Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of offenders sentenced to a suspended sentence order were subsequently sent to immediate custody for (a) breaching the conditions of the order and (b) reoffending in each year since 2017.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost. The below detail is provided as background information.
A 2019 Ministry of Justice analysis of a matched cohort of over 30,000 offenders shows that those who serve sentences of immediate custody of less than 12 months reoffend at a rate higher than similar offenders given community orders and suspended sentence orders by the courts.
Our latest quarterly statistics, January – March 2022, suggest that 55.5% of people given a custodial sentence of less than 12 months reoffend within one year. For offenders punished with suspended sentence orders with requirements that are served in the community, the reoffending rate is significantly lower at 24.2%.
Based on this evidence, the Government introduced the presumption to suspend short sentences as part of the Sentencing Bill, currently before Parliament. The courts will retain a wide discretion to impose immediate custody in many circumstances.
Offenders will then serve their sentence in the community. When the court imposes a suspended sentence, they can impose requirements on the offender and the sentencing framework provides a flexible range of requirements, such as unpaid work, drug and alcohol treatment, curfew, and electronic monitoring, with the intention of punishing the offender, providing reparation to the community, and addressing any criminogenic or rehabilitative needs of the offender which may otherwise increase the likelihood of their reoffending.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and which offences were committed by people on a suspended sentence order in each of the last three years.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The below detail is provided as background information.
A 2019 Ministry of Justice analysis of a matched cohort of over 30,000 offenders shows that those who serve sentences of immediate custody of less than 12 months reoffend at a rate higher than similar offenders given community orders and suspended sentence orders by the courts.
Our latest quarterly statistics, January – March 2022, suggest that 55.5% of people given a custodial sentence of less than 12 months reoffend within one year. For offenders punished with suspended sentence orders with requirements that are served in the community, the reoffending rate is significantly lower at 24.2%.
Based on this evidence, the Government introduced the presumption to suspend short sentences as part of the Sentencing Bill, currently before Parliament. The courts will retain a wide discretion to impose immediate custody in many circumstances.
Offenders will then serve their sentence in the community. When the court imposes a suspended sentence, they can impose requirements on the offender and the sentencing framework provides a flexible range of requirements, such as unpaid work, drug and alcohol treatment, curfew, and electronic monitoring, with the intention of punishing the offender, providing reparation to the community, and addressing any criminogenic or rehabilitative needs of the offender which may otherwise increase the likelihood of their reoffending.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners serving (a) one life sentence, (b) two life sentences and (c) more than two life sentences were released from prison into the community in each year since 2015.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
To determine the number of active life sentences at the point when an offender is released would require manually reading the record files of offenders with multiple life sentences and then linking these together from the different data systems which would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times (a) the National Dog and Technical Support Group was deployed in prisons and (b) dogs were used in those deployments in each year since 2015, broken down by institution.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions the National Tactical Response Group was deployed in the youth estate in each year since 2015, broken down by institution type.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times was PAVA spray deployed in (a) Youth Offender Institutes and (b) prisons in each year since 2019.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
PAVA is intended to protect staff and prisoners in very serious assaults. Safe implementation of PAVA use is accompanied by clear and explicit guidance ensuring staff are confident as to when PAVA spray should be used. Staff can use the PAVA spray where there is serious violence or an imminent or perceived risk of it, and there is an immediate need to create a safe and protective environment. It has been rollout out to prison officers in the adult estate only.
PAVA may be deployed by specialist staff, on the authority of the Gold commander, in Young Offender Institutes that hold those under 18 years of age as a tactical option to resolve an incident for the safety of young people and staff.
PAVA has been deployed once in 2019 at Feltham (A). There have been no other uses the under-18 YOI estate.
There has been an increase in PAVA use as HMPPS have rolled out to all adult male prisons and therefore it is available to more staff to respond to violent incidents where appropriate.
The information requested is in the attached tables for adult YOIs and prisons.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times did the NHS referred a member of the Armed Forces to Prevent in each year since 2018.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
As statutory partners to the Prevent duty, healthcare professionals have a responsibility to refer patients and colleagues when there is a concern that the individual may be becoming radicalised. The Department does not hold data regarding individual referrals, as this data is collated and acted on by Counter Terrorism Policing.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 28 February 2024 to Question 15272 on Aviation: Passengers, if he will estimate the number of general aviation flights that landed in the UK without providing advance passenger information in each year since 2015.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Given our commitment to protecting the UK from harm, I remain unable to share figures which can reveal operational practices that could be exploited to evade border controls.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many times a member of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary was referred to Prevent in each year since 2018.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
There were no referrals.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many (a) officers and (b) other staff left the Civil Nuclear Constabulary in each year since 2015; and what the leaving rate was in each of those years.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Year | Combined Staff/Officer Headcount as at Feb (17257) | Total Leavers in FY | % Leavers in FY | Total Leavers in FY | % Leavers in FY | % Leavers in FY |
2014/15 | 1533 | 86 | 6.7% | 38 | 15.3% | 8.1% |
2015/16 | 1586 | 79 | 6.0% | 26 | 9.6% | 6.6% |
2016/17 | 1623 | 112 | 8.6% | 43 | 13.1% | 9.6% |
2017/18 | 1589 | 149 | 11.5% | 27 | 9.2% | 11.1% |
2018/19 | 1598 | 109 | 8.4% | 28 | 9.5% | 8.6% |
2019/20 | 1545 | 188 | 14.9% | 45 | 15.7% | 15.1% |
2020/21 | 1638 | 99 | 7.5% | 25 | 7.8% | 7.6% |
2021/22 | 1620 | 90 | 7.0% | 24 | 7.3% | 7.0% |
2022/23 | 1602 | 116 | 9.1% | 35 | 10.8% | 9.4% |
2023/24 | 1624 | 132 | 10.3% | 37 | 10.6% | 10.4% |