A Bill to Impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness; to make provision for the enforcement of that duty in their dealings with inquiries and investigations; to require public authorities to promote and take steps to maintain ethical conduct within all parts of the authority; to create an offence in relation to public authorities and public officials who mislead the public; to create further offences in relation to the misconduct of persons who hold public office and to abolish the common law offence of misconduct in public office; to make provision enabling persons to participate at inquiries and investigations where the conduct of public authorities may be in issue; and for connected purposes.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 87 of the Justice Select Committee's report on Prison Population 2022, published in March 2019, whether his Department has made an assessment of the savings that could be achieved by moving from prison to community support; and if he will place a copy of that assessment in the Library.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Ministry of Justice has not made a detailed assessment of possible savings of moving from prison to community support illustrated by the case study on page 87 of the Justice Select Committee’s report. However, the Female Offender Strategy, published in June 2018, noted that Government had estimated that female offenders cost the public purse approximately £1.7bn in 2015/16, including estimated police costs of c.£1bn. This excluded wider social costs, such as the cost of intergenerational offending. The Government recognises that community sentences offer the opportunity to support women to effectively address the underlying causes of offending behaviour and to secure and maintain stable accommodation. We have several initiatives underway that are looking to encourage use of robust community sentences as an alternative to custody for women, including Problem Solving Courts, Community Sentence Treatment Requirements, Electronic Monitoring and a Pre-Sentence Report pilot, as well as our plans to open a first Residential Women’s Centre in Wales.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the oral contribution by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice of 9 November 2021, Official Report , column 160, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of Cart-type judicial review cases on the Crown Court backlog.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
In the oral contribution by the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Justice to which he refers, the PUS refers to the ‘precious resource’ of High Court Judges. As it states on judiciary.uk: ‘High Court judges can hear the most serious and sensitive cases in the Crown Court (for example murder)’. Our impact assessment sets out the Cart judicial review measure will save 172-180 judge days per year in the High Court and Upper Tribunal. A High Court Judge, who would otherwise be devoting time to considering Cart judicial review, may therefore instead devote that time to considering other serious cases in the Crown Court.
We continue to take action to tackle the impact the pandemic has had on our criminal justice system, including Crown Court backlog.
The Judicial Review and Courts Bill provides the Crown Court with increased flexibility to return certain cases to the magistrates’ court, helping support court recovery by saving an estimated 400 Crown Court sitting days per year.
We have allocated over a quarter of a billion pounds on recovery in the last financial year, making court buildings safe, rolling out new technology for remote hearings, recruiting additional staff and opening Nightingale courtrooms, including retaining 32 Nightingale Court rooms until the end of March 2022.
The Ministry of Justice’s Spending Review settlement provides £477 million to improve waiting times for victims and to reduce Crown Court backlogs caused by the pandemic.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to establish the error rate on non-covid-19 related single justice procedure cases.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
In any system, errors can occur and there are processes in place to correct them, including the right to appeal against a decision that is believed to be wrong, but we do not maintain a separate system to monitor such corrections in the case of the Single Justice Procedure.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department has taken to contact defendants using the Single Justice Procedure whose prosecutions were subject to errors and to rectify errant outcomes.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
As with all other types of cases dealt with by magistrates courts, if an error is made by the court, whether upon conviction or sentencing, whilst using the Single Justice Procedure we would always notify the defendant and correct any error following the case being re-opened.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
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 disability profile of Single Justice Procedure defendants.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
The Single Justice Procedure written notice and on-line process has been designed with input from users and a wide range of organisations at public user events. We are not aware of any specific impacts on particular groups. Defendants who choose to opt into the Single Justice Procedure will be carefully guided through the process and will have access to both telephone and face to face support. For those who decide to proceed with a hearing, the necessary adjustments will be made at court in the usual way.