Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when his Department plans to carry out an equality impact assessment on the effect of the new scheme for recall adjudicators proposed in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill.

There was consideration of equality impacts before the provisions went into the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to create a system of recall adjudicators to review the detention of recalled determinate sentenced offenders. This found that the new system should not give rise to direct or indirect discrimination; and there is insufficient evidence to suggest that any particular group of offender will be put at a particular disadvantage.

Implementation of the new system of recall adjudicators will be subject to ongoing equality considerations, in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

The system will uphold the principles of procedural fairness in introducing a streamlined process for reviewing the detention of recalled determinate sentence offenders.