Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of prison-based de-radicalisation programmes; and what improvements have been made to such programmes in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
HMPPS delivers a number of interventions to promote desistance and dis-engagement from extremism. These interventions include psychological and theological approaches. The effectiveness of these and other measures to combat extremism continues to be kept under review. New programmes and approaches to de-radicalisation are developed where necessary in order to ensure our response remains commensurate with the threat posed and the rehabilitative needs of the cohort.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reasons the abolition of section 225 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was not applied retrospectively for prisoners serving sentences for imprisonment for public protection.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Generally, sentences already imposed are not substantively altered by subsequent legislation. The coalition government considered that it would not be right, or appropriate, to alter retrospectively sentences that had been lawfully imposed, particularly because in this case those sentences were imposed with public protection issues in mind. Consequently, once prisoners serving sentences of imprisonment for public protection have served their minimum term they are not released on licence until the Parole Board judges it safe to so.
The number of IPP prisoners has reduced over the past year. However, the Justice Secretary has asked the Chairman of the Parole Board to see what further improvements could be made in the approach to handling these offenders.
We continue to prioritise IPP prisoners for places on courses and provide other interventions to help them reduce their risk and progress towards release.
Asked by: Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have had their initial assessments for personal independence payments assessments payments upheld on appeal in (a) the UK, (b) Wiltshire and (c) the Chippenham constituency in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Selous
The information requested is not held centrally.