Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released in error from HM Prison Peterborough since July 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.
Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.
The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released in error from North Sea Camp Prison since July 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.
Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.
The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released in error from HMP Morton Hall since July 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.
Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.
The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released in error from HM Prison Lincoln since July 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.
Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.
The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the accredited official statistics release Public Sector Employment, UK: September 2025. This can be accessed at:
(Source: ONS Public Sector Employment reference tables – Table 8 HC, September 2025 edition; MoJ Workforce MI, September 2025)
Public sector employment - Office for National Statistics
As at September 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics Public Sector Employment statistics (Table 8 HC), and published 16 December 2025, 455 civil servants in the Ministry of Justice were on temporary or casual contracts, representing approximately 0.5% of the Department’s civil service headcount (total 96,715).
Ministry of Justice Civil Service Headcount – September 2025
Contract Type | Male | Female | Total |
Permanent | 40,630 | 55,630 | 96,260 |
Temporary / Casual | 165 | 290 | 455 |
Overall Headcount | 40,795 | 55,920 | 96,715 |
Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Ministry of Justice’s Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at:
Ministry of Justice – Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25
(See Annex D: Off-payroll engagements, page 303).
For clarity, consultants are not civil servants and are therefore not included in civil service headcount figures. The latest Ministry of Justice, Workforce Management Information (June 2025), publishes total cost of contractors, which is part of the department’s transparency data and can be accessed at:
MoJ_headcount_and_payroll_data_for_June_2025_revised.ods
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many full-time equivalent staff in his Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the past three years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on a broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had with HM Courts and Tribunals Service on reducing the backlog of criminal cases in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Lincoln Crown Court has continued to reduce outstanding workloads through the creation of a fourth Crown Court room in May 2021, utilising all Crown Court sitting day allocations for this financial year. To mitigate delays in setting trial dates, Lincoln actively identifies cases that are too large to be heard within Lincoln, moving these within the East Midlands in agreement with relevant parties.
The Government inherited a justice system in crisis, with a record and rising open caseload of nearly 80,000 criminal cases waiting to be heard and too many victims waiting years for justice. Investment alone is not enough - that is why this Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to undertake his Independent Review of the Criminal Courts. On 2 December, the Deputy Prime Minister responded to the first part of that review and set out why reform is necessary, alongside investment and modernisation.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of criminal trials involved a jury in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Only 3% of all cases were heard by a jury in the year to June 2025. This is based on the number of not guilty pleas as a proportion of all cases for trial, excluding Single Justice Procedure cases. Over 90% of criminal cases are heard in the magistrates’ courts without juries.
The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes information concerning the volume of trials at the criminal courts as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly which can be found here: Criminal Court Statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much the Legal Aid Agency has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much HM Courts and Tribunals Service has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested can be found in the table below.
Translation:
FY | Translation |
FY21-22 | £ 51,231.54 |
FY22-23 | £ 113,487.07 |
FY23-24 | £ 140,829.23 |
FY24-25 | £ 126,433.75 |
FY25-26 | £ 78,995.19 |
Total | £ 510,976.78 |
Interpreting:
FY | Interpreting |
FY21/22 | £ 22,225,742.45 |
FY22/23 | £ 27,362,968.49 |
FY23/24 | £ 31,022,423.14 |
FY24/25 | £ 32,390,150.55 |
FY25/26 | £ 20,517,115.66 |
Total | £ 133,518,400.29 |
The Ministry of Justice has a statutory duty to provide Language Services to enable access to justice for users whom English is not their first language. Language Service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers whilst maintaining high standards of service delivery.