Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of magistrate court capacity in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government inherited a record and rising courts backlog in the Crown Court. The impacts of a historic lack of investment in the criminal justice system and increased demand, due to more arrests and charging practices, means there is now also additional pressure on the magistrates’ courts.
We are committed to creating a more stable and sustainable criminal justice system, in which victims and the public can have confidence. We continue to build capacity in the magistrates’ courts, with 14,636 magistrates in post as of April 2025 across England and Wales, and we are uplifting our recruitment programme to bring in up to 2,000 new and diverse magistrates over the next 12 months. In addition, we are recruiting greater numbers of legal advisers to ensure our courts remain resilient.
In Greater Manchester, strong collaboration with criminal justice partners is driving improvements in efficiency and performance. Key areas of focus include police file quality, listing reviews to optimise court use, and ongoing cross-agency training to build capability and experience.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure offenders convinced of child criminal exploitation are not released into the same community as the victims on the completion of a custodial sentence.
Answered by Edward Argar
Individuals convicted of serious sexual, violent and terrorist offences are managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) on release from custody. MAPPA enables the Police, Probation and Prison Services to work together with other agencies to manage the risks posed by these individuals in the community, in order to protect victims and members of the public.
All offenders released from custodial sentences before the end of their sentence will be supervised on licence in the community by the Probation Service. Victims who opt in to the Victim Contact Scheme (VCS), which is available for victims of specified sexual or violent offences where the sentence is 12 months or more, have the statutory right to request licence conditions for when the offender is released. Typically, these conditions will include a non-contact condition and exclusion zones, prohibiting the offender from entering areas where the victim lives, works or travels to frequently.
Where victims do not qualify for the VCS, the supervising officer in the Probation Service will undertake a risk assessment and may request licence conditions to mitigate identified risks where they relate to victims of the index offence.
Licence conditions end when the offender completes his/her sentence. However, where the Police have concerns about an offender’s ongoing risk to a victim or the general public, they may apply may apply to the Magistrates Court for the imposition of a civil order, which may place restrictions or obligations on the offender which replicate some of the protections of the licence.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he is taking steps to ensure offenders convicted of Child Sexual Exploitation are not released into the same community as the victims on completion of a custodial sentence.
Answered by Edward Argar
Individuals convicted of serious sexual, violent and terrorist offences are managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) on release from custody. MAPPA enables the Police, Probation and Prison Services to work together with other agencies to manage the risks posed by these individuals in the community, in order to protect victims and members of the public.
All offenders released from custodial sentences before the end of their sentence will be supervised on licence in the community by the Probation Service. Victims who opt in to the Victim Contact Scheme (VCS), which is available for victims of specified sexual or violent offences where the sentence is 12 months or more, have the statutory right to request licence conditions for when the offender is released. Typically, these conditions will include a non-contact condition and exclusion zones, prohibiting the offender from entering areas where the victim lives, works or travels to frequently.
Where victims do not qualify for the VCS, the supervising officer in the Probation Service will undertake a risk assessment and may request licence conditions to mitigate identified risks where they relate to victims of the index offence.
Licence conditions end when the offender completes his/her sentence. However, where the Police have concerns about an offender’s ongoing risk to a victim or the general public, they may apply may apply to the Magistrates Court for the imposition of a civil order, which may place restrictions or obligations on the offender which replicate some of the protections of the licence.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will further regulate the funeral industry.
Answered by Mike Freer
We have accepted that some form of regulation of the funeral sector is required. My officials have therefore been working on a plan to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the self-regulation regimes introduced by the two main representative bodies, and to launch a call for evidence.
The call for evidence will be launched before summer recess and will gather views on what type of regulation is appropriate and proportionate. Following this, we will develop and consult on proposals for the regulation of the sector. There are a number of possible routes for regulation including introducing an independent regulator. It is too early at this stage to say which is most appropriate.
I have discussed the regulation of the Funeral Sector with cabinet colleagues, and am working particularly closely with Minister Hoare on the short-term response to the tragic events in Hull and East Rising.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of (a) closures of magistrates courts and (b) trends in the recruitment of magistrates on case capacity in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Mike Freer
The decision to close any court only happens following full public consultation, and only when effective access to justice can be maintained. Courts that have closed were either underused, dilapidated or too close to another existing HMCTS location in the same local area.
In recent years there has been considerable recruitment of magistrates in Greater Manchester, both for the Adult Court and the Family Court, and current magistrate numbers are sufficient to manage the volume of work in Greater Manchester.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many County Court hearings were cancelled in Greater Manchester in each year from 2010 to date, by reason for cancellation.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The information requested is not available.
Information about cancelled hearings is not held in this form because there are many types of County Court hearing and reasons why they may not proceed. HMCTS does collect data about the numbers (not by reason) of adjourned small claims, fast track and multi track hearings and can be found at Annex A
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Magistrates' Court hearings have been cancelled in Greater Manchester in each year from 2010 to date, by reason for cancellation.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The information requested is not available.
