Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which prisons are currently in special measures; and what are the reasons for each of those prisons being placed in special measures.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
For Question 150748, please see our response to 148963.
Special Measures is an internal operational process undertaken by HM Prisons and Probation Service to provide additional support to prisons to improve performance. This process allows prisons to access wider support from available national resources.
Data on the performance of prisons is published on gov.uk and the next set of annual performance outcomes will be published in Summer 2018.
Honourable Members are already informed if a prison receives an Urgent Notification from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons as part of external scrutiny processes.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make it his policy to ensure that hon. Members are notified when a prison in their constituency is placed in special measures.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
For Question 150748, please see our response to 148963.
Special Measures is an internal operational process undertaken by HM Prisons and Probation Service to provide additional support to prisons to improve performance. This process allows prisons to access wider support from available national resources.
Data on the performance of prisons is published on gov.uk and the next set of annual performance outcomes will be published in Summer 2018.
Honourable Members are already informed if a prison receives an Urgent Notification from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons as part of external scrutiny processes.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many employment tribunal hearings have been listed at Shire Hall in (a) 2015–16, (b) 2016-17 and (c) 2017 to date.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
It is not possible to provide an answer to this question from centrally held data as this does not differentiate between different court locations in Bedford. Since the employment tribunal building in Bedford ceased to hold public hearings in September 2017, the administration of cases has moved to Watford and has not differentiated between cases heard in that office and in Bedford.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases were heard at Bedford Magistrate’s Court in each year from 2009 to 2017.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The number of magistrates’ court cases heard at Bedford Magistrates’ Court between 2010 and 2017 are shown below. HM Courts & Tribunals Service do not hold data for 2009. Magistrates’ Court cases can require more than one hearing and therefore the data includes instances where there have been multiple hearings in the same case.
Year | Number of cases dealt with |
2010 | 14,652 |
2011 | 13,059 |
2012 | 10,955 |
2013 | 6,396 |
2014 | 1,912 |
2015 | 742 |
2016 | 574 |
2017 | 14 |
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when Bedford Magistrate’s Court was closed; and to where the services of that court were relocated.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
In June 2014 the majority of magistrates’ court work at Bedford Magistrates’ Court (at the Shire Hall building) was centralised into Luton Magistrates’ Court. This was following a judicially-led consultation on revised listing arrangements, which was conducted in 2013.
Magistrates’ family cases, along with civil and tribunal cases, continue to be heard at the court. The Shire Hall building will only close subject to a public consultation, which will be published in due course.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish the utilisation statistics for all court rooms at (a) Shire Hall in Bedford and (b) Bedford County Court and Family Court for (i) 2015-16, (ii) 2016-17 and (iii) 2017 to date.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The courts at Shire Hall Bedford sat for the following hours between 2015 and the end of 2017:
| Courtroom Data 2015/16 | Courtroom Data 2016/17 | Courtroom Data April-December 2017* | ||||||
Chamber/ | Magstrates' Court | County/ | Tribunals | Magstrates' Court | County/ | Tribunals | Magstrates' Court | County/ | Tribunals |
Chambers 01 | 0 | 868 | 0 | 0 | 874 | 0 | 0 | 636 | 0 |
Chambers 02 | 0 | 620 | 0 | 0 | 716 | 0 | 0 | 321 | 0 |
Courtroom 01 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 185 |
Courtroom 02 | 46 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 113 | 0 |
Courtroom 03 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 111 | 0 | 0 | 232 | 0 |
Courtroom 04 | 50 | 63 | 0 | 14 | 78 | 0 | 0 | 201 | 0 |
Courtroom 05 | 1 | 703 | 0 | 0 | 738 | 0 | 0 | 538 | 0 |
Total | 129 | 2,272 | 0 | 48 | 2,516 | 0 | 0 | 2,040 | 185 |
County court utilisation includes the civil and family jurisdictions. Utilisation data for Count Court and Employment Tribunals are manually collected and therefore may be affected by associated measurement and recording errors.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has for the future of court services in Bedford when the lease expires on the building that hosts Luton County and Family Court on 9 January 2020; and what provision he has made for court services in Luton and Bedfordshire when that lease expires.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
HM Courts & Tribunals Service is currently considering options regarding the future court estate in Bedfordshire. The Shire Hall building will only close subject to a public consultation regarding the distribution of the work currently heard in the building, which will be published in due course.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish the number of incidents of concerted indiscipline in prisons in (a) England and Wales and (b) HMP Bedford year on year from 2010 to 2018.
Answered by Rory Stewart
We are considering proposals to publish information routinely on concerted indiscipline and will confirm such plans when a decision has been reached.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 29 November 2017 to Question 115593, on Employment Tribunals Service: Eastern Region, how many lay members there were in (a) the Eastern Region and (b) Bedford in each year from 2012 to 2017.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The information regarding lay members is held on a local live database known as “Ethos”, which holds no historic data. It is therefore not possible to provide data from 2012 to 2017.
There are currently 110 lay members for the South East Region, of which 42 are assigned to the eastern part of the Region (which comprises Norwich, Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds Employment Tribunals). Whilst lay members do have an assigned home base Employment Tribunal, they can be deployed elsewhere across the South East Region subject to their agreement.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on whether any staff employed by Carillion plc at HMP Bedford have been served notice since 1 January 2017.
Answered by Rory Stewart
None of the Carillion staff at HMP Bedford have been served notice since 1 January 2017 and the staff will continue to work for the Official Receiver to ensure continuity of services.
There are currently 12 directly employed, and 6 agency staff members, employed by Carillion plc at HMP Bedford.
Carillion provide a wide range of facilities management services at HMP Bedford. These include, but are not limited to, planned and reactive maintenance, landscaping and cleaning.
Carillion AMBS Ltd (a subsidiary of Carillion PLC) was awarded two contracts in January 2015 with services commencing in June 2015. The total contract value was £98.8m and £100.2m.