Asked by: Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, after the April 2025 data breach of the Legal Advice Agency, what specific steps have been taken, and what further measures are planned, to ensure that a similar security breach does not occur again.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We take the security of people’s personal data extremely seriously.
Firstly, to ensure transparency about the cyber- attack and that we reached as many potentially impacted individuals as possible, the Ministry of Justice published a notice shortly after it became aware of the criminal cyber-attack at 08:15 on 19 May on GOV.UK
The notice provided information about the cyber-attack and directed concerned members of the public to the National Cyber Security Centre’s webpage, which contained information on how to protect against the impact of a data breach.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) also set up dedicated Customer Services support via a telephone line and email for providers and clients who had concerns regarding the data breach. We did not write to all clients, to all the addresses that we had, because some of those addresses would no longer be current, and that would potentially create another data breach in itself.
The published statement referred to above sets out information about who may have been impacted and the nature of the information which may have been accessed. As far as we are aware, no data has been shared or put out in the public domain. An injunction has been put in place to prohibit sharing of this data. Anyone who does so could be sent to prison. If it is identified that a specific individual is at risk, action will be taken to try to contact them.
In the interests of security, we cannot confirm the method by which unauthorised access was gained to the LAA’s online digital systems or details about specific steps taken or measures implemented to protect LAA systems against any future cyber-attacks.
Security of the new systems has been paramount as we have rebuilt the LAA’s digital systems following the attack. The compromised digital portal has been replaced by a new, secure single sign-in tool for LAA online services (SiLAS). SiLAS has been designed and built in line with UK government and industry best practice for secure development. Security has been included from the ground up, including multi factor authentication, with independent testing activities to validate that the appropriate security controls are in place.
A dedicated team will monitor and update the service to ensure it evolves to remain resilient to emerging threats and is supported by a security operations capability. While no system can be entirely risk free, we are confident that we have taken the right steps to protect the service and its users.
Responsibility for disaster recovery planning for digital systems lies with Justice Digital rather than the LAA. Prior to the cyber- attack there was no digital disaster recovery plan in place. However, had we had a fully funded disaster recovery system, any immediate restoration would have simply restored the systems without resolving the vulnerabilities that enabled the cyber- attack to occur. Justice Digital now have a new Service Owner structure in place where clear Service Standards will be defined and monitored. This will include digital disaster recovery plans for each digital product.
Prior to the cyber- attack the LAA had in place prepared business continuity plans for business-critical processes and services to ensure that access to justice could be maintained in the event of a system outage. These plans were tried and tested, and we were confident that the measures would be effective for our initial response. These measures gave us sufficient time to design and implement longer term measures to meet the specific needs of the incident that were introduced in June 2025.
At every stage, we have acted to protect public access to justice and to support providers in delivering legal aid. We have achieved this without affecting court backlogs or police station activity.
Our business continuity planning was effective in maintaining access to justice from the outset of the attack and the need to have longer term options in place is one of the lessons that we have taken from this incident.
A formal lessons learned approach will systematically analyse lessons from the Ministry of Justice’s and LAA’s preparation for and response to the cyber-attack. This work will cover pre-incident risk management and the response to the incident itself. This will inform future resilience planning, governance improvement and risk mitigation strategies across the Ministry of Justice and its agencies.
Asked by: Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the the Legal Advice Agency data breach in April 2025, whether his Department and the LAA had a prepared disaster recovery plan prior to the breach.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We take the security of people’s personal data extremely seriously.
Firstly, to ensure transparency about the cyber- attack and that we reached as many potentially impacted individuals as possible, the Ministry of Justice published a notice shortly after it became aware of the criminal cyber-attack at 08:15 on 19 May on GOV.UK
The notice provided information about the cyber-attack and directed concerned members of the public to the National Cyber Security Centre’s webpage, which contained information on how to protect against the impact of a data breach.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) also set up dedicated Customer Services support via a telephone line and email for providers and clients who had concerns regarding the data breach. We did not write to all clients, to all the addresses that we had, because some of those addresses would no longer be current, and that would potentially create another data breach in itself.
The published statement referred to above sets out information about who may have been impacted and the nature of the information which may have been accessed. As far as we are aware, no data has been shared or put out in the public domain. An injunction has been put in place to prohibit sharing of this data. Anyone who does so could be sent to prison. If it is identified that a specific individual is at risk, action will be taken to try to contact them.
In the interests of security, we cannot confirm the method by which unauthorised access was gained to the LAA’s online digital systems or details about specific steps taken or measures implemented to protect LAA systems against any future cyber-attacks.
