Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the Staffordshire and West Midlands Rehabilitation Company's use of video calls in place of face-to-face contact with offenders.

The bid made by the Reducing Reoffending Partnership for the contract to run the Staffordshire and West Midlands Community Rehabilitation Company (SWM CRC) included changes to the way services are delivered, such as the introduction of biometric kiosk reporting. These changes do not specifically include the use of video calls in place of face-to-face interviews with offenders, and we are not currently aware of any plans SWM CRC may have to introduce them in the future.