Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to her Department's publication, Mortgage and landlord possession statistics in England and Wales, April to June 2019 (provisional), published on 8 August 2019, which large mortgage provider has driven up the number of home repossessions to their highest level since 2014.
Answered by Edward Argar
The organisation was required to provide its details to enable the court to process its possession claims. It would be inappropriate to release such information where it would be likely to prejudice an organisation’s commercial interests.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to rehabilitate offenders.
Answered by Robert Buckland
We are committed to ensuring prisons are places where offenders can turn their backs on crime – reducing reoffending and keeping the public safe. In order for prisons to enable rehabilitation, they must first be places of safety and so we are taking urgent action to improve prison safety and security, alongside reforms to overhaul the system to focus on the rehabilitation of offenders.
We have invested £70 million to improve safety, security and decency in prisons, allowing us to fund new security scanners, improved searching techniques, phone-blocking technology and a financial crime unit to target criminals operating in prisons. Alongside this, we have taken immediate action to strengthen the frontline with over 4,700 new prison officers.
To reduce reoffending, we are implementing a cohesive plan to ensure offenders receive the right interventions to meet their individual needs. This includes investing £7 million in in-cell telephones to allow prisoners to maintain important family ties, and tackling health issues such as drug addiction through our drugs strategy.
We want to ensure that everyone leaving prison has access to a secure job and stable accommodation. Last year we launched the Education and Employment strategy to ensure offenders are set on a path to employment from the outset. Governors now have control to commission education provision that leads to work and we are engaging with employers to take on prisoners on ROTL or after release via the New Futures Network, which has had more than 230 businesses register to work with prisons since its launch. We also recently made changes so that Governors can now consider Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) earlier and in more cases to enable prisoners to enter the workplace sooner.
Through the Government’s Rough Sleeping Strategy we have invested £6 million in pilot schemes bringing together prisons, local authorities, probation providers to help offenders find accommodation on release.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to bring into force the provisions of the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Guardianship (Missing Persons) Act 2017 will be implemented in July, and applications to the court for guardianship orders will be able to commence from that date.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to increase employment opportunities for prisoners after release.
Answered by Robert Buckland
One year ago, our Education and Employment Strategy set out plans to transform the way prisoners develop the skills they need to secure employment on release.
Since then, we have overhauled the prison education system through implementing new contracts and a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). These allow governors to commission skills-based training and education that meets the needs of the local labour market.
We have also introduced the New Futures Network (NFN), which brokers partnerships between prisons and employers in England and Wales, and a new ROTL framework to increase the opportunities available for prisoners to gain experience in real workplaces.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
What steps his Department is taking to support the Home Office in tackling economic crime.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Our main contribution in helping to tackle economic crime is to run a world class court system that has a strong international reputation and enables highly complex crimes to be prosecuted.
As well as that work, we are also active in scrutinising the law to see if anything needs to be changed to tackle economic crime. The Department carried out a Call for Evidence to examine the case for a change in the law in corporate criminal liability for economic crime in 2017 and intends publishing its response in 2019.
This is in addition to the creation of a new world class court facility in the City of London specialising in tackling cyber-crime, fraud and economic crime announced earlier this year. This will help reinforce the UK’s reputation as a world-leading legal centre ready to deal with the changing nature of 21st century crime.