Security of the new systems has been paramount as we have rebuilt the LAA’s digital systems following the attack. The compromised digital portal has been replaced by a new, secure single sign-in tool for LAA online services (SiLAS). SiLAS has been designed and built in line with UK government and industry best practice for secure development. Security has been included from the ground up, including multi factor authentication, with independent testing activities to validate that the appropriate security controls are in place.
A dedicated team will monitor and update the service to ensure it evolves to remain resilient to emerging threats and is supported by a security operations capability. While no system can be entirely risk free, we are confident that we have taken the right steps to protect the service and its users.
Responsibility for disaster recovery planning for digital systems lies with Justice Digital rather than the LAA. Prior to the cyber- attack there was no digital disaster recovery plan in place. However, had we had a fully funded disaster recovery system, any immediate restoration would have simply restored the systems without resolving the vulnerabilities that enabled the cyber- attack to occur. Justice Digital now have a new Service Owner structure in place where clear Service Standards will be defined and monitored. This will include digital disaster recovery plans for each digital product.
Prior to the cyber- attack the LAA had in place prepared business continuity plans for business-critical processes and services to ensure that access to justice could be maintained in the event of a system outage. These plans were tried and tested, and we were confident that the measures would be effective for our initial response. These measures gave us sufficient time to design and implement longer term measures to meet the specific needs of the incident that were introduced in June 2025.
At every stage, we have acted to protect public access to justice and to support providers in delivering legal aid. We have achieved this without affecting court backlogs or police station activity.
Our business continuity planning was effective in maintaining access to justice from the outset of the attack and the need to have longer term options in place is one of the lessons that we have taken from this incident.
A formal lessons learned approach will systematically analyse lessons from the Ministry of Justice’s and LAA’s preparation for and response to the cyber-attack. This work will cover pre-incident risk management and the response to the incident itself. This will inform future resilience planning, governance improvement and risk mitigation strategies across the Ministry of Justice and its agencies.
Asked by: Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of disaster recovery planning at the Legal Aid Agency prior to the cyber-attack of April 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We take the security of people’s personal data extremely seriously.
Firstly, to ensure transparency about the cyber- attack and that we reached as many potentially impacted individuals as possible, the Ministry of Justice published a notice shortly after it became aware of the criminal cyber-attack at 08:15 on 19 May on GOV.UK
The notice provided information about the cyber-attack and directed concerned members of the public to the National Cyber Security Centre’s webpage, which contained information on how to protect against the impact of a data breach.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) also set up dedicated Customer Services support via a telephone line and email for providers and clients who had concerns regarding the data breach. We did not write to all clients, to all the addresses that we had, because some of those addresses would no longer be current, and that would potentially create another data breach in itself.
The published statement referred to above sets out information about who may have been impacted and the nature of the information which may have been accessed. As far as we are aware, no data has been shared or put out in the public domain. An injunction has been put in place to prohibit sharing of this data. Anyone who does so could be sent to prison. If it is identified that a specific individual is at risk, action will be taken to try to contact them.
In the interests of security, we cannot confirm the method by which unauthorised access was gained to the LAA’s online digital systems or details about specific steps taken or measures implemented to protect LAA systems against any future cyber-attacks.
Security of the new systems has been paramount as we have rebuilt the LAA’s digital systems following the attack. The compromised digital portal has been replaced by a new, secure single sign-in tool for LAA online services (SiLAS). SiLAS has been designed and built in line with UK government and industry best practice for secure development. Security has been included from the ground up, including multi factor authentication, with independent testing activities to validate that the appropriate security controls are in place.
A dedicated team will monitor and update the service to ensure it evolves to remain resilient to emerging threats and is supported by a security operations capability. While no system can be entirely risk free, we are confident that we have taken the right steps to protect the service and its users.
Responsibility for disaster recovery planning for digital systems lies with Justice Digital rather than the LAA. Prior to the cyber- attack there was no digital disaster recovery plan in place. However, had we had a fully funded disaster recovery system, any immediate restoration would have simply restored the systems without resolving the vulnerabilities that enabled the cyber- attack to occur. Justice Digital now have a new Service Owner structure in place where clear Service Standards will be defined and monitored. This will include digital disaster recovery plans for each digital product.
Prior to the cyber- attack the LAA had in place prepared business continuity plans for business-critical processes and services to ensure that access to justice could be maintained in the event of a system outage. These plans were tried and tested, and we were confident that the measures would be effective for our initial response. These measures gave us sufficient time to design and implement longer term measures to meet the specific needs of the incident that were introduced in June 2025.
