Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average number of hours spent out of their cell by inmates was on (a) weekdays and (b) weekend days in Oakhill Secure Training Centre in February 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested regarding average time-out-of-room spent by children and young people in young offender institutions during February 2024 is shown in the table below.
| Cookham Wood | Feltham | Parc | Werrington | Wetherby |
Weekdays | 3:24 | 5:02 | 8:30 | 4:06 | 6:25 |
Weekends | 2:01 | 3:49 | 5:47 | 3:10 | 4:33 |
The average time spent out-of-room each day by children and young people at Oakhill Secure Training Centre in February 2024 was 13 hours. As information about Oakhill Secure Training Centre is collated on a different basis from information about young offender institutions, it is not possible to provide the requested breakdown between weekdays and weekends.
We know the importance of ensuring that time in custody is purposeful and are committed to ensuring that children and young people have the necessary and appropriate access to education, skills, and work provision with a consistent daily programme of activities.
The Youth Custody Service is reviewing regime models and staff deployment to maximise time out of room, creating as open a regime as it is safe to do so, as well as providing education and enrichment for those who cannot safely be in a classroom setting. Additionally, work done to reduce conflict and manage behaviour, to increase the size of groups who are mixing in the regime, has increased time out of room.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many vacancies in the probation service there are as of 16 April 2024, by region.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Wednesday 20 March to Question 18474. Data was provided on the average number of vacancies for the month of December 2023, in line with our latest published workforce statistics (which present data up to 31 December 2023).
We are unable to provide a more up-to-date number of vacancies at the current time (for periods following December 2023) as this would pre-empt the next set of published data, which will be released on Thursday 16 May 2024. Once updated staffing data have been published in May, including data up to 31 March 2024, we will then be able to respond to questions for vacancy data up to and including March 2024.
Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision, recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.
We have recruited a record 4,039 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2022/23 and we expect these intakes to qualify by the end of 2024 and begin to take on Probation Officer caseloads.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many magistrates court hearings have been delayed or could not go ahead due to a (a) failure to deliver a prisoner and (b) delay in bringing a prisoner to court by (i) SERCO and (ii) other providers of escort services since 2017, by court.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
It is not possible to provide the information requested without detailed examination of individual records for more than 220 courts, across two Prisoner Escort and Custody Services contract generations (Generation 3, 2011 – 2020, and Generation 4, 2020 – 2030), and this would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions prisoners were delivered late to (a) a magistrates’ court hearing and (b) a Crown Court hearing, by each court, since 2017.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
It is not possible to provide the information requested without detailed examination of individual records for more than 220 courts, across two Prisoner Escort and Custody Services contract generations (Generation 3, 2011 – 2020, and Generation 4, 2020 – 2030), and this would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure prison leavers are aware of the resettlement services available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Effective resettlement of prison leavers is a core part of our efforts to reduce re-offending. This includes making sure someone has a home, family links where appropriate, access to healthcare, a job or further education, and/or access to benefits.
Probation practitioners in the community coordinate the overall rehabilitation of offenders as they leave prison and serve their licence, supported by Pre-Release Teams (PRT) who provide support to address identified immediate resettlement needs and pre-release support for all people in prison. The immediate resettlement needs of all prisoners are assessed on entry to prison and reviewed pre-release.
Utilising both prison-based services and Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS), there is a wide range of resettlement support covering accommodation, employment, dependency and recovery, personal wellbeing and finance, benefit and debt services. CRS also offers a ‘mentoring’ service, which can be delivered pre-release and follow offenders through the gate for those being released on licence to support community integration. Community probation practitioners and PRTs work proactively with prisoners to build pre-release plans and refer into these services to ensure that the right support is in place for release.
In addition, we have also introduced employment hubs where prisoners can access job vacancies and support with applications, and Prison Employment Leads who support with work-readiness and match them to jobs on release.
