Asked by: Lord Rennard (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what sanctions are provided for in the Public Office (Accountability) Bill in response to serious wrongdoing by police officers.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill creates four new criminal offences:
Failing to comply with the duty of candour and assistance;
Misleading the public;
Seriously improper acts; and
Breach of duty to prevent death or serious injury.
Police officers may be prosecuted for any or all of these.
The offences of failing to comply with the duty of candour and assistance and misleading the public have a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
The seriously improper acts offence has a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment. The breach of duty to prevent death or serious injury offence has a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the financial allowance for jury service in covering the cost of wages, food and travel.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Jury service is a vital civic duty, and the Government is committed to ensuring jurors feel supported throughout their service. All the support provided to jurors throughout their service is kept under review to ensure it remains appropriate and accessible. Jurors can claim subsistence and travel expenses, as well as a loss of earnings allowance from the court. For those individuals facing particular difficulties in serving the jury summoning process provides for applications for deferral or excusal based upon financial hardship.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his department is taking to reduce turnover rates of prison governors.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Enable Programme is a workforce transformation programme that aims to change how HMPPS trains, develops, leads, and supports its prison staff to ensure that they feel safe, supported, valued, and confident in their skills and ability to make a difference.
A key focus for the programme is to strengthen prison leadership and operational capability and build a quality pipeline of leaders for the future. To support this work Governor Succession Planning is managed via a National Talent Committee, that monitors tenure, identifies talent and considers succession in line with civil service rules. This senior multi-disciplinary team meet quarterly and are informed by internal management information, the leadership requirements of individual sites and the strengths of individual governors.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his department is taking to improve or increase provision of training for newly appointed prison governors.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Enable Programme is a workforce transformation programme that aims to change how HMPPS trains, develops, leads, and supports its prison staff to ensure that they feel safe, supported, valued, and confident in their skills and ability to make a difference.
A key focus for the programme is to strengthen prison leadership and operational capability and build a quality pipeline of leaders for the future. This includes a new national Governor Induction programme which provides a dedicated package of learning for new Governors, offering professional, personal, and practical support to ensure they have the best start to their governing career.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his department will provide the total number of prisoner days, aggregated across all prisoners, in which an individual prisoner with a disability received a) no time in open air and b) no time out of cell.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The information requested for adult prisoners is not held by the Ministry of Justice, as collecting data on time in and out of cell would require detailed monitoring of cell activity in each prison establishment.
PSI 75/2011 (Residential Services), which includes general guidance on time-out-of-cell, can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/residential-services-psi-752011.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his department will provide the total number of prisoner days, aggregated across all prisoners, in which an individual prisoner received a) no time in open air and b) no time out of cell.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The information requested for adult prisoners is not held by the Ministry of Justice, as collecting data on time in and out of cell would require detailed monitoring of cell activity in each prison establishment.
PSI 75/2011 (Residential Services), which includes general guidance on time-out-of-cell, can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/residential-services-psi-752011.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many a) reported illnesses or b) hospitalisations of prisoners in each of the last 10 calendar years have been partially or wholly attributed to unhygienic prison conditions.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Statistics on prisoners’ health are the responsibility of the NHS. I am informed that the figures that are collected do not indicate whether an illness or hospitalisation relates to unhygienic conditions or show the causes of illnesses linked to E-coli.
Arrangements are in place to ensure hygiene standards are maintained across the prison estate. These include regular monitoring and cleaning delivered through a combination of prisoner working parties and contracted cleaning services.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what action his department is taking to ensure prison estate maintenance providers are accountable for their performance.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The value and performance of the Department’s private-sector service providers is reviewed through routine contract and performance management and, in addition, ministers meet regularly with each provider’s Chief Executive Officers to hold them personally to account for their performance.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions for fly-tipping were brought in Great Yarmouth in the last 12 months; and what assessment he has made of whether current penalties are a sufficient deterrent.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Fly-tipping is a serious crime which blights communities and the environment and dealing with it imposes significant costs on both taxpayers and businesses. Anyone caught fly-tipping may be prosecuted and faces potentially serious punishment.
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions relating to fly tipping in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, which can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
Relevant offences can be filtered by using the offence filter and selecting 91.1 Offences related to fly-tipping - Triable either way.
Data is not published separately for Great Yarmouth, however, there have been no prosecutions for this offence at Great Yarmouth magistrates court in year ending June 2025.
Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the courts. Parliament has provided the courts with a broad range of sentencing powers to deal effectively and appropriately with offenders, including discharges, fines, community sentences, suspended sentences and custodial sentences.
The maximum penalty for fly-tipping is 5 years custody. When deciding what sentence to impose, courts must consider the circumstances of the case, including the culpability of the offender, the harm they caused or intended to cause, and any aggravating and mitigating factors. The courts also have a statutory duty to follow any relevant sentencing guidelines, developed by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales.
The Government keeps the sentencing framework under ongoing review to ensure that it remains fit for purpose.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the levels of the use of drones in importing contraband into prisons; and what was number of drone incidents recorded in each year since 2015.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Drone incidents around prisons in England and Wales pose a major threat to prison security. We are working hard to deter, detect and disrupt the illegal use of drones. This includes working across government and international partners on this global issue.
We publish the number of drone incidents in England and Wales in the HMPPS Annual Digest, please see table 6_1 in the Finds tables. The latest issue covers the 12-month period to March 2025, with a time series of drone incidents starting from the 12-months to March 2021. We published Official Statistics on drone incidents for the first time in July 2025, with data back to April 2020. Drone statistics back to 2015 cannot be provided, having not been equivalently recorded or assured.
Any increase in reported drone incidents should not be interpreted as an increase in incursions; it may reflect more focused reporting. Drone incidents should not be interpreted as definitive evidence of the delivery of contraband into prisons, as they include all incidents where a drone is sighted. Data specific to deliveries of illicit items cannot be disclosed for security reasons.