Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people participating in hunger strikes in prisons became hospitalised for reasons associated with the strike in (a) 2023, (b) 2024 and (c) 2025.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
None of the requested data are centrally collated. They could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many hunger strike incidents in prisons involved (a) three and (b) more persons collectively engaging in the strike in (i) 2024 and (ii) 2025.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
None of the requested data are centrally collated. They could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many hunger strikes in prisons lasted for over 40 days in (a) 2021, (b) 2022, (c) 2023, (d) 2024 and 2025.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
None of the requested data are centrally collated. They could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how long has each hunger strike lasted in prisons in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
None of the requested data are centrally collated. They could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to ensure that (a) people whose alleged offending results from experience of domestic abuse have access to an effective defence and (b) the Victims' Code includes provision to ensure that those people are treated proportionately by the criminal justice system.
Answered by Laura Farris
The Government and the law recognises that some offenders may commit offences as a direct result of being subjected to domestic abuse. There is a need to strike a balance between recognising the impact of abuse whilst ensuring that people do not revert to criminal behaviour.
The law already provides for a number of general defences, both full defences such as self-defence, and partial defences such as of “loss of control” or “diminished responsibility”. We have, however, asked the Law Commission to conduct a review of defences specifically to homicide where the offender was a victim of domestic abuse.
The Victims’ Code sets out the services that all victims of crime, including victims of domestic abuse, are entitled to receive from criminal justice agencies at the different stages of the criminal justice process. This includes receiving information about the case, participating appropriately in the criminal justice process and accessing support services. However investigation or charging decisions are operational decisions for the police and Crown Prosecution Service.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of implications for his policies of the findings in the 2022-23 annual report of the HMP Rye Hill Independent Monitoring Board that the prison has (a) inadequate resettlement support in place for those leaving and (b) significant challenges to maintaining fair and humane treatment; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of these findings on rates of recidivism.
Answered by Edward Argar
The care and rehabilitation of prisoners are matters that the Ministry of Justice and H M Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) take very seriously. We respond to all issues raised in reports we receive from Independent Monitoring Boards, and take action as appropriate.
The report notes that finding accommodation in Approved Premises can be problematic. We recognise, and are addressing, this issue. In recent years we have undertaken an Approved Premises expansion programme, which has delivered 169 additional spaces, including the first purpose-built site. We are also developing a new digitalised approach to referrals, through a national Central Referral Unit that will oversee assessment for suitability and eligibility, and match individuals to placements, while maximising occupancy and use of Approved Premises capacity across the country. This new approach is being piloted in the North East. Underpinned by the Department’s demand analysis, it will enable HMPPS to improve timeliness and allow greater consistency and responsivity.
The section of the Independent Monitoring Board’s report devoted to fair and humane treatment notes the challenges unavoidably arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, and comments favourably on the prison’s proactive approach in prioritising a return to business as usual, including arranging for prisoners to undertake activity on a daily basis. The report notes that, when interviewed, prisoners were understanding of the need for restrictions and appreciated the efforts the prison had made to return to a normal regime as quickly as possible through the year.
We were encouraged to receive the Board’s comments on the extensive prisoner-led initiatives across a range of topics that have promoted a sense of community and improved staff and prisoner relationships. This can only be beneficial in improving prospects for successful resettlement and rehabilitation on release.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the reduction in the number of duty solicitors at police stations since 2017 on access to justice; and if he will take steps to increase the number of duty solicitors at police stations.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is satisfied that there continues to be sufficient duty solicitor coverage on the duty schemes operating across England and Wales. Provision under the duty schemes is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota or other fluctuations in numbers depending on prevailing market conditions, and other internal factors such as firms merging or other consolidation activity.
The LAA is responsible for commissioning duty solicitor services and the day-to-day administration of the court and police station duty schemes. This includes keeping membership records, allocating slots and producing and maintaining duty solicitor rotas. The LAA monitors membership across individual duty schemes. Information about duty solicitor volumes broken down by individual scheme is published as part of the LAA’s quarterly statistics. Additionally, there are 1,385 accredited police station representatives able to provide advice to individuals at the police station.
At a national level, the LAA monitors capacity across criminal legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis and, where demand is greater than the available supply, takes action to secure additional provision to ensure the continuity of legal aid-funded services.
More generally in relation to criminal legal aid we introduced a 15% uplift across most fee schemes in line with the recommendations made in the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review, including the police station fee scheme. This funding began to come into effect from the end of September 2022, and we subsequently agreed to extend it to the majority of cases already progressing in the Crown Court. We are investing a further £16m into the police station scheme over 2024-25. Following these reforms, an increase in expenditure of up to £141 million a year will take expected annual criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion.
Overall, our ambitious reforms will deliver a stronger justice system for all who rely on it. They will reinforce a more sustainable market, with publicly funded criminal defence practice seen as a viable long-term career choice befitting of our world-class legal professionals.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that HMP Rye Hill Independent Monitoring Board has (a) its full complement of members and (b) the support it needs to adequately monitor the welfare of prisoners.
Answered by Rob Butler
The Ministry of Justice values the scrutiny provided by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at HMP Rye Hill. The Department recognises the recruitment challenges faced by IMBs and across the wider volunteer sector.
In response to this, the Department has increased the funding available to IMBs by £440,000 for the financial year 2022-23 and provided an additional £500,000 in capital funding. This additional funding aims to help ensure that IMBs increase their complement of members. The increases will fund structural developments to improve new member recruitment and retention, for example, through the recruitment of Regional Support Leads, who will play a key role in supporting recruitment to Boards through improving local outreach. A Regional Support Lead has been recruited for the region which HMP Rye Hill is located in and is expected to take up post in November 2022. A regional approach to recruitment will also help streamline the recruitment process to ensure that candidates can progress quickly and join the boards they have been recommended to.
Individual boards have flexibility in how their members work individually and as a collective to ensure that the welfare of prisoners is monitored effectively. In addition, a National Monitoring Framework provides guidance to all boards on how to meet their monitoring requirements. The IMB Secretariat continues to provide support to members and boards through training, guidance and recruitment assistance.
The additional funding provided by the Department has also increased communications resource to raise the profile of IMBs and improve recruitment advertising to support member recruitment.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an assessment of (a) the shortfall in and (b) the potential impact of increasing the level funding in the 2022-23 financial year on, recruitment to Independent Monitoring Boards.
Answered by Rob Butler
We value the scrutiny provided by the independent scrutiny bodies, including the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs).
In the 2022-23 financial year, we increased the level of funding for the IMBs by £0.44m and provided an additional £0.5m of capital funding. The increases will fund structural developments to improve new member recruitment and retention, for example, through the recruitment of Regional Support Leads, who will play a key role in supporting recruitment to Boards through improving local outreach.
Additionally, the development of a new organisational database will provide improvements to member recruitment and retention by replacing the current outdated legacy software and providing better access to member learning and development records, whilst aligning with plans to improve recruitment techniques. We hope this will positively impact the recruitment of board members and we will continue to keep this under review.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people with autism have been (a) convicted and (b) acquitted under joint enterprise since the Supreme Court judgement of 18 February 2016 in R v Jogee; and how many of those convicted were (i) first and (ii) secondary offenders.
Answered by Sarah Dines
The Ministry of Justice does not collect centrally, information on whether a defendant in criminal proceedings has autism or whether a conviction or acquittal related to joint enterprise. Such information may be held on court records but could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.