 2 | 3 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | 14 |
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The numbers reported here are drawn from a case management system. Care is taken when processing these cases but the figures may be subject to inaccuracies associated with any recording system.
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much his Department and its agencies and non-departmental public bodies have spent on infraction proceedings in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Dominic Raab
I refer the honourable lady to the answer provided by the Minister for the Cabinet Office (36288).
Asked by: Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many infraction proceedings the EU has initiated against his Department in each of the last 10 years; what the reasons were for each such proceeding being undertaken; and what the outcome was of each such proceeding.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The information requested is publicly available on the website of the European Commission where the infringement cases for each member state can be found.
This includes the infringement and the decision. These records go back to 2002 and can be located at the following link: