Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure adequate access to free immigration advice in (a) Bristol and (b) the South West.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are committed to making sure timely advice is there for those who need it, and this sits right at the heart of our vision for a better, more effective justice system.
We have confirmed we will be uplifting housing and immigration legal aid fees. This represents a significant investment – the first since 1996 – resulting in an increase of £20 million a year once fully implemented.
We are also supporting the sector through targeted grants. The Government is funding the costs of accreditation for immigration and asylum caseworkers, providing up to £1.4 million in 2024 and a further £1.7 million in 2025.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning legal aid services, and it monitors the numbers of providers in each procurement area and across all categories of law. It takes operational action where it can, to respond to market pressures that may arise and works closely with the Ministry of Justice on policy solutions concerning the supply of legal aid.
In response to challenges around the supply of legal aid providers in the south-west, the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) put in place a list of immigration providers in England and Wales who are willing and able to provide immigration advice to individuals from the Southwest who are unable to find a local provider. This list remains in force and is regularly updated and provided to individuals that call the Civil Legal Aid advice line, as well as being published/accessible on the LAA’s website.
Beyond legal aid, the Ministry of Justice is funding the delivery of wider legal support services, which provide advice and support to people facing social welfare legal problems, including immigration issues. In 2025-26 we are providing over £6 million of grant funding to 60 frontline organisations to improve access to legal support and information, both in person and online, to help people resolve their problems as early as possible. This includes funding for organisations such as some regional Citizens Advice, Law Centres (including Bristol Law Centre), Asylum Support Appeals Project, Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support, as well as AdviceNow, which provides online support on their website across a range of civil, family and tribunal problems.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Barnardo's report entitled Double discrimination: Black care-experienced young adults navigating the criminal justice system, published on 21 September 2023, whether he has made an assessment of discrimination affecting Black care-experienced young adults who have involvement with the criminal justice system.
Answered by Edward Argar
We are grateful for the work Barnardo's have done to highlight the challenges faced by young black care-experienced people in our criminal justice system, and I was delighted to meet with them on 30 January to discuss the Double Discrimination report. We look forward to working with them further to ensure we are tackling these issues.
Across the criminal justice system, we are taking forward an extensive programme of work to tackle unexplained disparities where they are identified. The Inclusive Britain strategy is central to the development of this work and contains some of our flagship efforts.
We are also updating our strategy for people with care experience in the criminal justice system, to ensure we are using care-experienced people’s time in the criminal justice system to support them to lead crime-free lives. In this work, we will be building on the work done by Barnardo’s to focus on race and its role in shaping the experiences and outcomes of those with care experience in the criminal justice system, and developing proposals to address this.
We are aiming to publish this strategy later this year.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page one of the Government response to the First Report of the Justice Select Committee of Session 2021-22 on The Coroner Service, HC 675, published on 10 September 2021; what his Department's planned timetable is to respond to the Committee's 11 outstanding recommendations.
Answered by Mike Freer
We have successfully delivered or are taking forward some of the recommendations which we committed to consider further in our 2021 response to the Justice Committee’s Inquiry into the Coroner Service. However, other priorities, including our key involvement in delivering cross-cutting Government reforms in the death management sector, have meant that we have not been able to progress some of these issues as far as we would have liked. We remain committed to doing so as soon as practicable.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
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 the time taken to transfer prisoners with mental health issues to secure hospitals.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Lord Chancellor has not yet had an opportunity to meet the Health Secretary on this issue since her appointment this month.
However, we are determined to reduce unnecessary delays and ensure that people in prison who meet the criteria for detention under the Mental Health Act and require a transfer to hospital can access the specialist care and treatment they need in a timely manner.
