Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help support victims of historic miscarriages of justice to appeal their convictions.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Where the normal time limit for appeals through the courts has passed and where an individual believes they have been wrongly convicted of a crime in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, including in historic cases, they can apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which is an independent public body funded by the Ministry of Justice. The CCRC can investigate and where it considers that there is a real possibility that the conviction would not be upheld were the reference to be made, can refer cases back to the courts.
There is no time limit on any application and the service is free.
To ensure that the appeals system is working effectively, the Government has asked the Law Commission to conduct an independent and wide-ranging Review of the appeals system. The Review will consider the issues raised by the Westminster Commission (2021) on miscarriages of justice, which includes the tests used by the CCRC and the Court of Appeal, and the government will then consider the review’s findings, and any recommendations for change in the law, very carefully.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of cases referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission for appeal were successful in each year since 2019.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The number and proportion of successful cases referred by the CCRC and heard by appeal courts each year since 2019/20 is:
| Number of successful referrals | Proportion of successful referrals |
2019/20 | 10 | 58.8% |
2020/21 | 30 | 88% |
2021/22 | 57 | 88% |
2022/23 | 17 | 89% |
2023/24 | 19 | 79% |
2024/25 (year to date) | 2 | 100% |
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the contract agreed by his Department with ZK Analytics Limited on 18 March 2024, procurement reference 23425, if he will publish the deliverables specified in Annex F of that contract.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
A redacted copy of Annex F – Deliverables will be uploaded to Contracts Finder within the next 10 days.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he (a) is taking and (b) plans to take steps to assess the efficacy of restraining orders in preventing repeat incidents of domestic violence (i) in minority ethnic communities and (ii) generally.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Restraining orders play an important role in ensuring that victims are appropriately protected, and feel safer, particularly within the context of repeated and/or escalating behaviour that disproportionately impacts women and girls, such as domestic abuse.
They are one of several existing protective orders that can be used in cases of domestic abuse to protect a victim, such as Non-Molestation Orders, Stalking Protection Orders, and Domestic Violence Protection Orders.
Abusers who breach restraining orders face tough penalties including jail time. Where a restraining order is breached, CPS guidance encourages prosecutors to consider whether a new course of conduct is present and, if so, to ensure that it is prosecuted in addition to the breach in question.
Safeguarding victims of all crimes, and particularly from those such as domestic abuse is a priority for this Government. That is why we are going further to protect victims of domestic abuse by piloting a new Domestic Abuse Protection Order from Spring 2024 which will give courts the power to impose exclusion zones, curfews, and electronic monitoring tags on abusers. The order will be independently evaluated to understand its effectiveness in protecting all victims.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of rape trials that have been postponed within 24 hours' notice in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The data held centrally by the Ministry of Justice on ineffective trials does not specifically identify those that have been postponed within 24 hours' notice. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.
The Government is committed to improving the Criminal Justice System’s response to adult rape. This includes the significant progress we have made in delivering our Rape Review Action Plan. Within this plan, we set ourselves stretching ambitions to return the volumes of police referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), CPS charges and Crown Court receipts for adult rape to 2016 levels. In practice, this means more than doubling the number of cases reaching court since the Rape Review was commissioned in 2019. We are pleased to say we have already exceeded these ambitions.
We also recognise that lengthy waiting times can be particularly difficult for victims of rape and other serious sexual offences who wish to see justice done and move on with their lives. The Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales has recently announced that all rape cases outstanding for more than two years will be listed by the end of July 2024, providing certainty to those victims that their cases will be prioritised and heard as soon as possible.
Alongside the SPJ’s efforts, we continue to make sure we do more than ever to improve timeliness at court. This includes delivering over 107,000 additional sitting days in Crown Courts; opening two permanent ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough; increasing criminal legal aid spending by £141 million per year; investing over £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of court buildings (up to March 2025); and investing further in judicial recruitment and retention.
We know that support services play a critical role in supporting victims including those engaging with the Criminal Justice System. This is why we are quadrupling funding for victims and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10. The funding will allow us to increase the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors to around 1,000 by 2025.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 26 March 2024 to Question 19426 on Immigration: Appeals, how many appeals were made before the (a) First and (b) Upper Tribunal between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2023; how many and what proportion of these appeals were successful; and what the total cost to the public purse was for these appeals.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about appeal receipts in the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) and Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) is routinely published within Tribunals Statistics Quarterly in the main tables. The total number of receipts to the First-tier Tribunal is available in table FIA_1 and for the Upper Tribunal in UIA_1.
