Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many meetings (a) he has and (b) Ministers of his Department have had with the operator of Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre since inspectors issued an Urgent Notification in respect of that Centre in December 2020.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
Following the invoking of the Urgent Notification protocol at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre (STC) last December, Ministers called an urgent meeting with senior representatives from the provider MTC. HMPPS officials were then instructed to deploy to Rainsbrook to scrutinise actions taken by MTC in response to the Urgent Notification. Subsequent meetings were conducted between officials, with regard to monitoring the Urgent Notification action plan. As this is a contracted service the YCS/HMPPS contract management and commercial teams have met internally and with MTC on a regular basis.
We ordered the provider to take the immediate action necessary to address the unacceptable failings at Rainsbrook, including a focus on ensuring all children in the Reverse Cohorting Unit had a suitable amount of time out of their room. Whilst inspectors acknowledged that this issue had been addressed, and that the Youth Custody Service had strengthened its oversight of the STC, a second Urgent Notification was invoked on 18 June following a full inspection of the centre with reference to separate serious concerns.
We have now transferred all children from Rainsbrook to alternative appropriate accommodation. Separately, we are also considering the future of the centre, with a further announcement to be made on this position in due course following conclusion of the current commercial matters.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were prosecuted for committing an offence under section 5 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 in England and Wales, up to December 2020, available in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool, which can be found here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/987731/HO-code-tool-principal-offence-2020.xlsx
Data showing the number of defendants prosecuted under section 5 of this Act, in England and Wales from 2010 to 2020 (latest available) can be found in the attached table.
The data supplied is a subset of published information from the Courts Proceedings database.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers have been (a) reprimanded, (b) dismissed and (c) convicted for being in possession of prohibited items including drugs while on duty in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. To answer this accurately each individual personnel file held on each prison officer in post over the last 10 years would need to be examined. Most older personnel files are still held in hard copy format and would need to be brought back from storage.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will provide a breakdown of the most recent (a) rape and (b) sexual assault (i) prosecution and (ii) conviction statistics by the ethnicity of the alleged victim or victims.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Due to a lack of data collected on victim characteristics, we do not have any rape or sexual assault statistics available on prosecutions or convictions by victim ethnicity.
However, I am able to provide data on the estimated prevalence rates of rape and sexual assault by victim ethnicity. This can be found at Sexual offences prevalence and victim characteristics, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).
Information on the ethnicity of the alleged victim or victims of rape and sexual assault offences is not centrally held within the court proceedings database. Overall information on prosecutions and convictions for rape and sexual assault offences in England and Wales, up to December 2020, is available in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool, which can be found here:
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publishe the backlog of outstanding cases at the start of July for each year since 2010 in every Crown Court open in England and Wales.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The number of outstanding cases by Crown Court for each year since 2014 is currently published as part of the National Statistics publication ‘Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly’ in the ‘Crown Court cases received, disposed, outstanding tool’. The published data for the second quarters of these years reflects the outstanding caseload in Crown Courts at the end of June of those respective years. The most recent data can be found in Criminal Statistics Quartely January to March 2021 linked below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2021
and the received, disposed and outstanding tool can be accessed here:
This data is only available split by individual Crown Court back to 2014.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many persons convicted of rape have received a sentence of less than (a) five, (b) seven and (c) 10 years imprisonment in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions and convictions for rape and offences in England and Wales, up to December 2020, available in the ‘Outcomes by Offence’ data tool, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/987715/outcomes-by-offence-2020.xlsx
In order to isolate rape offences, type ‘rape’ into the ‘Offence’ filter and select all results that appear (19C-19H). Rows 55 to 77 will display a range of values based on sentence lengths.
Rape and sexual violence are devastating crimes that have a long-lasting impact on victims. Provisions in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, currently before Parliament, will ensure that all serious sexual offenders, including those convicted of rape, will be required to serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison if given a standard determinate sentence of more than 4 years.
It is regrettable that you voted against this.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average fine given to an offender guilty of pet theft was in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government recognises the deep distress which the theft of a much-loved pet can cause. All reported crimes should be investigated and, where appropriate, taken through the courts and met with tough sentences. Theft is a criminal offence under the Theft Act 1968 and the maximum penalty is seven years’ imprisonment. The sentencing guidelines for theft, acknowledge that theft which causes emotional distress, or where the items stolen were of substantial value to the loser, regardless of monetary worth, will indicate a higher level of seriousness and the offender should be sentenced accordingly.
There are a range of offences under the Theft Act 1968 which could relate to the theft of a pet depending on the individual circumstances of the case. Centrally held information on theft offences does not identify if a pet specifically was stolen. The information may be held on court record but to be able to identify cases in which pets were stolen would require access to individual court records which would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of offenders found guilty of the theft of a pet received a custodial sentence in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government recognises the deep distress which the theft of a much-loved pet can cause. All reported crimes should be investigated and, where appropriate, taken through the courts and met with tough sentences. Theft is a criminal offence under the Theft Act 1968 and the maximum penalty is seven years’ imprisonment. The sentencing guidelines for theft, acknowledge that theft which causes emotional distress, or where the items stolen were of substantial value to the loser, regardless of monetary worth, will indicate a higher level of seriousness and the offender should be sentenced accordingly.
There are a range of offences under the Theft Act 1968 which could relate to the theft of a pet depending on the individual circumstances of the case. Centrally held information on theft offences does not identify if a pet specifically was stolen. The information may be held on court record but to be able to identify cases in which pets were stolen would require access to individual court records which would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders were sentenced to four years or more for the theft of a pet in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government recognises the deep distress which the theft of a much-loved pet can cause. All reported crimes should be investigated and, where appropriate, taken through the courts and met with tough sentences. Theft is a criminal offence under the Theft Act 1968 and the maximum penalty is seven years’ imprisonment. The sentencing guidelines for theft, acknowledge that theft which causes emotional distress, or where the items stolen were of substantial value to the loser, regardless of monetary worth, will indicate a higher level of seriousness and the offender should be sentenced accordingly.
There are a range of offences under the Theft Act 1968 which could relate to the theft of a pet depending on the individual circumstances of the case. Centrally held information on theft offences does not identify if a pet specifically was stolen. The information may be held on court record but to be able to identify cases in which pets were stolen would require access to individual court records which would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders were convicted of pet theft in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government recognises the deep distress which the theft of a much-loved pet can cause. All reported crimes should be investigated and, where appropriate, taken through the courts and met with tough sentences. Theft is a criminal offence under the Theft Act 1968 and the maximum penalty is seven years’ imprisonment. The sentencing guidelines for theft, acknowledge that theft which causes emotional distress, or where the items stolen were of substantial value to the loser, regardless of monetary worth, will indicate a higher level of seriousness and the offender should be sentenced accordingly.
There are a range of offences under the Theft Act 1968 which could relate to the theft of a pet depending on the individual circumstances of the case. Centrally held information on theft offences does not identify if a pet specifically was stolen. The information may be held on court record but to be able to identify cases in which pets were stolen would require access to individual court records which would be of disproportionate cost.