Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many trials for (a) rape and (b) sexual assault have been delayed in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We have interpreted your request as being for ineffective trials, which is where the trial does not commence on the due date and requires rescheduling. This could be due to a variety of reasons, such as the absence of a defendant or a witness or adjournment requests from either the prosecution or defence.
Data on trial effectiveness is available in the trial effectiveness at the criminal courts tool and is published as part of the Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly release and can be filtered by offence group for adult rape and sexual offences. This can be accessed here: Criminal court statistics quarterly: October to December 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). However, information on ineffective trials broken down by offence are not available prior to 2014.
The number of ineffective trial volumes significantly increased in 2022; this was primarily due to the Criminal Bar Association action between April and September 2022.
It remains our priority to help deliver swifter access to justice for victims and reduce the Crown Court backlog. We are taking a range of measures to increase capacity in the criminal justice system, including removing the limit of sitting days in the Crown Court for the second financial year in a row.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reason the operational guidance on Pregnancy, MBUs and maternal separation in women’s prisons published on 17 May 2023 was unpublished on 19 May 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
On 20 September 2021, the Ministry of Justice published a new Policy Framework on Pregnancy, Mother and Baby Units and Maternal Separation from Children up to the Age to Two in Women’s Prisons. This filled a gap in policy provision as identified by the Policy Review and an important part of the organisational response to the learning from the Baby A investigation. The new policy was introduced with Operational Guidance for prison staff.
The Operational Guidance was published on Gov.uk on the 17 May 2023. This was removed on the 19 May 2023 after identification of an error. We will re-publish the guidance as soon as the issue is resolved.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the average time for a criminal case to be heard in court without a Section 28 video recording.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) does not hold information on the average time for a criminal case to be heard in court without via Section 28 video recording.
Data provide by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) shows for all cases disposed in the Crown Court that were received between 2020-01-01 and 2022-12-31 and the defendant plead ‘not guilty’, the median time between receipt and the main hearing was 280 days for cases without any Section 28. For the same cases, the median time between the receipt and the completion of the case was 372 days where there was no use of Section 28.
The figures supplied have been produced via experimental data matching based partly on live operational systems. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that figures provided are accurate and complete, they have not been verified to the same standards as National Statistics and may not exactly match the equivalent data in the Criminal Court Statistics publication.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent estimate he has made of the proportion of victims of rape who are offered the support of an independent sexual violence adviser at (a) reporting stage, (b) trial and (c) in-between the reporting of a case and a trial commencing in each of the last five years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We do not collect specific information on when a victim is offered the support of an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA); however, we know that ISVAs positively impact a victim’s experience of the criminal justice system. For example, research involving 585 reported rapes found that victims who received support from services such as ISVAs were almost 50% less likely to withdraw from the criminal justice investigation process compared to those who did not receive support. This is why the 24/7 Rape & Sexual Abuse Support Line includes signposting to ISVA services as well as vital information on emotional support, to ensure that ISVAs are signposted at the earliest opportunity.
In addition, we have quadrupled funding for victim and witness support services including using additional ringfenced funding to increase the number of ISVAs and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors by 300 to over 1,000 by 2024/2025 - a 43% on the number of ISVAs and IDVAs over this spending review period (2022/23 to 2024/25).
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many murder trials have been delayed since 2010.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have interpreted your request as being for ineffective trials, which is where the trial does not commence on the due date and requires rescheduling. This could be due to a variety of reasons, such as the absence of a defendant or a witness or adjournment requests from either the prosecution or defence.
Ineffective trial volumes for murder offences at the Crown Court from 2014 to 2022 can be found in the attached table. Information on ineffective trials broken down by offence are not available prior to 2014.
The number of ineffective trial volumes for murder offences significantly increased in 2022, this was primarily due to the Criminal Bar Association action between April and September 2022.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many victims of rape have dropped their case within (a) one month, (b) three months, (c) six months, (d) nine months, (e) 12 months, (f) 18 months and (g) two years of reporting it to the police.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Victims can withdraw from their cases at various stages throughout the criminal justice system. We do not hold central data that shows the length of time from victims’ initial reports to their withdrawal.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 15 May to Question 184465 on Parole: Standards, what information his Department holds on the total financial cost of compensation paid in cases where parole board decisions have been successfully challenged in the last ten years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 15 May 2023 for PQ184465. Compensation data is not available in the format requested. The response to PQ185800 confirms what compensation data the Parole Board holds.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the amount of compensation paid out in relation to parole hearings.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Prisoners whose parole hearings have been delayed may be eligible to make a claim for compensation against the Parole Board. The Parole Board holds data on the compensation it has paid to eligible prisoners. In 2021-22, the last full year for which data is currently available, the Parole Board paid £86,000 in total in compensation to prisoners.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the average time for a criminal case to be heard in court via a Section 28 video recording.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) does not hold information on the average time for a criminal case to be heard in court via Section 28 video recording.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders were serving (a) sentences for manslaughter and (b) life sentences for manslaughter as of 17 May 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Published prison population data for the period requested is currently unavailable and is exempt under future publication rules. Prison population data, which will provide some of the data requested up to and including 30 June 2023, will be available at the end of July 2023.