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Written Question
Electric Scooters: Road Traffic Offences
Wednesday 1st February 2023

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many rental e-scooter riders have been convicted of causing an obstruction under regulation 103 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 since 2020.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

This information can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Children: Maintenance
Wednesday 26th October 2022

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of claims made against parents through Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders by the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre are successful.

Answered by Gareth Johnson

We do not hold the information requested regarding what proportion of correspondence to the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre was responded to within the working days requested. HMCTS does not collect data on response times.

We do not hold the information requested regarding how many members of staff at the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre have been assigned to handle public correspondence in each year since 2015. Staff in the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centres have mixed roles and are not employed purely to handle public correspondence. They rotate across all tasks to best meet the needs of the service on a flexible and ever-changing basis.

We do not hold the information requested regarding what proportion of claims made against parents through Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders by the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre are successful. HMCTS does not collect data on the outcome of cases which would allow for such an analysis.


Written Question
Children: Maintenance
Wednesday 26th October 2022

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many members of staff at the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre have been assigned to handle public correspondence in each year since 2015.

Answered by Gareth Johnson

We do not hold the information requested regarding what proportion of correspondence to the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre was responded to within the working days requested. HMCTS does not collect data on response times.

We do not hold the information requested regarding how many members of staff at the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre have been assigned to handle public correspondence in each year since 2015. Staff in the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centres have mixed roles and are not employed purely to handle public correspondence. They rotate across all tasks to best meet the needs of the service on a flexible and ever-changing basis.

We do not hold the information requested regarding what proportion of claims made against parents through Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders by the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre are successful. HMCTS does not collect data on the outcome of cases which would allow for such an analysis.


Written Question
Children: Maintenance
Wednesday 26th October 2022

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of correspondence to the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre was responded to within (a) 20 (b) 40 and (c) 60 or more working days in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Gareth Johnson

We do not hold the information requested regarding what proportion of correspondence to the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre was responded to within the working days requested. HMCTS does not collect data on response times.

We do not hold the information requested regarding how many members of staff at the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre have been assigned to handle public correspondence in each year since 2015. Staff in the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centres have mixed roles and are not employed purely to handle public correspondence. They rotate across all tasks to best meet the needs of the service on a flexible and ever-changing basis.

We do not hold the information requested regarding what proportion of claims made against parents through Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders by the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre are successful. HMCTS does not collect data on the outcome of cases which would allow for such an analysis.


Written Question
Dementia: Human Rights
Monday 18th October 2021

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on ensuring the human rights of people living with dementia are adhered to.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

My Department works closely with the Department for Health and Social Care on a range of issues of mutual interest.

Improving the lives of people living with dementia is a top priority for this Government. We want a society where every person with dementia receives high quality, compassionate care, from diagnosis through to end of life.


Written Question
Domestic Abuse: Reoffenders
Tuesday 13th April 2021

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of polygraph tests in preventing reoffending by people convicted of domestic abuse related crimes.

Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

Requiring certain sexual offenders on licensed supervision to take polygraph tests has shown itself to be an effective means of protecting the public from harm, as part of a wider set of licence conditions, controls and interventions. As a result of the 5,228 tests carried out on 2,249 sexual offenders between 2015 and 2019, 1,449 significant disclosures were made, providing important information to probation officers which might not have been obtained from other sources. Probation officers have then used that disclosed information to question offenders or make other enquiries, to establish whether they have breached their licence conditions – and where they have, probation officers have taken robust enforcement action, including recalling offenders to custody.

Once statutory powers are available, working with the National Probation Service (NPS), the Cambridge Centre for Evidence Based Policing will conduct a three-year pilot of mandatory polygraph examinations for domestic abuse perpetrators released on licence and assessed as presenting a high risk of causing serious harm. The pilot will involve a randomised control trial, with high risk domestic abuse perpetrators in four of the 12 NPS Regions split into intervention and control groups. Those in the treatment group will be required to take a polygraph test three months after release from custody and every six months thereafter (unless they fail a test, in which case the tests will become more regular). Those in the control group will not be tested, so that we can assess the effectiveness of polygraph testing on outcomes such as compliance with licence conditions, recall rates and reoffending. At the end of the period, the Government will lay a copy of the evaluation report before each House of Parliament and, based on its findings, will make final decisions regarding wider roll out.

Polygraph testing will be one of a set of standard and additional licence conditions to which those in the trial will be subject. The other licence conditions may include exclusion zones preventing offenders going to certain places (usually near where victims live or work), non-contact conditions preventing them contacting victims and their families, curfews, electronic monitoring and completing behaviour treatment programmes.


Written Question
Prisons: Remote Education
Tuesday 19th January 2021

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that prison teachers and other staff with desk-based roles within prisons are only undertaking essential duties and that they are working remotely wherever possible to help contain the spread of covid-19.

Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The safety of staff and prisoners is our top priority, which is why we have taken quick and decisive action – backed by Public Health England and Wales – to limit the spread of the virus. Due to the current risk level posed by Covid-19, all adult prisons are currently operating a Stage Four regime, as outlined in our National Framework (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-national-framework-for-prison-regimes-and-services).

These restrictions reduce contact between people and therefore reduce the chance of transmission. As part of these measures, staff who can work from home, including teachers, are doing so, and since September education staff have delivered in-cell distance learning. For staff who cannot work from home, we have established Covid-safe workspaces with robust risk assessments and safe systems to ensure safety.

We have also introduced a comprehensive testing regime of both staff and prisoners to help prevent the spread of the virus. We are also working closely with the NHS to support the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccinations for eligible groups in custody. Our experience and evidence gathering provides an indication that these measures have had a positive impact on limiting the transmission of the virus in prisons.


Written Question
Post Offices: Convictions
Tuesday 17th March 2020

Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure the Criminal Case Review Commission is adequately resourced to process quickly the cases of former subpostmasters convicted due to errors in the Horizon IT system.

Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

The Government believes that the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is sufficiently funded for the valuable work that it undertakes including the work to complete its reviews into the Post Office Horizon cases, with the necessary speed and thoroughness.

For the 57 Post Office Horizon cases it is reviewing, the CCRC is currently preparing for a Case Decision Committee meeting, involving three Commissioners, on 24th March 2020.