Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how his Department ensures that the office of the Legal Ombudsman does not discriminate against people suffering from mental health issues during the decision making process.
Answered by Alex Chalk
The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) is an arm’s length body – which administers the Legal Ombudsman scheme (LeO) – and makes decisions in relation to cases considered under the scheme independently of, and without influence from, the Ministry of Justice.
We are aware that LeO staff receive training on reasonable adjustments and have Dedicated Vulnerable Customers Champions to identify customers who may need additional assistance or reasonable adjustments to access its service. This includes adjustments for mental health reasons.
The OLC also has a service complaints process, of which the last stage is escalation to the Service Complaint Adjudicator who is appointed by the Board and independent of the OLC.
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 prevalence of use of non-disclosure agreements by legal professionals; and what steps his department is taking to help ensure that non-disclosure agreements are not misused.
Answered by Alex Chalk
The legal profession in England and Wales is independent of Government and legal professionals are regulated by a number of regulators including the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Bar Standards Board (BSB). Legal professionals must comply with a detailed Code of Conduct, which ensures that high standards of conduct are met.
The SRA has issued guidance via a warning notice to all regulated individuals and entities on the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). The SRA warning notice confirms that they consider NDAs to be improperly used if they prevent a person from reporting misconduct, making a protected disclosure, reporting an offence or cooperating with criminal activity. The SRA has also been taking enforcement action against solicitors over the misuse of NDAs.
The Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy has published its response to views on consultation on confidentiality clauses. This proposes new legislation to further protect consumers in the provision of such legal services and deter rogue practice.
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 the potential merits of the recommendations of the Law Society's submission to Criminal Legal Aid Review, published in February 2020.
Answered by Alex Chalk
In order to focus on the most pressing issues for practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic we agreed to temporarily pause our work on the Criminal Legal Aid Review in order to focus on short term sustainability issues. We will return to the review, which has a wider focus on long term sustainability of the criminal legal aid market as quickly as we can, while doing all we can to mitigate the current crisis and support justice recovery.
On 28 February 2020, as part of the review, we launched a consultation on policy proposals for the “Criminal legal Aid Review - An accelerated package of measures amending the criminal legal aid fee schemes”. This consultation remains open and we continue to engage with various stakeholder and representative bodies and value the contributions being made. Once the consultation closes, the Government will publish its response after carefully considering the issues raised by the Law Society and others who respond to the consultation.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Your Party - Coventry South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Government is taking to rehabilitate prisoners convicted of terrorism offences; and which (a) organisations and (b) individuals provide rehabilitation programmes to prisoners convicted of terrorism offences.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) use tailored interventions with offenders - psychological, ideological and theological - to support their disengagement and rehabilitation.
We continue to regularly review Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) intervention programmes to ensure they are informed by the most up to date research on correctional rehabilitation. Interventions are delivered by in-house HMPPS CT specialists or through a range of external providers. We are unable to disclose further information regarding external providers as we are concerned about the adverse impact disclosure will have on national security.
More widely, we have trained over 29,000 prison staff to recognise, report and challenge extremist behaviour in prison. HMPPS works closely with partners, including with law enforcement, to understand and manage the risks that terrorist offenders present in prison, using a range of control and rehabilitation measures. This is underpinned by a specialist counter terrorism case management process, which is led by HMPPS Counter Terrorism specialists.