To further improve awareness for prison leavers, we are introducing Resettlement Passports, which will bring together key information and services that an individual needs in one place to resettle into the community, such as bank accounts, CVs and identity documents to prove the right to work and rent, as well as appointment and contact information to enable prison leavers to engage with resettlement services available.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of prison leavers are employed six months after their release.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We know that employment reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. In order to grow, businesses need skills and labour to fill the nearly one million vacancies in the UK right now. Prison leavers have a role to play in filling those vacancies, particularly in sectors with skills shortages such as construction and hospitality, that the economy needs to grow, while also cutting crime and delivering safer streets. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in delivering key employment reforms across 93 resettlement prisons, including:
I am pleased to say that the proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after release more than doubled from 14% in April 2021 to over 30% in March 2023. The next release of this data will be published this summer
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) male prisoners, (b) women prisoners and (c) young offenders were transferred to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Under sections 47/49 and 48/49 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Secretary of State may authorise by warrant the transfer of prisoners to a secure hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met by the aforementioned Act.
The requested data are set out in the tables below for the years 2013 to 2022 and are taken from an electronic casework system. Providing data for the years from 2010 to 2013 would require substantial manual checks of paper files which could be undertaken only at disproportionate cost. The data for 2023 are due to be published on 26 April.
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SEX | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Female | 109 | 104 | 117 | 111 | 111 | 118 | 130 | 109 | 103 | 142 |
Male | 887 | 956 | 898 | 875 | 854 | 895 | 924 | 921 | 995 | 930 |
Total | 996 | 1060 | 1015 | 986 | 965 | 1013 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
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| TRANSFER YEAR |
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AGE BAND | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
18 and over | 976 | 1039 | 995 | 972 | 946 | 996 | 1028 | 1012 | 1088 | 1062 |
Under 18 | 20 | 25 | 21 | 14 | 19 | 18 | 26 | 18 | 10 | 10 |
Total | 996 | 1064 | 1016 | 986 | 965 | 1014 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
Notes
Data Source: Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)
We are committed to delivering improvements to mental health care and treatment for vulnerable offenders through non-legislative means. This includes improving oversight of the 28-day time limit for transfers to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 and increasing judicial awareness of alternatives to custody through the expansion of the Bail Information Service.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the (a) adequacy and (b) effectiveness of self-regulation within the funeral sector.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have accepted that some form of regulation of the funeral sector is required. My officials have therefore been working on a plan to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the self-regulation regimes introduced by the two main representative bodies, and to launch a call for evidence.
The call for evidence will be launched before summer recess and will gather views on what type of regulation is appropriate and proportionate. Following this, we will develop and consult on proposals for the regulation of the sector. There are a number of possible routes for regulation including introducing an independent regulator. It is too early at this stage to say which is most appropriate.
I have discussed the regulation of the Funeral Sector with cabinet colleagues, and am working particularly closely with Minister Hoare on the short-term response to the tragic events in Hull and East Rising.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has had at recent discussions with cabinet colleagues on the regulation of the funeral sector.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have accepted that some form of regulation of the funeral sector is required. My officials have therefore been working on a plan to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the self-regulation regimes introduced by the two main representative bodies, and to launch a call for evidence.
The call for evidence will be launched before summer recess and will gather views on what type of regulation is appropriate and proportionate. Following this, we will develop and consult on proposals for the regulation of the sector. There are a number of possible routes for regulation including introducing an independent regulator. It is too early at this stage to say which is most appropriate.
I have discussed the regulation of the Funeral Sector with cabinet colleagues, and am working particularly closely with Minister Hoare on the short-term response to the tragic events in Hull and East Rising.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make it his policy to set up an independent regulator for the funeral sector.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have accepted that some form of regulation of the funeral sector is required. My officials have therefore been working on a plan to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of the self-regulation regimes introduced by the two main representative bodies, and to launch a call for evidence.
The call for evidence will be launched before summer recess and will gather views on what type of regulation is appropriate and proportionate. Following this, we will develop and consult on proposals for the regulation of the sector. There are a number of possible routes for regulation including introducing an independent regulator. It is too early at this stage to say which is most appropriate.
I have discussed the regulation of the Funeral Sector with cabinet colleagues, and am working particularly closely with Minister Hoare on the short-term response to the tragic events in Hull and East Rising.