The proportion of appeals for the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal which were successful is also available as published data and can be found in tables FIA_3 and UIA_3 respectively.
The latest quarterly data includes figures to December 2023 and is available here: Tribunals statistics quarterly: October to December 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Data for the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) receipts, disposals and outcome figures is available up to Q1, April to June 2021. Data from Q2 2021/22 onwards have not been included in this publication as data was migrated to a new IT system and the data is not yet available.
Financial information is published for the IAC on an annual basis in the HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) Annual Report, within the fees and charges section. Published information relates to the expenditure and fee income of HMCTS and will not cover financial impacts on other public bodies. Fees and costs cannot be reliably attributed to a particular cohort of appeals. The most recent available data is for Financial Year 2022/23 and is published here HMCTS annual reports and plans - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of his Department’s (a) advertising and (b) marketing expenditure was on (i) local newspapers in print and online, (ii) national newspapers in print and online, (iii) social media, (iv) search engines, (v) broadcast and on-demand television and (vi) other channels in the most recent year for which data is available.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Over financial year 2022/23, the Ministry of Justice’s communications team delivered highly cost-effective marketing campaigns to support operational and policy priorities, such as our Prison and Probation Service recruitment campaigns.
As requested, we have outlined the proportion of the marketing and advertising budget that was spent on advertising broken down in percentages. The categories vary slightly due to the way the data is collected. It is worth noting that due to 2023/24 accounts still being in reconciliation, we are unable to provide data for year 2023/24.
| Proportion |
Local Print (advertising) | 0.04% |
National Print (advertising) | 0.52% |
Online job sites (advertising) | 54.24% |
Online Media Search advertising | 15.69% |
Broadcast and on-demand television (advertising) | 0% |
Other | 13.58% |
Social media (advertising) | 15.94% |
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the contract agreed by his Department with Press Data Ltd. on 1 April 2024 under procurement reference 410700/1338489, if he will publish the (a) work specification set out in Schedule 20 of that contract and (b) list of words used by the contractor to generate daily media briefings for his Department.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
A redacted version of Call-Off Schedule 20, which includes the specification, will be published within the next 30 days.
The supplier provides the requested search terms as part of the contract service, the search terms themselves are not specified in the contract or any contract documentation and will not be published.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 23 November 2023 to Question 2542 on Legal Aid Scheme: Manchester and Middlesbrough, what progress has been made on preparing the evaluation report into the early legal advice pilot scheme; and when he plans to publish that report.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We plan to publish all Early Legal Advice Pilot (ELAP) outputs in accordance with Government Social Research protocols very soon.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the average time from sentence to start of community payback in each year since 2015.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Year | Average days from sentence to start of Community Payback | Number of offenders who did not complete their first session of Community Payback | Total caseload |
2021 | 87 | 8,830 | 44,108 |
2022 | 63 | 7,822 | 47,421 |
2023 | 37 | 6,604 | 48,058 |
The dataset includes all offenders starting an order with a community payback requirement between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2023. The start of the community payback requirement has been defined as either the first attended session of group work, or an individual placement, or the completion of Employment, Training and Education work.
There are a variety of reason why a person hasn't completed their first community payback session. These include receiving a custodial sentence or remanded into custody, recall to prison, a warrant for their arrest, deportation, suitability of sentence and non -compliance. For issues of suitability or non-compliance requirements are returned to court for appropriate action to be taken.
People whose first community payback session took place over a year from their order start date have been excluded from the average days calculation as additional court work would need to be completed to ensure that the first session was worked within a lawful period.
People who have not completed a first work session have also been excluded from the average day calculation, along with those where a first work session has been recorded after the community payback requirement was terminated.
The 2023 figure is subject to change as offenders sentenced in late 2023 will still have time to complete their first community payback session.
Centrally collected data are only available from 2021.
Between 2021 and 2023, a total of 23,256 offenders did not complete their first session of community payback.
This figure is subject to change as offenders sentenced in late 2023 will still have time to complete their first community payback session.
Data as at 15 April 2024. Data are sourced from nDelius and while these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.