Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what male supportive gender specific rape and abuse support services were commissioned directly by his Department in 2025; and if he will list each service and how much spending was allocated to each in 2025.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund (RASASF) is centrally commissioned by the Department. Its purpose is to provide specialist support to victims of rape and sexual abuse. RASASF-funded activities provide holistic, trauma-informed, survivor-led support to all victims who have experienced rape or sexual abuse at any point in their lives, regardless of their gender, where they live in England and Wales or whether they report the crime to the police.
RASASF-funded organisations deliver a wide range of services: some RASASF-funded organisations only offer services to male victims; many organisations offer services to both male and female victims; others only offer services to female victims. The Department also provides funding to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) who commission local practical, emotional and therapeutic services based on an assessment of need in their area.
Details of organisations awarded RASASF grants for the period 01 August 2023 to 31 March 2025 are published online: Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund 2023 to 2025: Organisations awarded funding - GOV.UK. Grant funding award amounts for financial year 2025-26 were the same as the published amount for 2024-25. Exceptions are where RASASF-funded organisations have closed down and the Department has re-directed the funds to other specialist organisations within the PCC area. We continue to consider how best to share information on this fund in the public domain.
Alongside the RASASF, the Ministry of Justice funds the 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, which offers victims, aged 16 and over, access to free and confidential emotional support whenever they need it. Where appropriate, the service will also signpost victims to longer-term support services, such as therapeutic support.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what percentage of calls to the 24/7 rape support line were answered substantively within 5 minutes in a) July 2025, b) August 2025 , c) September 2025 , d) October 2025, e) November 2025 and f) December 2025.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice is committed to ensuring that all victims and survivors aged 16 and over have access to free and confidential emotional and listening support through the 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, currently delivered by Rape Crisis England and Wales.
We are currently in the process of re-commissioning the grant funding for a national sexual abuse support line. As the competition is live, it would not be appropriate to place additional data into the public domain that could be used to inform applications for the new grant but has not been shared through the formal competition process; doing so could compromise fairness of the competition.
Due to the anonymity of users of the service, capturing accurate data is challenging. As part of the new grant, we are looking to improve data collection and quality assurance to obtain more reliable management information for publication.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many call handlers were employed to staff the 24/7 rape support line in a) July 2025, b) August 2025, c) September 2025, d) October 2025, e) November 2025, and f) December 2025.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice is committed to ensuring that all victims and survivors aged 16 and over have access to free and confidential emotional and listening support through the 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, currently delivered by Rape Crisis England and Wales.
We are currently in the process of re-commissioning the grant funding for a national sexual abuse support line. As the competition is live, it would not be appropriate to place additional data into the public domain that could be used to inform applications for the new grant but has not been shared through the formal competition process; doing so could compromise fairness of the competition.
Due to the anonymity of users of the service, capturing accurate data is challenging. As part of the new grant, we are looking to improve data collection and quality assurance to obtain more reliable management information for publication.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what percentage of calls to the 24/7 Rape Support Line were answered in a) July 2025, b) August 2025, c) September 2025, d) October 2025, e) November 2025 and f) December 2025.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice is committed to ensuring that all victims and survivors aged 16 and over have access to free and confidential emotional and listening support through the 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, currently delivered by Rape Crisis England and Wales.
We are currently in the process of re-commissioning the grant funding for a national sexual abuse support line. As the competition is live, it would not be appropriate to place additional data into the public domain that could be used to inform applications for the new grant but has not been shared through the formal competition process; doing so could compromise fairness of the competition.
Due to the anonymity of users of the service, capturing accurate data is challenging. As part of the new grant, we are looking to improve data collection and quality assurance to obtain more reliable management information for publication.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what was the number of calls to the 24/7 rape support line in a) July 2025, b) August 2025 , c) September 2025 , d) October 2025, e) November 2025 and f) December 2025.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice is committed to ensuring that all victims and survivors aged 16 and over have access to free and confidential emotional and listening support through the 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, currently delivered by Rape Crisis England and Wales.
We are currently in the process of re-commissioning the grant funding for a national sexual abuse support line. As the competition is live, it would not be appropriate to place additional data into the public domain that could be used to inform applications for the new grant but has not been shared through the formal competition process; doing so could compromise fairness of the competition.
