Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases were waiting for a hearing date in the first tier immigration tribunal as of 1 December 2023.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The number of appeals in the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) that are waiting for a hearing date, as at 30 September 2023, is 24,085.
The Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on a quarterly basis. The latest set of data available covers the period up to 30 September 2023. Data provided in answer to this question is a sub-set of the published caseload data.
Published statistics can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunals-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2023.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of shortages in the number of experts available to provide specialist evidential reports on (a) the criminal justice system and (b) conviction rates.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We recognise that expert evidence is a key element of many cases and so are taking a number of steps to ensure the availability of experts. We have increased expert witness fees (including forensic science experts) by 15% in cases where legal aid is granted on or after 30 September 2022 to help ensure that the defence have access to a high standard of forensic services. We passed legislation in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 so that remote hearings can continue to be used in criminal proceedings and are currently considering how we can support greater use of video links to secure attendance by expert witnesses.
More broadly across the criminal justice system, the Forensic Science Reform Programme, led by the Home Office, aims to improve criminal justice outcomes through the delivery of world class forensic capabilities. In this financial year (2023/24), the Government has allocated £19.6m to improving standards and capability in the provision of expert scientific evidence.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the current backlog is of cases awaiting a first tier immigration tribunal hearing.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The number of appeals in the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) that have either not had a final hearing or been resolved prior to hearing, as at 31 March 2020, is 17,661, a reduction of 4,475 appeals from the same period in 2019.
Published statistics can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunal-statistics-quarterly-october-to-december-2019 and
www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmcts-management-information.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has deprioritised any Statutory Instruments in relation to the UK leaving the EU; and if he will publish the criteria his Department uses to deprioritise those Instruments.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Our objective has always been to have a functioning statute book in place by Exit Day and to ensure that the most critical secondary legislation was made by this point.
All of the Ministry of Justice’s essential ‘no deal’ Exit Statutory Instruments were made prior to 29 March 2019.
In addition, the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 are expected to be made shortly; and a further no deal Exit SI, to enable payments to be made to UK recipients of The Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme in the event of a no deal exit, is due to be laid shortly.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many complaints have been made against the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
785 complaints were made against the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) in the period from 1 April 2017 to 31 December 2017.
The figure for the year 2016/17 was 988. This represents three complaints for every 1000 cases.
Figures for previous years can be found in Cafcass Annual Reports which can be accessed on the Cafcass website: www.cafcass.gov.uk/about-cafcass/reports-and-strategies/annual-reports/
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service received in each of the last six years.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service has received total resource funding in respect of its statutory functions as follows:
Reporting year | Total funding received from central government |
2012-2013 | £ 127.472 million |
2013-2014 | £ 125.070 million |
2014-2015 | £ 117.144 million |
2015-2016 | £ 117.669 million |
2016-2017 | £ 115.046 million |
2017-2018 | £ 118.636 million |
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers recruited since 2015 have retained their job after a probation period for (a) one year and (b) two years or more.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Analysis on the rate of prison officers leaving within the first year of service and prison officer leaver numbers by length of service was included in the National Offender Management Service Workforce Statistics Bulletin for 30 September 2016, which is available on gov.uk.
Retention rates after two years of appointment are not yet available for staff appointed in 2015.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what costs his Department has incurred as a result of its policy change on (a) criminal court charges, (b) secure colleges, (c) the Saudi Arabian prison contract and (d) the closure of Just Solutions International.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
I refer the honourable member to the answers given to PQ 19256 on 14 December 2015 (part a) and 13074 on 7 December 2015 (parts b, c and d). The closure of the JSi brand was also met from within the National Offender Management Service’s existing resources.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many buildings his Department sold in (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012, (d) 2013 and (e) 2014.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The Ministry of Justice is committed to reducing the cost of its estate. Where surplus property assets have been identified, the MoJ will dispose of them expeditiously and will always seek the best value for the taxpayer.
The number of buildings sold by the MoJ in each year since 2010 is provided below.
Year | Number of buildings sold |
2010 | 106 |
2011 | 29 |
2012 | 70 |
2013 | 38 |
2014 | 62 |
Total | 305 |
Note: figures exclude sales of land sites and numerous garages at various former prison sites.
The MoJ is also rationalising its estate through exiting properties on lease expiry or break option if earlier in accordance with Cabinet Office National Property Controls. Since the start of the Spending Review (SR10) the size of the MoJ estate has reduced by over 600 properties to less than 1,500 properties. As a result, lower business as usual costs have been achieved.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, under what timetable his Department plans to phase out use of telephone lines with the prefix (a) 0845, 0844 and 0843 in accordance with the Cabinet Office guidance on customer service lines published in December 2013 and (b) 03 and 08, where 03 is the primary number under a dual numbering system.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
The Ministry of Justice is making good progress towards phasing out telephone lines with the prefix (a) 0845, 0844 and 0843 in accordance with the Cabinet Office guidance on customer lines published in December 2013 and (b) 03 and 08, where 03 is the primary number under a dual numbering system. The Department is widening engagement across the business to ensure a comprehensive solution within the Cabinet Office timelines, which allow until November 2014 for implementation.
Further to my answer to the Hon. Member’s parliamentary question of 23 June 2014 (HC Deb, 23 June 2014, c11W), the Department has recently ordered the cancellation of 16 of the higher-rate numbers in the County Court Business Centre (CCBC) in Northampton, reducing the overall total of higher-rate numbers operated by the Department from 34 to 18.