Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many women in prison have been refused a place in a mother and baby unit in each of the last five years.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The table below details the number of applications that were made for a place on a prison mother and baby unit in the last five financial years, together with the number of applications approved and refused.
Table: Mother & Baby Units (MBU) Management Information, by year 2010/11 to 2016/171
| 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 |
Number of applications received for admission to MBU | 215 | 210 | 197 | 144 | 119 |
Number of applications approved by a board2 | 114 | 80 | 74 | 69 | 61 |
Number of applications refused by a board2 | 33 | 28 | 32 | 41 | 16 |
(1) Figures are management information drawn from administrative data systems. They are provisional figures and subject to change following final quality assurance. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.
(2) Not all applications to MBUs will be approved or refused, many will not proceed for other reasons. Applications may not be assessed in the month in which they are received.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Government is taking to monitor proper and effective implementation of section 41 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 in sexual violence cases.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Our report on section 41 and how it operates in practice, including further steps the Government is taking, was published on 14 December 2017 and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/limiting-the-use-of-complainants-sexual-history-in-sexual-offence-cases
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of bringing non-asylum immigration claims for children back into scope of legal aid.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government is committed to the protection of vulnerable children, especially in cases where children lack adequate parental support. Changes to the availability of legal aid for civil legal cases were made in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) and as such a consideration of the effects of the changes will be made as part of our Post-Implementation Review of the Act, which will report by summer recess 2018.
Support for children in non-asylum immigration cases remains available through the Exceptional Case Funding Scheme (ECF) where failure to provide legal aid would breach their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights or EU law, subject to means and merits tests.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Welsh women have been sentenced to prison in the last 12 months.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The Ministry of Justice does not collect information on which country within the United Kingdom British citizens identify with. However, the number of female offenders sentenced to custody at all courts in Wales, in 2016, by month, can be viewed in the table below. Due to this, we cannot separately identify which of these women identify as Welsh.
Female offenders sentenced to immediate custody at all courts, Wales, 2016, by month (1)(2) | ||
| Sentenced | Of which immediate custody |
January | 2,167 | 47 |
February | 2,344 | 47 |
March | 2,522 | 52 |
April | 2,344 | 53 |
May | 2,295 | 48 |
June | 2,574 | 50 |
July | 1,983 | 63 |
August | 2,577 | 53 |
September | 2,377 | 65 |
October | 1,996 | 53 |
November | 2,289 | 51 |
December | 1,753 | 41 |
Total | 27,201 | 623 |
(1) The sentence shown is the most severe sentence given for the principal offence (i.e. the principal sentence), secondary sentences given for the principal offence and sentences for non-principal offences are not counted in the tables.
(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.
We are committed to doing all we can to address the issues around female offending so we can better protect the public and deliver more effective rehabilitation. We also are developing a strategy for female offenders, in England and Wales, to improve outcomes for women in the community and custody.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average number of Welsh women sentenced to prison per month is.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The Ministry of Justice does not collect information on which country within the United Kingdom British citizens identify with. However, the number of female offenders sentenced to custody at all courts in Wales, in 2016, by month, can be viewed in the table below. Due to this, we cannot separately identify which of these women identify as Welsh.
Female offenders sentenced to immediate custody at all courts, Wales, 2016, by month (1)(2) | ||
| Sentenced | Of which immediate custody |
January | 2,167 | 47 |
February | 2,344 | 47 |
March | 2,522 | 52 |
April | 2,344 | 53 |
May | 2,295 | 48 |
June | 2,574 | 50 |
July | 1,983 | 63 |
August | 2,577 | 53 |
September | 2,377 | 65 |
October | 1,996 | 53 |
November | 2,289 | 51 |
December | 1,753 | 41 |
Total | 27,201 | 623 |
(1) The sentence shown is the most severe sentence given for the principal offence (i.e. the principal sentence), secondary sentences given for the principal offence and sentences for non-principal offences are not counted in the tables.
(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.
