Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to implement a screening tool for neurodiversity, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, in prisons in response to the inconsistent prison screening provision highlighted in the Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice Sector report published in July 2021.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
In response to the Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System: A review of the evidence report, the Ministry of Justice is currently drafting an action plan, which we will publish.
As part of this plan, the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service are currently undertaking work to establish what data on neurodivergence is currently collected and shared across the Criminal Justice system and how this can be improved. This includes consideration of a number of different screening tool options to indicate likelihood of neurodivergent traits including traits associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure prison screening data is systematically collected and aggregated to provide a more accurate assessment of the prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as recommended in the Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice Sector report published in July 2021.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
In response to the Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System: A review of the evidence report, the Ministry of Justice is currently drafting an action plan, which we will publish.
As part of this plan, the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service are currently undertaking work to establish what data on neurodivergence is currently collected and shared across the Criminal Justice system and how this can be improved. This includes consideration of a number of different screening tool options to indicate likelihood of neurodivergent traits including traits associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of care for adults in the criminal justice system with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Answered by Alex Chalk
We are committed to improving the interaction that individuals with neurodivergent conditions have with the criminal justice system (CJS), and we are exploring what improvements can be made. An independent call for evidence on neurodiversity has been completed and the findings are expected to be reported in the summer. This will enable us to understand current practices and how we can improve these to realise better outcomes.
Once the MoJ receive the full written report from the Call for Evidence, a ‘Neurodiversity Toolkit’ is to be developed, as announced in the Sentencing White Paper. This will aim to improve our staff’s awareness and understanding of neurodivergent needs, including ADHD, and enable them to feel confident to make referrals to health services if needed.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that parents and children fleeing abusive relationships abroad are protected from having to return to their country of origin under the Hague Convention on Child Abduction.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
When a left-behind parent applies to the court for the return of a child under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention, and where the taking parent opposes return, the taking parent can bring evidence before the court that there is a grave risk that the child’s return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation. The decision is for the court on the evidence put in front of it. In such cases, the court will consider evidence of an abusive relationship which has affected the child.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2021 to Question UIN 157167, whether the Independent Call for Evidence on neurodiversity in the criminal justice service launched in December 2020 has led to considerations of the specific needs of adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Answered by Alex Chalk
We are committed to improving the interaction that individuals with neurodivergent conditions have with the CJS, and we are currently still exploring how this may be achieved. I recognise that there is more we can and should be doing as a Justice system, which is why we announced a call for evidence on neurodiversity.
MoJ has commissioned HMI Prisons and Probation, with support from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, to conduct an Independent Call for Evidence on neurodiversity in the CJS. This will enable us to understand what happens to neurodivergent people now, including those with ADHD, and how we can better support them in future to realise better outcomes.
The final report from the Call for Evidence will be produced in Summer 2021, at which point my officials will be better placed to speak to the specific considerations that should be given to individuals within the criminal justice system with ADHD.
Once the MoJ receive the full written report from the call for evidence, my officials will be developing a ‘Neurodiversity Toolkit’, as announced in the Sentencing White Paper, which will be delivered nationwide to frontline staff. This will be informed by the findings of the Call for Evidence, and it will include information on ADHD. Improving our staff’s awareness and understanding of neurodivergent needs, including ADHD, may then enable frontline staff to feel confident to make referrals to health services effectively if needed.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department has taken to protect the safety of (a) frontline workers in the justice sector and (b) prisoners during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The Government is very clear that our frontline staff are vital key workers, and they are going above and beyond the call of duty to keep the public, their colleagues, and service users safe . While we rightly celebrate our heroes in the NHS during this challenging period, our hidden heroes in the justice sector understandably can sometimes feel forgotten, and we extend our gratitude to all our leaders and staff for their bravery and dedication to public service.
The safety of our staff and service users remains our top priority. We are doing all that we can to be flexible and to support those who are more vulnerable to Covid-19, whether this be through age or an underlying health condition.
We continue to work with DHSC and the Welsh Government, to ensure that appropriate testing is made available to court, prison, and probation staff, to those service users in our care, and to those within our buildings.
In the prison system we continue to manage the risk to establishments through the use of cohorting and compartmentalisation, routine staff testing, and testing prisoners on both reception and transfer. Social distancing and basic hygiene are also used to reduce transmission and we continue to provide access to cleaning and hygiene products in prisons. We are following the public health advice on the use of medical face masks alongside other items of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) where close contact is sustained, essential and unavoidable. We also continue to operate reduced regimes, specifically designed with PHE, to reduce contact and support social distancing in prisons.
Probation staff and service users are already able to access testing as needed if they display any COVID-19 symptoms, and this will link them into the NHS Test and Trace system if they test positive. We will continue to work with DHSC and Welsh Government, to ensure that appropriate testing is made available to probation staff and service users. We have introduced regular asymptomatic testing of staff and residents in Approved Premises to limit the spread of the virus and protect the local NHS, and are rolling out lateral flow testing to all of our staff who cannot work from home.
In courts, we are spending £113m on a range of emergency measures to tackle the impact of COVID-19, and £142m to improve court and tribunal buildings and roll out new technology. This has enabled remote hearings where possible, and safety controls in every building for cases that need physical hearings. Safety controls include limitations on the number of people on sit, plexiglass screens, face coverings, and regular cleaning, to name just a few. Everything we do is kept under regular review and we continue to work closely with public health colleagues as part of that effort.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate his Department has made of the number of adults in the criminal justice system with suspected or diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The latest published data suggests that 28% of offenders (48,349) had a learning difficulty or challenge (LDC), out of 170,710 offenders in custody and the community with a Layer 3 (full) Offender Assessment System (OASys) assessment from June 2018.
