Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were released from prison in (a) England, and (b) Wales with no fixed address in 2025-26, by the releasing establishment.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Through the National Plan to End Homelessness, the Government has given a commitment to halving the proportion of prison leavers released homeless and increasing the proportion living in settled accommodation at three months following release, by the end of this Parliament.
The Prime Minister’s national drive to end rough sleeping, which is backed by an additional £442 million, builds on the National Plan to End Homelessness, taking total homelessness and rough sleeping investment to over £4 billion across the next three years.
The table attached provides data on the number of offenders recorded as having no fixed abode at the point of release from custody, by establishment, during the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the answer of 27 February 2026, to Question 112638, on Courtdesk: Data protection, why the unauthorised release of the sensitive personal data was deemed by the departmental data protection officer not to be a reportable data breach in this instance.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The departmental Data Protection Officer carefully considered the circumstances of this incident and concluded that it did not meet the threshold for notification to the Information Commissioner's Office. While the use of the data was found to be outside the agreed contractual arrangements, the information was processed using an enterprise-licensed AI service that had been subject to appropriate due diligence and contractual safeguards. There was no evidence of unauthorised access, wider disclosure, misuse of the data, or any resulting risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals. Following assessment in line with the Ministry of Justice Personal Data Incident Management Process, officials concluded that the incident did not meet the threshold for notification to either the ICO or the affected data subjects.
HMCTS, working with the Ministry of Justice, The National Archives and the Judiciary, has introduced a licensing framework for the computational re-use of court and tribunal hearing data published via the Court and Tribunal Hearings Service (CaTH).
The framework offers a one-year Experimental Licence for non-public proofs of concept and a three-year Transactional Licence for commercial products and services. All applications are subject to approval by the Third-Party Courts and Tribunals Governance Panel. Further guidance is available at Court and Tribunal Hearings Service or (HMCTS) Third-Party Courts and Tribunals Data Licence.
Asked by: Olly Glover (Liberal Democrat - Didcot and Wantage)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to review the legal status of letters of wishes in Disabled Person's Trusts, in the context of the increasing use of these structures for vulnerable beneficiaries under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 framework.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Trusts are commonly used to make long-term financial provision for family members, including children and vulnerable adults.
Trustees must exercise their powers in accordance with the binding terms of the trust instrument and are subject to broader statutory duties.
Letters of wishes can be used to complement the binding legal terms of a trust, by providing guidance about how the person creating the trust would like trustees to exercise their discretion. Letters of wishes are generally not legally binding, but trustees must give the letter of wishes necessary regard when making decisions on how to manage the assets within the trust.
As such, letters of wishes are designed to give guidance while preserving the trustee’s ability to make decisions based on circumstances that may change many years after the letter was written.
The Government currently has no plans to reform the law in this area.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Sentencing Act 2026 on the healthcare treatment of offenders who commit minor crimes.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Sentencing Act 2026 will reduce the use of short custodial sentences and expand the use of community-based disposals where appropriate. This creates opportunities to strengthen routes into treatment pathways, including diverting people with mental health, drug and alcohol needs away from the criminal justice system where appropriate.
The Ministry of Justice is working closely with NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), who are responsible for healthcare services in the community, to maximise the impact of the available treatment offer, targeting support where it can have the greatest impact.
Liaison and Diversion services play a vital role ensuring that when people first encounter the justice system, they can be referred into appropriate health or social care pathways to ensure they receive the right support from the first point of contact. In parallel, we are working closely with health partners to increase the use and effectiveness of Community Sentence Treatment Requirements, tackling the root causes of offending behaviour through structured treatment.
We are also launching an additional seven Intensive Supervision Courts (ISCs), which provide an alternative to short custodial sentences by keeping eligible offenders in the community with wraparound support, including drug and alcohol treatment, mental health support and judicial oversight.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison places included in baseline Certified Normal Accommodation but excluded from in-use Certified Normal Accommodation, broken down by establishment and, where recorded, by section or wing thereof; with the recorded reason, date taken out of use, and expected date of return to use provided for each set of places for which these data are separately available.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HMPPS does not centrally record the reasons why a prison's in-use Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) is lower than its baseline CNA, nor does it centrally hold information on when individual CNA places were taken out of use or are expected to return to use. This information will be held locally by individual prisons but collating it manually across the estate would incur disproportionate cost.
HMPPS does centrally record reasons for any changes to Operational Capacity, which is the total number of prisoners that a prison can hold, taking into account control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime. These data are not directly equivalent to places excluded from in-use CNA, but provide the closest centrally held measure. Information on Operational Capacity places out of use by establishment and reason is set out in the first attached table.
Please see attached data tables.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cells, rooms or dormitories in the prison estate have a Certified Normal Accommodation of (a) one and a maximum capacity of one, (b) one and a maximum capacity of two, (c) two and a maximum capacity of two, (d) two and a maximum capacity of three, (e) three and a maximum capacity of three, or (f) three and a maximum capacity of four, broken down by establishment.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HMPPS does not centrally record the reasons why a prison's in-use Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) is lower than its baseline CNA, nor does it centrally hold information on when individual CNA places were taken out of use or are expected to return to use. This information will be held locally by individual prisons but collating it manually across the estate would incur disproportionate cost.
HMPPS does centrally record reasons for any changes to Operational Capacity, which is the total number of prisoners that a prison can hold, taking into account control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime. These data are not directly equivalent to places excluded from in-use CNA, but provide the closest centrally held measure. Information on Operational Capacity places out of use by establishment and reason is set out in the first attached table.
Please see attached data tables.
Asked by: Kevin Bonavia (Labour - Stevenage)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment has he made of the potential impact of delays in fitting electronic tags on released offenders; and if he will consider the potential merits of immediate tagging upon release.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Electronic Monitoring field and monitoring provider has consistently met equipment installation visit requirements since January 2026. August and September performance remain subject to usual operational assurance checks. Tagging prisoners before they leave prison has been successfully trialled in six prisons and is being rolled out nationally starting later this year.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his letter to the hon. Member for West Suffolk, dated 10 September 2026, what the evidential basis is for the statement that there will be more people in prison than ever before by the end of this Parliament.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Annual Statement on Prison Capacity showed that the adult prison population was projected to reach between 89,500 and 94,300 by November 2029, with a central estimate of 91,700. Even the lower end of this range is above the highest published prison population figure of 88,893, recorded on 9 September 2024.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time is between an application being made for a Child Arrangements Order and the first hearing taking place in the family courts.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
For cases received in the year 2025-26, the average waiting time between an application for a Child Arrangement Order being received and the first hearing taking place in the family courts was 67 days.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will list the Justice Impact Tests his Department has undertaken since 4 July 2024.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Justice Impact Test (JIT) is an internal Government process used by policymakers across Government to assess the potential impacts of policy proposals on the justice system. It forms part of the advice and analysis that informs the development of Government policy.
Disclosure of JITs undertaken could prejudice the effective formulation and development of Government policy. I am therefore unable to provide the information requested.