Due to the anonymity of users of the service, capturing accurate data is challenging. As part of the new grant, we are looking to improve data collection and quality assurance to obtain more reliable management information for publication.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when will the strategic governance review of the Probationary Service be published.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Government has committed to undertake a strategic review of the Probation Service in its manifesto. We remain committed to this and will review governance arrangements, looking at local partnerships across England and Wales.
This work will follow implementation of the Sentencing Bill reforms, which will significantly change how the Probation Service operates. Governance arrangements must be designed to enable and support the effective delivery of these reforms. Our priority is to ensure the Probation Service is on a stable footing and performance has improved before undertaking the review.
In the meantime, this Government will continue to strengthen joint working with local partners to reduce reoffending and better protect the public.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what percentage of women sentenced to custody in (a) 2023, (b) 2024 and (c) 2025 received sentences of six months and fewer.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Latest Criminal Justice Statistics data published to the end of June 2025 shows that for female defendants aged 18 or over:
In 2023, 3,268 women received a custodial sentence of six months or less, representing 68% of all female custodial sentences.
In 2024, 4,078 women received a custodial sentence of six months or less, representing 71% of all female custodial sentences.
Between January and June 2025, 2,199 women received a custodial sentence of six months or less, representing 71% of all female custodial sentences during this period.
*Please note: The most recent published sentencing data is available up to June 2025.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of Crown Courts had specialist rape courts in place on 1 January 2026.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have a record and rising backlog, and as a result rape cases are waiting too long to be heard. We are therefore taking decisive action to address this backlog through bold court reforms, which we announced following Sir Brian Leveson’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts. These reforms will speed up justice for all victims, including those of rape.
Alongside these reforms we are committed to improving the experience of attending court for victims of rape across all Crown Courts. We will be introducing a package of legislative measures to improve victims’ experience of giving evidence and to end reliance on so-called rape myths in the courtroom; we are rolling-out trauma-informed training for all HMCTS criminal court staff; and we have also committed to ensuring that the Operation Soteria model, which focuses investigations on the suspect and away from the victim, is continued in the courtroom post-charge.
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the open caseload was for the Crown Court in England and Wales at the start of each month since June 2024.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Crown Court outstanding caseload remains one of the biggest challenges facing the Criminal Justice System. The caseload has risen substantially over recent years due to the pandemic and a substantial increase in the number of cases coming to court. The latest published data shows that the outstanding caseload stood at 76,957 at the end of March 2025.
For this financial year (25/26), this Government is funding a record allocation of Crown Court sitting days to deliver swifter justice for victims – 110,000 sitting days next year, 4,000 higher than the last Government funded. We also funded 108,500 sitting days in the Crown Court in the last financial year - the highest level in almost 10 years (since FY15/16).
However, the scale of the challenge is beyond what increasing sitting days can achieve. That is why the Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to chair an Independent Review of Criminal Courts, to propose once-in-a-generation reform that will improve timeliness in the courts and deliver swifter justice for victims. The first part of the Review now been published. We will carefully consider Sir Brian’s proposals before setting out the Government’s full response in the autumn.
The number of open Crown Court cases at the end of each quarter is published in Table_C1 of the Criminal Court Statistics quarterly release: Criminal court statistics Q1 2025. Data have been published up to the end of March 2025.
A monthly breakdown, as requested from June 2024 to March 2025 is provided below. We extract data for the end of the month rather than the start of each month, so we have provided month end figures in the table below.
Month | Open Crown Court caseload at the end of the month |
May 2024 | 70,133 |
June 2024 | 70,978 |
July 2024 | 71,419 |
August 2024 | 72,853 |
September 2024 | 73,118 |
October 2024 | 73,641 |
November 2024 | 74,121 |
December 2024 | 74,592 |
January 2025 | 75,299 |
February 2025 | 75,905 |
March 2025 | 76,957 |
Asked by: Edward Argar (Conservative - Melton and Syston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on what date the last of the prisoners who were released in error in September 2024 under the SDS40 early release scheme returned to prison.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
All of the 37 people released in error, because of being incorrectly sentenced for breaching restraining orders under outdated legislation, were returned to custody.
The last of the 37 prisoners was returned to custody on 28 September 2024.