Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people are due for release from prison on each day from 20 December 2019 to 3 January 2020.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The release data for December 2019 is planned for publication in April 2020. The publication in July 2020 will include the data for January 2020.
It is not possible to state the number of future releases by date because of the many factors affecting release date that can take place following sentence, such as added days awarded on prison disciplinary hearings, time spent unlawfully at large after escapes/absconds, appeals against the sentence, and further sentences imposed concurrently or consecutively.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 on the (a) effectiveness of joint-working between criminal justice agencies and local authorities and (b) homelessness.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Everyone leaving custody should have a safe and suitable home to go to on release; having somewhere to live gives people a stable platform from which to access health services, hold down a job and reduces the likelihood of them reoffending.
Ministry of Justice officials are working closely with officials from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to monitor the referrals being made and to facilitate joint working between local authorities and prison and probation providers.
Overcoming the many barriers offenders face to securing suitable accommodation is something that Ministry of Justice cannot do in isolation. While statutory responsibility for housing (including planning) and homelessness lies with local authorities in England, and with the Welsh Assembly in Wales, we are committed to working with other departments to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department takes to (a) monitor, (b) investigate, (c) learn lessons for prevention from and (d) respond at a (i) local and (ii) national level to deaths of offenders in the community on post custody supervision.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
All deaths of offenders under supervision are the subject of an internal review by the relevant probation provider, which must consider from the circumstances whether any areas of probation practice could be improved. This includes the deaths of those being supervised after release from custody. Probation providers report annually to Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service on the numbers of deaths and their causes, and share learning points from the reviews that they have conducted. A small number of deaths under post-release supervision, including those that occur in Approved Premises, are independently investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
The number of offenders who died under supervision increased from 704 in 2010/11 to 955 in 2017/18. The Offender Rehabilitation Act (ORA) was introduced on 1 February 2015 and resulted in an increase in the number of offenders on post-release supervision. While the total number of deaths under supervision has continued to increase, the number of deaths post-release fell by 8% in the last year, from 401 in 2016/17 to 367 in 2017/18.
The National Suicide Prevention Strategy identifies people in contact with the criminal justice system as a high-risk group, and we recognise that the time following release from prison can be a particularly high-risk period for suicide and for deaths from other causes. The primary role of probation is to protect the public and prevent re-offending, and people under supervision in the community are not in the care of HM Prison and Probation Service in the way that they are when in custody. While probation staff do everything they can to help offenders find access to vital services including healthcare, housing, and treatment for drug and alcohol problems, they do not have sole responsibility for caring for them. We are conducting a review of post-release deaths, which aims to identify what further actions may be appropriate to prevent them, while recognising that a range of other organisations share responsibility for their wellbeing.
We are also investing an extra £22m in ‘through-the-gate’ assistance for offenders, to help them find the support they need on issues such as housing, healthcare and employment, and they have the same access to these services as any other person in the community.
The number of deaths under post-release supervision during 2017/18, broken down by time elapsed since release and by cause of death, is in the attached table. The figures are taken from probation providers’ annual reports. Care is taken when processing and analysing them, but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the rise in deaths of people on post-custody supervision since 2010.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
All deaths of offenders under supervision are the subject of an internal review by the relevant probation provider, which must consider from the circumstances whether any areas of probation practice could be improved. This includes the deaths of those being supervised after release from custody. Probation providers report annually to Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service on the numbers of deaths and their causes, and share learning points from the reviews that they have conducted. A small number of deaths under post-release supervision, including those that occur in Approved Premises, are independently investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
The number of offenders who died under supervision increased from 704 in 2010/11 to 955 in 2017/18. The Offender Rehabilitation Act (ORA) was introduced on 1 February 2015 and resulted in an increase in the number of offenders on post-release supervision. While the total number of deaths under supervision has continued to increase, the number of deaths post-release fell by 8% in the last year, from 401 in 2016/17 to 367 in 2017/18.
The National Suicide Prevention Strategy identifies people in contact with the criminal justice system as a high-risk group, and we recognise that the time following release from prison can be a particularly high-risk period for suicide and for deaths from other causes. The primary role of probation is to protect the public and prevent re-offending, and people under supervision in the community are not in the care of HM Prison and Probation Service in the way that they are when in custody. While probation staff do everything they can to help offenders find access to vital services including healthcare, housing, and treatment for drug and alcohol problems, they do not have sole responsibility for caring for them. We are conducting a review of post-release deaths, which aims to identify what further actions may be appropriate to prevent them, while recognising that a range of other organisations share responsibility for their wellbeing.
We are also investing an extra £22m in ‘through-the-gate’ assistance for offenders, to help them find the support they need on issues such as housing, healthcare and employment, and they have the same access to these services as any other person in the community.
