Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been convicted of offences connected with the use of illegal number plates on vehicles in the last four years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on convictions for a variety of offences including offences involving the use of illegal number plates on vehicles, in the Outcomes by Offences tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal justice statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
The number of convictions related to the illegal use of vehicle number plates can be accessed by navigating to the ‘Overall Volumes’ tab and filtering the “HO offence code” drop down for:
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many perpetrators of cyber crime were (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted in (i) 2022, (ii) 2023 and (iii) 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
There are no offences specifically defined in legislation as “cyber crime,” however the Computer Misuse Act 1990 has a number of offences that could be considered as such.
The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data concerning prosecutions and convictions available here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to the report of the UK Law Commission's Criminal Appeals consultation.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Law Commission is currently reviewing the responses to its consultation, and we expect to receive the final report with recommendations by late 2026. Once we receive the report, the Government will carefully consider the findings and respond in due course.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department has taken to improve its search procedures, in the context of the research and analysis entitled Security Investment Programme Evaluation, published by his Department on 5 September 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
A full evaluation of the £100 Security Investment Programme, aimed to reduce crime in prison including reducing smuggling of drugs, was published on 5 September 2024 and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/security-investment-programme-evaluation.
Airport-style enhanced gate security, comprising of metal detectors and X-ray baggage scanners, is used in 54 high-risk prison sites (both private and public sector), enabling routine searching of prison officers. In addition, local security strategies allow for routine and random rub-down searches of prison officers and other staff upon entry to, or within, prisons.
This year, we are investing over £40 million in physical security across 34 prisons to further prevent contraband entering prisons.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 70325 on Ministry of Justice: Translation Services, what estimate she has made of the proportion of the spending between 2021 and 2024 that was attributable to people who have arrived in the UK since 2021.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
As this personal data is not collected in relation to the translation contract, the requested information cannot be provided.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 2 June 2025 to Question 53819 on Ministry of Justice: Translation Services, what was the change in the cost of language services between 2019 and 2024.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The cost for each of the four language service contracts in the years requested are in the table below (in £s):
| Face to face | Translation & Transcription | Visual and Tactile | Quality Assurance | Total |
2019 | 24,293,224.10 | 2,577,197.45 | 1,001,106.93 | 531,035.97 | 28,402,564.44 |
2020 | 16,425,864.81 | 2,066,580.04 | 1,199,690.68 | 525,412.56 | 20,217,548.09 |
2021 | 20,542,402.56 | 2,398,276.41 | 1,603,427.73 | 518,512.01 | 25,062,618.71 |
2022 | 23,189,695.49 | 1,816,523.53 | 1,480,500.68 | 512,592.01 | 26,999,311.71 |
2023 | 25,873,556.97 | 2,186,420.94 | 1,796,135.58 | 517,936.95 | 30,374,050.44 |
2024 | 26,729,057.53 | 2,826,541.95 | 1,550,246.80 | 519,312.07 | 31,625,158.35 |
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what representations she has received from the public on the use of reparations for those convicted of criminal offences.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Department has interpreted ‘representations’ to mean correspondence sent to the Secretary of State for Justice or her Ministers. One piece of correspondence related to this issue was received by the Department.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she plans plans to review the Legal Aid regulations where (a) assistance has been received for a case and (b) several appeals are lodged with legal aid assistance to prevent the release of information via Freedom of Information legislation about the cost of such assistance.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Legal aid for proceedings within England and Wales is subject to the provisions of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) and regulations made under that Act. The legislation places restrictions on the scope of services funded and the eligibility criteria which need to be satisfied before legal aid is granted.
Civil legal aid services relating to an appeal arising from or relating to a decision to release information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 are not within the scope of funded services. Legal aid may be available as exceptional case funding where failure to provide legal aid would breach or risk breaching an individual’s human rights or other enforceable legal rights. There are no plans to review the scope of legal aid in this area.
Applications for legal aid, including that provided as exceptional case funding, are subject to a merits test. This helps ensure that public funding is used responsibly and not spent on cases that are unlikely to succeed or are repeated without new grounds.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing Enhanced Combination Orders for more offences.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Enhanced Combination Orders are a disposal available in Northern Ireland. They are not available in England and Wales. Justice is devolved to Northern Ireland.
In England and Wales, as part of a community order, the Sentencing Framework gives courts the flexibility to choose and balance a range of requirements such as unpaid work and treatment, with the intention of punishing the offender, providing reparation to the community, and addressing any rehabilitative needs which may otherwise increase the likelihood of reoffending.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 6 June 2025 to Question 56158 on Prisons: Research, when she expects the research findings process for that Ipsos MORI research project to conclude.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Ministry of Justice officials received research findings from Ipsos MORI in November last year (2024) and are currently considering the implications of the work.
Research findings are published in accordance with Government Social Research guidelines, following a peer review process to ensure the quality and robustness of the work. Until that has taken place findings cannot be published.