Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she plans to set a target date to achieve a representative (a) judiciary and (b) magistracy.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is strongly committed to achieving a judiciary which better represents the diversity of the population. This comprises of judges, non-legal members and magistrates.
We continue to work closely with the judiciary, the Judicial Appointments Commission, the legal professions, magistrates’ representatives and employers to improve the diversity of the judiciary.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Sentencing Council's guidance entitled Imposition of community and custodial sentences - Effective from 1 April 2025, whether her Department has made an (a) estimate of the (i) additional number of pre-sentence reports required and (ii) costs of those reports and (b) assessment of the potential impact of that guidance on the (A) quality of pre-sentence reports, (B) probation service, (C) time taken for sentencing and (D) number of appeals of sentencing decisions.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Where a court is considering whether an offender should receive a sentence of immediate custody, a pre-sentence report must be obtained and considered before forming an opinion unless, in the circumstances of the case, the court considers that it is unnecessary to obtain a pre-sentence report. The Probation Service plays an essential role by providing an expert assessment of the nature and causes of the offender's behaviour and the risk the offender poses. Our priority remains the safety of the public and rehabilitation of offenders, and we will take all necessary steps to support the probation service in achieving these goals.
The Sentencing Council is responsible for carrying out its own impact assessments of its guidelines. The assessment for the recent Imposition of community and custodial sentences guidelines published on 5 March 2025, can be found here: https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/html-publication/item/imposition-of-community-and-custodial-sentences-overarching-guideline-final-resource-assessment/#Resource%20impacts.
The Lord Chancellor has been clear that these guidelines regarding pre-sentencing reports do not represent the views of this Government. The Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of the Sentencing Council have had a constructive discussion. It was agreed that the Lord Chancellor will set out her position more fully in writing, which the Sentencing Council will then consider before the guideline is due to come into effect. It remains the case that the Lord Chancellor is reviewing the role and responsibilities of the Sentencing Council – and look at whether a greater role for elected officials is needed.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she has visited HMP Long Lartin since 4 July 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Lord Chancellor has been closely involved in the response to the urgent notifications we have received. Each is a reminder of the state of crisis that the last Government left behind in our prisons.
The Prisons Minister will be visiting HMP Long Lartin in the coming days and we are working closely with the prison leadership to turn these prisons around.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate her Department has made of the cost to the public purse of providing an additional 4,000 court sitting days in the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I am assuming the Rt. Honourable Gentleman is referring to the Crown Court with his question. The current Lord Chancellor increased the allocation of Crown Court sitting days for the current financial year by 2,500 additional days. This takes the total allocation for FY24/25 to 108,500, the highest number in nearly a decade.
The Government has since announced a record level of investment in our courts for the next financial year. It will fund up to 110,000 sitting days in FY25/26 within a total budget of £2.5 billion - 4,000 more days than the previous Government funded.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 23 December 2024 to Question 20393 on Prisoners’ Release: Electronic Tagging, how many SDS40 releases did not have a prison tag in (a) Tranche one and (b) Tranche two.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice published transparent data on Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 SDS40 releases on 7 November 2024. Whilst some of these releases would have had a tag as a licence condition, the data the Department holds on electronic monitoring does not delineate between SDS40 and SDS50 releases.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 23 December 2024 to Question 20393 on Prisoners’ Release: Electronic Tagging, what the longest period of time was that a person released under the standard determinate sentence (SDS40) release scheme was without a prison tag after being released.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The longest period between receipt of an electronic monitoring requirement order by the Electronic Monitoring provider and installation for an offender with a revised SDS40 release date was 53 days for releases in tranche one. Tranche two’s performance was much improved with all visits to install tags completed by Monday 4 November.
In respect of faults being reported from individuals subject to release on SDS40, we do not have data readily available to answer this question.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any people released under the standard determinate sentence (SDS40) release scheme have reported faults with their tags since September 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The longest period between receipt of an electronic monitoring requirement order by the Electronic Monitoring provider and installation for an offender with a revised SDS40 release date was 53 days for releases in tranche one. Tranche two’s performance was much improved with all visits to install tags completed by Monday 4 November.
In respect of faults being reported from individuals subject to release on SDS40, we do not have data readily available to answer this question.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what meetings (a) she and (b) her Ministers have had with the (i) Albanian, (ii) Polish, (iii) Romanian, (iv) Irish and (v) Jamaican Government to discuss increasing the number of foreign national offenders returned from UK prisons in the last six months.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Increasing the numbers of foreign national offender returns from our prisons is a priority for this Government. We are working with international partners to achieve this.
In the last six months, Ministers from the Ministry of Justice have met with Polish and Romanian counterparts to discuss cooperation on prisoner transfers in the context of our bilateral criminal justice cooperation.
Since 05 July, there have been 1,557 Early Removal Scheme returns for foreign national offenders, which is a 26% increase compared to 1,231 in the same period 12 months prior.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average cost is of a transcript for a (a) court and (b) tribunal hearing.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HMCTS contracts with external suppliers to provide court transcripts. Management information from these suppliers for the period January to December 2024 was extracted as follows:
Court and tribunal hearings differ significantly in length (from hearings that last less than a day to trials that can last several weeks or months) and transcript costs are in proportion to the volume of audio that must be transcribed and checked on a case-by-case basis. The cost may also vary depending on whether the transcript is new of a copy and the speed of delivery requested.
While costs of shorter hearings may be lower, transcripts of full hearings or trials can incur charges of £25,000 or more. Therefore, the average cost calculated above using supplier data is not reflective of the full range of court and tribunal hearings.
We continue to monitor how AI develops and how it could be used to provide access to court transcripts in future, however, it is important that court transcripts have an extremely high accuracy rate.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what her planned timetable is for ending the standard determinate sentence (SDS40) release scheme.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This Government has committed to reviewing the scheme after 18 months of implementation.