At every stage, we have acted to protect public access to justice and to support providers in delivering legal aid. We have achieved this without affecting court backlogs or police station activity.
Our business continuity planning was effective in maintaining access to justice from the outset of the attack and the need to have longer term options in place is one of the lessons that we have taken from this incident.
A formal lessons learned approach will systematically analyse lessons from the Ministry of Justice’s and LAA’s preparation for and response to the cyber-attack. This work will cover pre-incident risk management and the response to the incident itself. This will inform future resilience planning, governance improvement and risk mitigation strategies across the Ministry of Justice and its agencies.
Asked by: Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what is the determined method by which unauthorised access was gained to the Legal Aid Agency's online digital systems during the April 2025 data breach.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We take the security of people’s personal data extremely seriously.
Firstly, to ensure transparency about the cyber- attack and that we reached as many potentially impacted individuals as possible, the Ministry of Justice published a notice shortly after it became aware of the criminal cyber-attack at 08:15 on 19 May on GOV.UK
The notice provided information about the cyber-attack and directed concerned members of the public to the National Cyber Security Centre’s webpage, which contained information on how to protect against the impact of a data breach.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) also set up dedicated Customer Services support via a telephone line and email for providers and clients who had concerns regarding the data breach. We did not write to all clients, to all the addresses that we had, because some of those addresses would no longer be current, and that would potentially create another data breach in itself.
The published statement referred to above sets out information about who may have been impacted and the nature of the information which may have been accessed. As far as we are aware, no data has been shared or put out in the public domain. An injunction has been put in place to prohibit sharing of this data. Anyone who does so could be sent to prison. If it is identified that a specific individual is at risk, action will be taken to try to contact them.
In the interests of security, we cannot confirm the method by which unauthorised access was gained to the LAA’s online digital systems or details about specific steps taken or measures implemented to protect LAA systems against any future cyber-attacks.
Security of the new systems has been paramount as we have rebuilt the LAA’s digital systems following the attack. The compromised digital portal has been replaced by a new, secure single sign-in tool for LAA online services (SiLAS). SiLAS has been designed and built in line with UK government and industry best practice for secure development. Security has been included from the ground up, including multi factor authentication, with independent testing activities to validate that the appropriate security controls are in place.
A dedicated team will monitor and update the service to ensure it evolves to remain resilient to emerging threats and is supported by a security operations capability. While no system can be entirely risk free, we are confident that we have taken the right steps to protect the service and its users.
Responsibility for disaster recovery planning for digital systems lies with Justice Digital rather than the LAA. Prior to the cyber- attack there was no digital disaster recovery plan in place. However, had we had a fully funded disaster recovery system, any immediate restoration would have simply restored the systems without resolving the vulnerabilities that enabled the cyber- attack to occur. Justice Digital now have a new Service Owner structure in place where clear Service Standards will be defined and monitored. This will include digital disaster recovery plans for each digital product.
Prior to the cyber- attack the LAA had in place prepared business continuity plans for business-critical processes and services to ensure that access to justice could be maintained in the event of a system outage. These plans were tried and tested, and we were confident that the measures would be effective for our initial response. These measures gave us sufficient time to design and implement longer term measures to meet the specific needs of the incident that were introduced in June 2025.
At every stage, we have acted to protect public access to justice and to support providers in delivering legal aid. We have achieved this without affecting court backlogs or police station activity.
Our business continuity planning was effective in maintaining access to justice from the outset of the attack and the need to have longer term options in place is one of the lessons that we have taken from this incident.
A formal lessons learned approach will systematically analyse lessons from the Ministry of Justice’s and LAA’s preparation for and response to the cyber-attack. This work will cover pre-incident risk management and the response to the incident itself. This will inform future resilience planning, governance improvement and risk mitigation strategies across the Ministry of Justice and its agencies.
Asked by: Pam Cox (Labour - Colchester)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons and Young Offender Institutions have (a) an ID and Banking Administrator and (b) an Employment Lead currently in post.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Prison Employment Leads (PELs) and ID and Banking Administrators (IDBAs) were introduced to 93 prisons across the estate in 2022 and have been effective in supporting prisoners to prepare for their reintegration into the community since then. Whilst these roles are supported nationally, they are managed and recruited to locally, so numbers of vacancies are not held centrally.
Asked by: Pam Cox (Labour - Colchester)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what was the rate of compliance for people fitted with an alcohol monitoring device after their release from prison, in each year since 2021.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
We are unable to provide compliance rates by year for those released from custody and subject to alcohol monitoring. However, our published research for this cohort has shown around four out of five prison leavers with an alcohol monitoring condition added to their licence during 2023 did not violate their order. Of those who did violate their order, most only received a single violation. The Department’s published research can be found here - AML: Process and Interim Impact Evaluation.
