Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the Parole Board (Amendment) Rules 2022, to whom is the Chair of the Parole Board accountable in the effective discharge of his or her duties with regard to agreeing public hearings of the Parole Board.

The decision on whether to hold a public hearing sits with the Chair of the Board. The Parole Board has published extensive guidance on its approach to public hearings on its website:  Applying for a Parole review to be public - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Parole Board is an independent non-departmental public-body.  As such, any decision the Chair might take on whether a parole hearing should be held in public is made independently of the Secretary of State for Justice. The Ministry of Justice is only made aware of an application for a public hearing when the Parole Board seeks representations from the Secretary of State in his role as a party to the proceedings. Although appointed by the Secretary of State as a public appointee, the decisions of Chair, and those taken by the Parole Board, can only be challenged by way of onwards rights of appeal or judicial review.

The Parole Board (Amendment) Rules 2022 contains the provisions that enable public parole hearings. Specifically, Rule 15 provides that public hearing applications can be made by anyone no later than 12 weeks before a hearing and the decision whether to grant an application rests with the Chair of the Parole Board. There are no plans to review these provisions.