The number of deaths under post-release supervision during 2017/18, broken down by time elapsed since release and by cause of death, is in the attached table. The figures are taken from probation providers’ annual reports. Care is taken when processing and analysing them, but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people died whilst under post-release supervision in 2017-18; and what the (a) number of days between release from prison and date of death and (b) cause of death was in each of those cases.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
All deaths of offenders under supervision are the subject of an internal review by the relevant probation provider, which must consider from the circumstances whether any areas of probation practice could be improved. This includes the deaths of those being supervised after release from custody. Probation providers report annually to Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service on the numbers of deaths and their causes, and share learning points from the reviews that they have conducted. A small number of deaths under post-release supervision, including those that occur in Approved Premises, are independently investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
The number of offenders who died under supervision increased from 704 in 2010/11 to 955 in 2017/18. The Offender Rehabilitation Act (ORA) was introduced on 1 February 2015 and resulted in an increase in the number of offenders on post-release supervision. While the total number of deaths under supervision has continued to increase, the number of deaths post-release fell by 8% in the last year, from 401 in 2016/17 to 367 in 2017/18.
The National Suicide Prevention Strategy identifies people in contact with the criminal justice system as a high-risk group, and we recognise that the time following release from prison can be a particularly high-risk period for suicide and for deaths from other causes. The primary role of probation is to protect the public and prevent re-offending, and people under supervision in the community are not in the care of HM Prison and Probation Service in the way that they are when in custody. While probation staff do everything they can to help offenders find access to vital services including healthcare, housing, and treatment for drug and alcohol problems, they do not have sole responsibility for caring for them. We are conducting a review of post-release deaths, which aims to identify what further actions may be appropriate to prevent them, while recognising that a range of other organisations share responsibility for their wellbeing.
We are also investing an extra £22m in ‘through-the-gate’ assistance for offenders, to help them find the support they need on issues such as housing, healthcare and employment, and they have the same access to these services as any other person in the community.
The number of deaths under post-release supervision during 2017/18, broken down by time elapsed since release and by cause of death, is in the attached table. The figures are taken from probation providers’ annual reports. Care is taken when processing and analysing them, but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many referrals have been made by (a) prison and (b) probation services to local authorities under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 duty to refer since October 2018.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Everyone leaving custody should have a safe and suitable home to go to on release; having somewhere to live gives people a stable platform from which to access health services, hold down a job and reduces the likelihood of them reoffending. While statutory responsibility for housing (including planning) and homelessness lies with local authorities in England, and with the Welsh Assembly in Wales, we are committed to working with other departments to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
There has been a gradual flow of referrals from prisons and probation providers since the commencement of the ‘Duty to Refer’ on 1 October 2018. Between 1 October and 30 June: 926 referrals made by probation staff were recorded on the probation operational database, NDELIUS; 613 referrals made by prison staff were recorded on the prison operational database, P-NOMIS.
Over the coming months we will be re-promoting the duty ten months on from commencement, while reviewing the guidance issued to reflect lessons learnt.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many children under the age of 18 have been released from custody without accommodation in the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost, as there would be a need to check individual records of young people released from custody in 2018/19.
The first step to reducing reoffending is making sure everyone leaving prison has access to secure and stable accommodation, and we work closely with local authorities to support offenders with their resettlement on release.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether members of the legal profession and the judiciary were (a) consulted as part of the review of the (i) civil legal aid means test threshold in 2008 and (ii) criminal legal aid means test threshold in 2009 and (b) consulted when the government has evaluated the legal aid means test thresholds since those dates.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
There was no formal consultation with members of the legal profession or the Judiciary as part of the review of the civil legal aid means test threshold in 2009 and the criminal legal aid means test threshold in 2008 or subsequently.
We are currently reviewing the changes made to legal aid as part of the Post-Implementation Review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012 and have engaged with over 80 organisations as part of the evidence gathering process. We will use all the evidence we receive as part of our wider work to establish how best we can empower people to resolve their problems in a modern justice system.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate the Government has made of the cost to the Ministry of Justice budget of the increased number of litigants in person as a result of the means test threshold not being uprated in line with inflation in (a) civil legal aid since 2008 and (b) criminal legal aid since 2009.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We are currently reviewing the changes made to legal aid as part of the Post-Implementation Review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012 and have engaged with over 80 organisations as part of the evidence gathering process. We will use all the evidence we receive as part of our wider work to establish how best we can empower people to resolve their problems in a modern justice system.
Unrepresented parties have always been a feature of the civil and family justice system. Since 2015, the Government has invested £5 million of funding to support litigants in person through a range of measures designed to provide additional information, support and guidance.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing providing legal aid support to potentially trafficked people to ensure that they are able to make an informed decision on whether to enter the National Referral Mechanism.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Government has always been clear that publicly-funded immigration legal advice is available for individuals identified as potential victims of trafficking or modern slavery.
There is specific legal aid provision for victims of modern slavery and human trafficking for immigration advice and representation, including assistance with applications for leave to enter or remain, subject to means and merits.
However, advice on whether to enter the National Referral Mechanism, such as that provided by a first responder or local authority, would not be within the scope of legal aid funding.