Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department plans to implement any of the recommendations of the report, Joint Serious Case Review Concerning Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adults with Needs for Care and Support in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, published by the Newcastle Safeguarding Children Board and Newcastle Safeguarding Adults Board.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Child sexual exploitation is abhorrent and the crimes perpetrated in Newcastle have had a devastating impact on the lives of the victims. The Government acknowledges the seriousness of the issues raised in this serious case review and is committed to improving the national response to tackling sexual exploitation.
We have already taken significant action to tackle this issue. In February 2017, the Government published its Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation: Progress Report and announced a £40m package of measures to protect children and young people from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking, and to crack down on offenders. This included £7.5m for a new, ground-breaking Centre of Expertise that will identify, generate, and share high quality evidence of what works to prevent and tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 contains a wide range of offences designed to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation and provides robust sentences that reflect the seriousness of this offending. We keep these areas of the criminal law under review to ensure it is fully equipped to deal with the scourge of sexual offending against children and young people. For example, in April 2017, we commenced the offence of “sexual communications with a child”, building on existing “grooming” offences.
The recommendations of the review cover a wide range of issues, which we will consider carefully in the context of this existing programme of work.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what discussions he has had with the Law Commission on including a review of whether the UK's corporate laws are fit for purpose in its 13th programme of law reform.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Secretary of State for Justice has had no discussions with the Law Commission about including a review of the UK’s corporate laws in their 13th programme of Law Reform.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many special educational needs and disability appeals were conceded by local authorities within seven days before the hearing date of the appeal in each of the last five years.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many special educational needs and disability appeals for children with autistic spectrum disorder were (a) decided, (b) withdrawn and (c) granted in the last five years; and what costs were awarded in respect of those appeals.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The information requested at (a) – (c) is published in the Tribunals and Gender Recognition Certificate Statistics Quarterly on gov.uk at the following: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunals-and-gender-recognition-certificate-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2016.
HMCTS only holds management information on costs awarded since September 2014. In the period September 2014 to August 2016 (the last two complete years of the published annual statistics) costs were awarded in 12 of the autistic spectrum disorder cases determined at hearing.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when her Department expects to complete its review into employment tribunal fees.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
We will publish the conclusions of our review of Employment Tribunal fees in due course.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what account her Department plans to take of the findings of BIS Research Paper No. 235, on pregnancy and maternity-related discrimination and disadvantage, published in July 2015, in its review of employment tribunal fees.
Answered by Oliver Heald
We are considering the Joint Report of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Equality and Human Rights Commission on Pregnancy and maternity-related discrimination and disadvantage as part of the review of fees in the Employment Tribunals. We expect to publish the conclusions of the review in due course.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the net income from employment tribunal fees was for the (a) first and (b) second quarter of 2016-17.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The net fee income for employment tribunals fees in the first and second quarter of 2016-17 is set out in the table below.
|
|
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Net Fee Income 2016-17 | Q1 | Q2 |
Employment Tribunals | £1.97m | £1.99m |
It cannot be right that hardworking taxpayers should pick up the entire bill for employment disputes in tribunals and it is only fair that those who can afford to do so should make some contribution to the cost of the service.
To protect vulnerable workers, there is a system of fee remissions under which fees may be waived in part or in full, for those who qualify.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to her Department's press release of 12 May 2016, entitled New plans to tackle corporate fraud, when she plans to launch a consultation on plans to extend the scope of the corporate offence of failing to prevent to economic crimes beyond bribery and tax evasion.
Answered by Oliver Heald
There will be an update on the announced initiative in due course.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to pages 49-50 of the Survey of the Provision in the UK of Access to Remedies for Victims of Human Rights Harms involving Business Enterprises, by the British Institute for International and Comparative Law, published on 17 July 2015, what assessment he has made of the merits of the report's recommendations to (a) establish a permanent cross-government Business and Human Rights Unit and (b) extend some aspects of UK criminal law legislation to provide access to remedies to victims of human rights abuses by business enterprises overseas.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The Government has no plans to establish a permanent cross-government Business and Human Rights Unit; however, departments continue to cooperate as necessary. Victims of overseas human rights abuses by UK businesses can already seek redress through UK courts. We are one of the few jurisdictions in the world where this can happen.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 12 January 2016 to Question 20722, what figures his Department used for the number of motor accidents in each year from 2006 to 2015 in formulating that Answer.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Data on the number of motor accidents between 2006 and 2015 was obtained from publicly available datasets published by the Department for Transport. This data can be obtained from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/497176/ras45004.xls
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/461863/ras10013.xls