Information about cancelled hearings is not held in this form because there are many types of Magistrates’ Court hearings and reasons why they may not proceed.
HMCTS does collect data about effective, cracked, ineffective and vacated trials, it is published here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2019 and can be found in the ‘Trial effectiveness at the criminal courts tool’.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the cost to the public purse was of exiting the lease, including dilapidations costs, as a result of the closure of Oldham County Court
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The cost of exiting the lease of Oldham County Court is as follows.
Removal of fixtures and fittings (decant and porterage; excludes IT decommissioning, which is captured in “other costs” below) | £36,500 |
Remaining lease payments | None – lease exited 17 Sept 2017 |
Dilapidations | Negotiations are ongoing with landlord |
Ongoing security and utilities | £630 (total cost between exit and disposal) |
Other costs | £85,615 |
The dilapidations figure is commercially sensitive as works are not yet complete.
The financial benefit from operationally exiting Oldham County Court is £762k per annum.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were charged with non-payment of council tax in each year from 2010 to date; and how many of those people served a custodial sentence as a result of that non payment.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Non-payment of council tax is not a criminal offence. Where a person fails to pay the council tax after it has been demanded, the local authority may apply to the magistrates’ court for a liability order. Liability orders are granted for the amount owed plus reasonable costs. If they are still not paid the local authority can apply for a warrant committing an individual to prison; an individual cannot be fined for non-payment of council tax.
The number of people imprisoned following non-payment of council tax in England and Wales, by financial year from 2010/11 to 2016/16 can be viewed in table below.
National | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 |
Number of Committals to Prison | 111 | 116 | 98 | 110 | 86 | 65 | 106 |
Number of Suspended Committal Orders | 1,087 | 1,283 | 1,120 | 1,212 | 1,182 | 1,089 | 1,017 |
Number of Suspended Committal Orders further Suspended | 607 | 566 | 357 | 457 | 357 | 319 | 299 |
Source: HMCTS management information | |||||||
Notes: | |||||||
Data are taken from a live management information system and can change over time. | |||||||
Data are management information and are not subject to the same level of checks as official statistics. | |||||||
The data provided is the most recent available and for that reason might differ slightly from any previously published information. | |||||||
The report assumes that 'prosecutions' is a count of the number of Council Tax cases where the following results were applied: CDIMPS (Suspended Committal Order) SC (UPD - Suspended Imprisonment to enforce money owed) SUSPS (Suspended sentence order - imprisonment) CDIMPSF (Further Suspended Committal Order) CDLTI (Civil Debt etc Committal to Prison, Imprisonment (Effective Sentence) CW (UPD - Imprisonment in Default Subsequent to Imposition) IMP (Imprisonment Effective) | |||||||
The issuing of a Committal Warrant does not necessarly mean that someone served a custodial sentence, as they may have paid the outstanding Council Tax at any point up to being arrested and physically taken to prison or the Committal Warrant may remain unexecuted where, for example, the defaulter cannot be traced. | |||||||
The data is based on the case hearing date. | |||||||
Data has not been cross referenced with case files. | |||||||
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much his Department has spent on restorative justice in Greater Manchester in each year from 2010.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The government has demonstrated a long-term commitment to restorative justice through a number of national and local initiatives including:
Grant funding of c£3.5m to the Restorative Justice Council since 2010 to deliver a programme of work to develop national standards for RJ practitioners, raise awareness and share best practice.
c£1.2m to Restorative Solutions between 2013/14 and 2015/16 to deliver a pilot for pre-sentence restorative justice in 10 Crown Court centres (Manchester Crown Court participated in the pilot).
Grant funding to Police and Crime Commissioners in 2013/14 and 2014/15 to develop the capacity and capability of RJ services and from 2015/16 to commission or deliver RJ services for victims as part of their wider support services for victims. NB. For 2016/17, the PCCs allocations do not have an indicative budget for RJ although they are still funded to provide RJ services.
Investment through the Youth Justice Board of c£3m between 2011/12 and 2015/16 to develop restorative justice and improving the capability of Youth Offending Service staff and volunteers to deliver safe and effective restorative conferencing.
The table below sets out what element of this funding was allocated to Greater Manchester (where such a breakdown is possible).
Financial Year | Total grant for commissioning of victims’ support services | Indicative allocation for RJ from victims’ support services grant (included in total grant) | Youth Offending Teams |
2010/11 | £0 | n/a | £0 |
2011/12 | £0 | n/a | £40,000 |
2012/13 | £0 | n/a | £0 |
2013/14 | £994,000 | £184,000 | £9000 |
2014/15 | £934,000 | £299,000 | £144,000 |
2015/16 | £3,017,000 | £611,000 | £20,000 |
2016/17 | £3,230,000 | n/a | £0 |
N.B. All figures have been rounded to the nearest 1000 | |||