Working closely with our health and justice partners, we are driving forward work to introduce a non-statutory independent role designed to improve oversight and monitor delivery of the 28-day time limit set out in NHS England’s good practice guidance.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been convicted of animal cruelty offences in relation to dog fighting since the implementation of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Shadow Minister (Housing and Planning)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of convictions of animal cruelty offences in relation to animal fighting, in each year since 2010, on principal offence basis, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2022. However, it is not possible to provide information about dog fighting specifically, as this information is not centrally held in the Court Proceedings Database by the Ministry of Justice.
To view the total number of convictions in relation to animal fighting, in the data tool navigate to the ‘Prosecutions and convictions’ tab. Using ‘HO offence code’ filter, select ‘09705 - Offences relating to animal fights’. The pivot table will now present the total number of convictions at all courts, since the implementation of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021.
To view the total number of convictions in relation to animal fighting prior to the offence being reclassified, use HO offence code ‘10833 - Offences relating to animal fights (Reclassified)’
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of probation services in Bristol and South Gloucestershire.
Answered by Damian Hinds
In August the Probation Delivery Unit for Bristol and South Gloucestershire was rated as ‘requires improvement’ by HM Inspectorate of Probation.
We will publish an Action Plan in October 2023 to address the resulting recommendations, including through improved systems for information sharing and for pre-release planning.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help neurodiverse people navigate civil proceedings; and what allowance for neurodiversity is made when considering the need for legal aid in such cases.
Answered by Mike Freer
His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) provide reasonable adjustments to help neurodiverse people navigate the courts and tribunal systems.for court and tribunal users and take steps to avoid treating people less favourably because of their conditions. Court and tribunal users are encouraged to get in touch with HMCTS to discuss any particular adjustments or support they require, to enable their individual needs to be met.
Rules of court made pursuant to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 also allow vulnerable parties whose participation in the litigation would be diminished (due to their vulnerability) to apply for special measures. Special measures are a series of provisions that help vulnerable witnesses give their best evidence and help relieve some of the stress for example giving evidence from behind a screen, use of an intermediary or the use of video links.
All applications for legal aid in connection with civil legal aid services are determined in accordance with the provisions of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, regulations made under the Act and the Lord Chancellor’s Guidance Under Section 4 of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer from the Minister of State to the Question from the hon. Member for Bristol East on 22 November 2022, Official Report, column 142, what recent progress his Department has made on gathering data on the number of children affected by parental imprisonment.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The Prisons Strategy White Paper includes a commitment to improve the quality of the data collected and to improve the support provided.
A significant factor in improving the quality of data and evidence is our ability to join up different sources of data, and we are delivering on this through our Better Outcomes through linked Data (BOLD) Project. BOLD is a £19.7m cross government Shared Outcomes Fund project which will link data to enable better evidenced and more joined up cross government services. The Programme concludes in March 2024.
Through BOLD, we will explore data sharing to improve our understanding of the number of children with parents in prison and how parental incarceration impacts children’s outcomes, including education, employment and future offending.
Changes have been made to the Basic Custody Screening Tool to enable us to collect data on entry to prison about how many primary carers are in custody and how many children under the age of 18 are affected by their imprisonment. The learning from the data collected will be incorporated into the findings from the BOLD programme.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to the letter of 16 August 2021 from the hon. Member for Bristol East relating to a constituent. .
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The letter of 25 June 2021 was answered on 22 July 2021.
The letter dated 25 March 2021 was sent to the Ministry of Justice in error and was passed onto the Department for Work and Pensions.
We had no record of receiving the initial letter dated 16 August 2021, however, we subsequently received a copy of the correspondence on 17 October 2022 which will be responded to in due course.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to the letter of 25 June 2021 from the hon. Member for Bristol East relating to several constituents.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
The letter of 25 June 2021 was answered on 22 July 2021.
The letter dated 25 March 2021 was sent to the Ministry of Justice in error and was passed onto the Department for Work and Pensions.
We had no record of receiving the initial letter dated 16 August 2021, however, we subsequently received a copy of the correspondence on 17 October 2022 which will be responded to in due course.