We are committed to doing all we can to address the issues around female offending so we can better protect the public and deliver more effective rehabilitation. We also are developing a strategy for female offenders, in England and Wales, to improve outcomes for women in the community and custody.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Welsh women are serving sentences in Eastwood Park prison.
Answered by Phillip Lee
Closeness to home is one of a number of factors considered when choosing where to place prisoners. We also consider other factors such as length of sentence, security category and offending behaviour requirements.
The following table shows how many women with a Welsh origin address are serving sentences in Eastwood Park prison. This is based on data as at 30 September 2017.
Sentence Status | Total |
(1) Sent | 50 |
(2) Sent 12m - | 38 |
(3) Sent 4 y+ | 18 |
(4) IPP | ≤5 |
(5) Life | ≤5 |
(6) Recall | 15 |
(7) Unknown | ≤5 |
Total | 125 |
If a request is made for information and the total figure amounts to five people or fewer, the MoJ must consider whether this could lead to the identification of individuals and whether disclosure of this information would be in breach of our statutory obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). We believe that the release of some of this information would risk identification of the individuals concerned. For this reason, MoJ has chosen not to provide an exact figure where the true number falls between one and five. However, it should not be assumed that the actual figure represented falls at any particular point within this scale; '≤5' is used as a replacement value from which it would be difficult to isolate or extract any individual data.
It is important to stress that it is not possible to infer from an address in Wales that an individual considers themselves Welsh. HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) cannot identify English and Welsh prisoners. Someone with an address, for example in London, may well consider themselves to be Welsh, while someone with an address in Wales may not. UK nationals have a nationality of British. Therefore the data shown are not necessarily representative of those who identify as English or Welsh. The results are sorted by origin address (home address on reception into custody) and not nationality. English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish are not captured on our database as separate nationalities.
Around 97% of prisoners have an origin location - i.e. addresses that are recorded in our central IT system. If no address is given, an offender’s committal court address is used as a proxy for the area in which they are resident. This information is included in the data provided in the tables above. Those with no recorded origin are typically foreign nationals or those recently received into custody. No address has been recorded and no court information is available for around 3% of all offenders; these figures are excluded from the tables attached.
The numerical information provided has been drawn from administrative IT systems, which as with any large scale recording system are subject to possible error with data entry and processing. Further guidance on the considerations for processing a request under FOIA, can be found by following the links: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/contents and http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/foi-step-by-step.htm
Female prisons HMP/YOI Eastwood Park and HMP/YOI Styal, which both hold a number of Welsh offenders, employ Welsh speaking members of staff and provide written information in Welsh. On release offenders from Wales also have access to Through The Gate services including help with accommodation, employment and training to help them adjust to life outside prison and prevent reoffending.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to build a women’s prison in Wales.
Answered by Phillip Lee
We are committed to doing all we can to address the issues around female offending so we can better protect the public and deliver more effective rehabilitation. We are developing a strategy for female offenders to improve outcomes for women in the community and custody. Further announcements will be made in due course.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve the transitional process from prison to release for women.
Answered by Phillip Lee
Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are required to deliver Through-the-Gate services to female prisoners to help them resettle in the community. These should be tailored to the particular needs of offenders.
We recognise that the current delivery of Through-the-Gate services is, in some areas, falling short of our expectations. We are working with providers to improve services and considering further action that we might take.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applications made by transgender prisoners for transfer to a prison of their chosen gender have been approved since the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 relating to gender reassignment came into force.
Answered by Phillip Lee
This information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that adequate (a) funding and (b) other support is allocated to female prisoners on release from custodial sentences to assist with their reintegration into society.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Community Rehabilitation Companies are contracted to provide ‘through-the-gate’ support to all female offenders on release from custody, and we are engaging with providers about how we can do more to improve the delivery of resettlement services.
We are committed to ensuring that the complex needs of this vulnerable cohort of offenders are met as they are released from custody, and will provide more details in our strategy for female offenders, which we will publish later this year.