Asked by: Gavin Shuker (Independent - Luton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
What recent discussions he has had with the Prime Minister on the rule of law.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor meet regularly and discuss a range of matters. The Lord Chancellor has sworn an oath to respect the rule of law and to defend the judiciary. It is an oath he takes very seriously. The government will always abide by the law.
Asked by: Gavin Shuker (Independent - Luton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions in the last year private prisons have required the support of HM Prison Service to deal with concerted indiscipline.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
HM Prison Service, and other contracted establishment resources, have been deployed to contracted prisons, as part of our established mutual aid arrangements, to assist with the resolution of concerted indiscipline on three occasions within the last twelve months. The details are as follows;
On each occasion the National Tactical Response Group were also deployed to provide specialist incident management support including advanced tactical options, advice, planning and development of intervention options.
Asked by: Gavin Shuker (Independent - Luton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to review the capability of (a) HM Prison Service and (b) contracted-out prisons to respond to incidents of concerted indiscipline.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Concerted indiscipline is defined as an incident in which two or more prisoners act together in defiance of a lawful instruction or against the requirements of the regime of the establishment. Such incidents can cover wide range of circumstances, with most quickly resolved locally but others requiring varying levels of more significant intervention. We are continually reviewing prisons across the public and private estates, and supporting them to mitigate the risk of serious incidents and provide effective responses to incidents that do occur.
This process draws on a wide range of local data and intelligence reported daily by Governors, and assessed alongside other data, such as independent assessments from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons. I review this data regularly with the Chief Executive and other senior leaders.
Interventions available to prevent risks escalating include deploying extra staff on detached duty and overtime, installing extra CCTV, or making fast improvements to building facilities where damage presents risks. Measures are also taken when appropriate to segregate prisoners, provide extra detection or blocking equipment and provide additional search teams. Under the mutual aid process, there are agreements between both public and private prisons which enable them to support each other to respond to significant incidents effectively. If the incident is significant enough, we bolster the local response by deploying specialist (Tornado) teams. Following this, we help stabilise prisons after incidents by transferring disruptive prisoners.
In response to incidents in late 2016 we are improving this existing capability by resourcing two additional, national dog teams to support more perimeter patrols, helping prevent throw overs and drone operations. We are also increasing the number of Tornado-trained staff by 10%. In addition, as part of our wider investment in staffing levels we are increasing intelligence and dedicated search capability at prison level.
In the longer-term, we are improving prisons’ capacity to mitigate and respond to risks of incidents by increasing prison officer numbers by 2,500 and introducing of a new offender management model. Under this model, residential officers in public sector prisons will have a caseload of 6 prisoners each to support and challenge. We expect private prisons to offer a model which also provides one-to-one support for each prisoner.
Asked by: Gavin Shuker (Independent - Luton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were (a) charged with and (b) convicted of paying for the sexual services of a child under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 in each calendar year since 2010.
Answered by Mike Penning
The number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates’ courts and found guilty at all courts of offences of paying for the sexual services of a child, under section 47 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, in England and Wales from 2010 to 2014, can be viewed in the table.
Charging data is not held by the Ministry of Justice.
Court proceedings data for 2015 are planned for publication in May 2016.
Defendants proceeded against at magistrates' court, found guilty and sentenced at all courts for offences relating to paying for sexual services of a child, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, England & Wales, 2010 to 2014(1)(2)(3) | |||||||
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Offence |
| Outcome | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
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Offences relating to paying for sexual services(4) |
| Proceeded against | 3 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 6 |
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| Found Guilty | 3 | 5 | 16 | 5 | 3 | |
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(-) = Nil |
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(1) The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. | |||||||
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(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. | |||||||
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(3) The number of defendants found guilty in a particular year may exceed the number proceeded against as the proceedings in the magistrates' court took place in an earlier year and the defendants were found guilty at the Crown Court in the following year; or the defendants were found guilty of a different offence to that for which they were originally proceeded against. | |||||||
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(4) Includes the following offences: |
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Paying for sex with a female child under 16 - no penetration |
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Paying for sex with a male child under 16 - no penetration |
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Paying for sex with a female child under 13 - penetration |
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Paying for sex with a male child under 16 - penetration |
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Paying for sex with a female child under 16 - penetration |
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Paying for sex with a female child 16 or 17 |
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Paying for sex with a male child 16 or 17 |
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Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice. |
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Ref: PQC 24517 |
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Asked by: Gavin Shuker (Independent - Luton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether the proposed offence of failure to prevent economic crime is intended to have extra-territorial effect where a UK link can be proven.
Answered by Mike Penning
The UK Anti-Corruption Plan, published in December 2014, tasks the Ministry of Justice to examine the case for a new offence of a corporate failure to prevent economic crime and the rules on establishing corporate criminal liability more widely. This work is progressing and any announcements on decisions will be made in due course.