The compliance rate of alcohol monitoring imposed by the court as part of a Community Order or Suspended Sentence Order, which imposes a total ban on drinking alcohol for up to 120 days, showed from the introduction of the technology in October 2020 through to 6 June 2025, the devices did not register a tamper or alcohol alert for 97.3% of the days worn. Anyone who does break the rules, risks being returned to custody.
Asked by: Pam Cox (Labour - Colchester)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons and Young Offender Institutions currently have (a) an Incentivised Substance Free Living Unit operating, (b) a Drug Recovery Wing operating, and (c) a Drug Strategy Lead in post.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has funded Incentivised Substance Free Living Units in 85 prisons, and six currently have abstinence-based Drug Recovery Wings. To support delivery of HMPPS’ Drug and Alcohol Strategy, 54 prisons have a dedicated Drug Strategy Lead. All remaining prisons, including Young Offender Institutions, have a designated point of contact for Drug and Alcohol Strategy work.
In addition, HMPPS has recruited 17 Group Drug and Alcohol Leads providing regional leadership, assurance, and co-ordination of drug and alcohol work for all the establishments in their Prison Group. They align activity at establishment level with national drug and alcohol strategy and policies which aim to restrict supply, reduce demand and support recovery. They also support local and regional partnerships with healthcare providers to support a range of issues including continuity of care on release.
Asked by: Pam Cox (Labour - Colchester)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners are participating in higher education courses.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
According to the Open University, as of 18 December 2025, there are 1,486 students who are currently in custody enrolled on Open University higher education programmes for the 2025/26 academic year, and a further 413 on licence in the community, totalling 1,899.
Additionally, some prisoners are taking level 4 courses, with 1,524 prisoners currently studying a course funded by the Prisoners’ Education Trust.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to Answer of 9th December 2025 to Question 96041, on Reoffenders: Sentencing, what assessment he has made of how frequently courts depart from sentencing guidelines on the basis that it is in the interest of justice to do so.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
All sentencing courts in England and Wales must follow any sentencing guidelines which are relevant to the offender’s case, unless it is in the interests of justice not to do so (by virtue of section 59 of the Sentencing Code).
Whilst there is a high bar for departing from the guidelines, it is necessary, in the interests of justice, that courts retain the discretion to do so, where the individual case and circumstances warrant it. If a court departs from the guidelines, it must give reasons for doing so.
As mentioned in my previous response, the Sentencing Council has a statutory duty to monitor and evaluate all definitive guidelines to assess their impact on sentencing outcomes and ensure they operate as intended. Analysis conducted by the Council between 2010 and 2015 demonstrated that the vast majority of sentences imposed for offences for which there were offence-specific guidelines were within the sentence range set out in the guidelines. The findings are presented in the Council’s annual reports for 2010/11 through 2014/15 which are available on its website. As part of its ongoing monitoring of the use of guidelines, the Council conducts quantitative and qualitative research to determine how the guidelines are being used and the effect they are having on sentencing practice. These evaluations will highlight any issues if departures from guidelines are commonplace for a particular offence(s) or aspect of sentencing.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of whether the discretion for courts to depart from sentencing guidelines in the interests of justice affects the (a) consistency and (b) effectiveness of sentencing outcomes.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
All sentencing courts in England and Wales must follow any sentencing guidelines which are relevant to the offender’s case, unless it is in the interests of justice not to do so (by virtue of section 59 of the Sentencing Code).
Whilst there is a high bar for departing from the guidelines, it is necessary, in the interests of justice, that courts retain the discretion to do so, where the individual case and circumstances warrant it. If a court departs from the guidelines, it must give reasons for doing so.
As mentioned in my previous response, the Sentencing Council has a statutory duty to monitor and evaluate all definitive guidelines to assess their impact on sentencing outcomes and ensure they operate as intended. Analysis conducted by the Council between 2010 and 2015 demonstrated that the vast majority of sentences imposed for offences for which there were offence-specific guidelines were within the sentence range set out in the guidelines. The findings are presented in the Council’s annual reports for 2010/11 through 2014/15 which are available on its website. As part of its ongoing monitoring of the use of guidelines, the Council conducts quantitative and qualitative research to determine how the guidelines are being used and the effect they are having on sentencing practice. These evaluations will highlight any issues if departures from guidelines are commonplace for a particular offence(s) or aspect of sentencing.