Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of extending qualified one-way costs shifting to discrimination cases.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Government is considering whether to extend Qualified One-Way Costs Shifting to discrimination cases and will set out the way forward in due course.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, will the proposed Victims and Prisoners Bill consider placing a statutory duty on criminal justice agencies to provide accessible information to disabled victims about their rights and entitlements, pursuant to Right 1 of the Victims’ Charter.
Answered by Laura Farris
This Government is committed to ensuring that all victims are made aware of their entitlements under the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (‘the Victims’ Code’), and the Victims and Prisoners Bill (‘the Bill’) already takes appropriate steps to require that criminal justice agencies provide accessible information to victims about their rights and entitlements.
The Bill places a statutory duty on criminal justice agencies to raise awareness of the Victims’ Code with victims, which includes those affected by disabilities. Statutory guidance will set out ways this can be done effectively, including how materials can be made more accessible for different individual needs.
The Bill also places the overarching principles of the Victims’ Code into legislation, including the principle that victims should be provided with information to help them understand the criminal justice process.
This principle underlines the existing requirements in the Victims’ Code under Right 1, which entitles victims to be helped to understand what is happening and to be understood. This obliges criminal justice agencies to consider relevant personal characteristics which may affect a victim’s ability to understand or be understood and requires them to communicate in an accessible way. This includes protected characteristics such as disability. To ensure the Code itself is accessible, it is available in a range of formats and languages on GOV.UK, including a HTML version that is compatible with screen reading technology, large print, easy read and British Sign Language.
The Bill also introduces measures to improve support for victims of crime including a duty on Police and Crime Commissioners, local authorities and health bodies to collaborate when commissioning support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violence. Within this, commissioners are required to have regard to the particular needs of those with protected characteristics, including victims who are disabled. In addition, the Bill requires that statutory guidance is published about the roles of Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs), which will provide the necessary flexibility for these roles to support the individual needs of victims who are disabled. Together these measures recognise the importance of tailored services to meet the diverse needs of victims.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the provisions in the Victims and Prisoners Bill to safeguard disabled victims of crime.
Answered by Laura Farris
This Government is committed to ensuring that all victims are made aware of their entitlements under the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (‘the Victims’ Code’), and the Victims and Prisoners Bill (‘the Bill’) already takes appropriate steps to require that criminal justice agencies provide accessible information to victims about their rights and entitlements.
The Bill places a statutory duty on criminal justice agencies to raise awareness of the Victims’ Code with victims, which includes those affected by disabilities. Statutory guidance will set out ways this can be done effectively, including how materials can be made more accessible for different individual needs.
The Bill also places the overarching principles of the Victims’ Code into legislation, including the principle that victims should be provided with information to help them understand the criminal justice process.
This principle underlines the existing requirements in the Victims’ Code under Right 1, which entitles victims to be helped to understand what is happening and to be understood. This obliges criminal justice agencies to consider relevant personal characteristics which may affect a victim’s ability to understand or be understood and requires them to communicate in an accessible way. This includes protected characteristics such as disability. To ensure the Code itself is accessible, it is available in a range of formats and languages on GOV.UK, including a HTML version that is compatible with screen reading technology, large print, easy read and British Sign Language.
The Bill also introduces measures to improve support for victims of crime including a duty on Police and Crime Commissioners, local authorities and health bodies to collaborate when commissioning support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violence. Within this, commissioners are required to have regard to the particular needs of those with protected characteristics, including victims who are disabled. In addition, the Bill requires that statutory guidance is published about the roles of Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs), which will provide the necessary flexibility for these roles to support the individual needs of victims who are disabled. Together these measures recognise the importance of tailored services to meet the diverse needs of victims.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much was spent on legal aid for people with disabilities in disability discrimination cases in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Freer
For the first question on legal aid expenditure for people with disabilities in discrimination cases, the information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate costs.
For the second question, the information can be found in the table below:
Legal aid expenditure for clients who have declared that they are disabled in the last five years.
Financial year | Costs |
2018-2019 | £203,708,380 |
2019-2020 | £211,911,448 |
2020-2021 | £179,375,193 |
2021-2022 | £209,120,094 |
2022-2023 | £221,430,405 |
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much was spent on legal aid for people with disabilities in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Freer
For the first question on legal aid expenditure for people with disabilities in discrimination cases, the information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate costs.
For the second question, the information can be found in the table below:
Legal aid expenditure for clients who have declared that they are disabled in the last five years.
Financial year | Costs |
2018-2019 | £203,708,380 |
2019-2020 | £211,911,448 |
2020-2021 | £179,375,193 |
2021-2022 | £209,120,094 |
2022-2023 | £221,430,405 |
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the National Disability Strategy, published on 28 July 2021, which of his Department’s commitments in that strategy that have not been paused as a result of legal action have (a) been fully, (b) been partially and (c) not been implemented.
Answered by Mike Freer
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Thursday 22 June to Question 189790: Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions each licensing authority has brought under the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 governing a blind person's right to travel in licensed taxis with their guide dogs since January 2022, broken down by licensing authority.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on prosecutions for various offences in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: June 2022. Offences under the provisions of the Equality Act 2020 governing a blind person’s right to travel in licenced taxis with their guide dog are within 19599 – Other summary non-motoring offences.
Between January to June 2022, there were no prosecutions related to this act. Prosecutions for 2022 will be available in the next annual Criminal Justice System Statistics publication.
Details of licensing authority are not held centrally in the Court Proceedings database.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of their Department's employees are recorded as having a disability.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Ministry of Justice can confirm that of those staff who declared their disability status, as at the end of March 2022, 15% of MoJ staff were declared disabled.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has a Ministerial disability champion.
Answered by Mike Freer
I was recently appointed as the Ministerial Disability Champion for the Ministry of Justice.
I will work with the other Ministerial Disability Champions appointed in each Government Department to represent the interests of disabled people and drive forward progress on disability policy across government.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reform the criminal justice system to help tackle violence against women and girls.
Answered by Edward Argar
In 2021, HMG published the VAWG Strategy and the End-to-End Rape Review, in which the Government committed to more than doubling the number of adult rape cases reaching court. The number of people convicted of an adult rape offence went up by 65 percent over the past year (from 323 in the year to June 2021 to 532 in the year to June 2022).
As part of this we are rolling out Operation Soteria, a joint police and CPS programme to make investigations suspect-focussed rather than focussed on victim credibility. This has begun operating across nineteen police forces, with a national rollout ready from June 2023.
We are also increasing the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Abuse Advisors to over 1,000 by 2024/25.