As set out in our Sentencing White Paper ‘A Smarter Approach to Sentencing’, we want to improve awareness of neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System (CJS), provide staff with the confidence and knowledge to better support neurodivergent individuals, and support them to engage meaningfully with the rehabilitative aspect of their sentence.
To support this work, in December 2020, MoJ launched an Independent Call for Evidence on neurodiversity in the CJS. This will enable us to obtain a clearer picture of prevalence including those with ADHD, and how we can better support them in future to realise better outcomes.
NHS England’s Liaison and Diversion Services (L&D) operate at police stations and courts to identify people who have vulnerabilities, including neurodisability, when they first come into contact with the criminal justice system, as well as at point of sentence. We are working very closely with health partners and will share the relevant findings of the Call for Evidence with them.
The provision of healthcare – including screening for ADHD and treatment - across the secure estate falls under commissioning by NHS England/Improvement and NHS Wales. All people in prisons receive an early health assessment within the first 24 hours of entry. The initial assessment is fully comprehensive to ensure that all of the physical and health needs of an individual are identified and addressed at an early stage.
Where a person’s mental health condition is of a nature or degree that warrants hospital detention the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA) provides powers for the court or the Justice Secretary to divert the individual away from the criminal justice system to hospital for assessment and/or treatment.
The recently published White Paper, Reforming the Mental Health Act, sets out proposals to improve provision for those in the criminal justice system with serious mental disorder. The White Paper does not specifically address the position of those with ADHD within the criminal justice system, but all those within the criminal justice system currently detained or eligible for detention under the Mental Health Act will benefit equally from these reforms, regardless of diagnosis.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of including adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in the Criminal Justice System in the White Paper on reforms of the Mental Health Act.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The latest published data suggests that 28% of offenders (48,349) had a learning difficulty or challenge (LDC), out of 170,710 offenders in custody and the community with a Layer 3 (full) Offender Assessment System (OASys) assessment from June 2018.
As set out in our Sentencing White Paper ‘A Smarter Approach to Sentencing’, we want to improve awareness of neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System (CJS), provide staff with the confidence and knowledge to better support neurodivergent individuals, and support them to engage meaningfully with the rehabilitative aspect of their sentence.
To support this work, in December 2020, MoJ launched an Independent Call for Evidence on neurodiversity in the CJS. This will enable us to obtain a clearer picture of prevalence including those with ADHD, and how we can better support them in future to realise better outcomes.
NHS England’s Liaison and Diversion Services (L&D) operate at police stations and courts to identify people who have vulnerabilities, including neurodisability, when they first come into contact with the criminal justice system, as well as at point of sentence. We are working very closely with health partners and will share the relevant findings of the Call for Evidence with them.
The provision of healthcare – including screening for ADHD and treatment - across the secure estate falls under commissioning by NHS England/Improvement and NHS Wales. All people in prisons receive an early health assessment within the first 24 hours of entry. The initial assessment is fully comprehensive to ensure that all of the physical and health needs of an individual are identified and addressed at an early stage.
Where a person’s mental health condition is of a nature or degree that warrants hospital detention the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA) provides powers for the court or the Justice Secretary to divert the individual away from the criminal justice system to hospital for assessment and/or treatment.
The recently published White Paper, Reforming the Mental Health Act, sets out proposals to improve provision for those in the criminal justice system with serious mental disorder. The White Paper does not specifically address the position of those with ADHD within the criminal justice system, but all those within the criminal justice system currently detained or eligible for detention under the Mental Health Act will benefit equally from these reforms, regardless of diagnosis.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many routine covid-19 tests of front-line staff and prisoners across the justice estate including the private prison estate have been conducted since 6 November 2020; what the average wait time has been to receive results for those tests; and how many results have been positive.
Answered by Alex Chalk
The safety of our staff and those in our care remains our top priority. We are doing all that we can to protect and support those who are more vulnerable to Covid-19, whether this be through age or an underlying health condition.
We are now routinely testing staff and prisoners to bolster our defences against the virus – meaning we can identify and isolate cases earlier and move quickly to contain outbreaks and protect local NHS. Alongside the measures we have put in place since March, regular testing will ensure we continue to limit the spread of the virus and save lives.
Following recommendations from PHE, staff who work in prisons are regularly tested and prisoners are tested on reception and at transfer points.
The information on the number of routine tests conducted is based on returns provided from each prison establishment. Therefore, the following data is subject to change.
Testing totals since November 2020
Routine Testing of Staff – 228,854
Routine Testing of Prisoners - 53,857
Positive results from routine testing since November 2020
Staff – 449
Prisoners – 484
The current average wait time is 48 hours for the return of test results. This is expected to reduce with the recent introduction of lateral flow devices.
Data provided will not align with routine data that is published in the monthly service user publication, which includes prisoners and children in custody and the HMPPS Workforce stats which includes data for the whole of HMPPS staff - not just frontline prison staff.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) prosecutions and (b) convictions there have been for all forms of labour exploitation in garment factories since 1 January 2016.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions, convictions and sentences for offences relating to labour exploitation such as modern slavery, up to December 2019, which is available in the ‘Principal offence proceeding and outcomes’ data tool, available here:
Detailed information on the circumstances of cases, including locations or type of labour, may be held on court record but to be able to identify these cases we would have to access individual court records which would be of disproportionate cost.