Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were remanded into prison custody by Magistrates' Courts in England and Wales in each calendar year from 2018 to 2024; of these people, for each year how many were not guilty of charges for which remanded or not proceeded against; and what was the (a) median, (b) mean and (c) 90th percentile for time on remand in prison for those not guilty of charges for which remanded or not proceeded against for each year.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of those remanded in custody and bailed together with details of the final sentence at criminal courts in England and Wales in the remands data tool. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
However, data held centrally does not include information on the time a person spent on remand in prison.
Data on the number of remand prisoners in each prison in the HMPPS estate is routinely published within the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ): Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were remanded into prison custody by Magistrates' Courts in England and Wales in each calendar year from 2018 to 2024; of these people, for each year, how many were guilty but given a non-custodial sentence; and for each year, what was the (a) median, (b) mean and (c) 90th percentile for time on remand in prison for those found guilty and given non-custodial sentences.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of those remanded in custody and bailed together with details of the final sentence at criminal courts in England and Wales in the remands data tool. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
However, data held centrally does not include information on the time a person spent on remand in prison.
Data on the number of remand prisoners in each prison in the HMPPS estate is routinely published within the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ): Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were remanded into prison custody by Crown Courts in England and Wales in each year from 2018-2024; of these people, how many were not guilty of charges for which remanded or not proceeded against; and what was the (a) median, (b) mean and (c) 90th percentile for time on remand in prison for those not guilty of charges for which remanded or not proceeded against for each year.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of those remanded in custody and bailed together with details of the final sentence at criminal courts in England and Wales in the remands data tool. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
However, data held centrally does not include information on the time a person spent on remand in prison.
Data on the number of remand prisoners in each prison in the HMPPS estate is routinely published within the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ): Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were remanded into prison custody by Magistrates' Courts in England and Wales in each calendar year from 2018 to 2024; of these people, for each year how many were guilty and sentenced to immediate custody; and for each year, what was the (a) median, (b) mean and (c) 90th percentile for time on remand in prison for those found guilty and sentenced to immediate custody.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of those remanded in custody and bailed together with details of the final sentence at criminal courts in England and Wales in the remands data tool. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
However, data held centrally does not include information on the time a person spent on remand in prison.
Data on the number of remand prisoners in each prison in the HMPPS estate is routinely published within the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ): Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were remanded into prison custody by Crown Courts in England and Wales in each year from 2018-2024; of these people, how many were guilty but given a non-custodial sentence; and what was the (a) median, (b) mean and (c) 90th percentile for time on remand in prison for those found guilty and given non-custodial sentences.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of those remanded in custody and bailed together with details of the final sentence at criminal courts in England and Wales in the remands data tool. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
However, data held centrally does not include information on the time a person spent on remand in prison.
Data on the number of remand prisoners in each prison in the HMPPS estate is routinely published within the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ): Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of community sentencing in reducing reoffending.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
There is evidence that community orders and suspended sentence orders are more effective at reducing reoffending than sentences of immediate custody in certain circumstances.
Robust analysis (using a matched comparison group to account for cohort differences such as drug use and unemployment), found that custodial sentences of less than 12 months were associated with higher reoffending rates (4 percentage points difference) compared to court orders (community or suspended sentence): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d1c732ee5274a08cdbe45c4/impact-short-custodial-sentences.pdf.
The Department’s latest published reoffending data (July to September 2023) shows that the one year proven reoffending rate for those on a court order was 34% and 62% for those released from a determinant sentence of less than 12 months: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-july-and-september-2023.
Ministry of Justice research findings indicate that individuals sentenced with a Community Sentence Treatment Requirement reoffend less often compared with those given a short custodial sentence. For example, Mental Health Treatment Requirements recipients had a lower reoffending rate than those on a short custodial sentence recipients by 9 percentage points.
We welcome the Independent Sentencing Review’s emphasis on increasing the use of community sentences for lower-level offenders, ensuring that prisons are focused on locking up the most dangerous offenders.
In the Sentencing Bill, we have introduced new powers to allow the courts to have greater flexibility than ever before to tailor punishments to offenders and ensure sentences served in the community are not a “soft option” but represent a genuine punishment by restricting offenders’ freedoms.
These new powers will include banning offenders from driving, from attending pubs and bars, as well as public events such as sports and concerts. We are also introducing tough new restriction zones that will limit offenders to a specific geographical area.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 14 February 2025 to Question 29554 on Prison Accommodation, how many prison places were created as a result of crowding between (a) May 1997 and (b) 2010.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The previous Labour Government added nearly 28,000 places to the prison estate between 1997 and 2010. However, available records do not provide a breakdown for these figures of these places by category. It is therefore not possible to provide the number of places created through crowding.
Prison crowding data is published annually in Annex 2 of the HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK. This publication provides the percentage of prisoners held in crowded accommodation in each year in each prison since 1999. There is no earlier information on crowding available.
This Government is delivering the largest expansion of prison places since the Victorian era – with 2,500 new spaces already delivered and 14,000 on track for delivery by 2031.
Asked by: Jess Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat - Chichester)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to reduce delays in processing times for deputyship applications by the Court of Protection.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HMCTS is working to increase overall system capacity to decrease processing times across all types of applications. Measures taken include a targeted action plan to allocate additional administrative resources in response to higher demand, as well as training and upskilling new staff. Additional judicial sitting days have been added to support performance improvement. HMCTS has also adopted new digital systems, including an updated case management system, to help reduce overall end-to-end processing times.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support is available to help ex-offenders reintegrate into communities in high deprivation areas.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Effective resettlement of prison leavers is crucial to reduce reoffending. This includes making sure someone has a home, family links where appropriate, access to healthcare, a job or education, and timely access to benefits where needed.
Community probation practitioners coordinate each individual’s rehabilitation, taking an individualised approach to ensure all prison leavers are connected with the right local support. They work closely with pre-release teams and local services, including through prison-based and commissioned rehabilitative services, to enable effective reintegration back into the community.
To support this, the Government is committed to ensuring robust pre-release plans are in place, identifying and putting support in place to address individuals’ needs before release.
This support includes HMPPS’s Community Accommodation Service Tier 3, which provides up to 12 weeks of temporary housing for those at risk of homelessness on release, offering a stable base to support reintegration. Additionally, we’ve launched regional Employment Councils that bring together businesses, probation, and the Department for Work and Pensions to help prison leavers into work - a key factor in reducing reoffending by up to nine percentage points.
Asked by: Sarah Hall (Labour (Co-op) - Warrington South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of prison education contracts in reducing reoffending rates.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice recognises the vital role prison education plays in reducing reoffending. Evidence shows that prisoners who engage in any form of education while in custody are up to nine percentage points less likely to reoffend.
To strengthen outcomes, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service will soon launch new Prisoner Education Service contracts which will have clearer specification of high-quality delivery, screening and assessment and providing support for additional learning needs.
An evaluation and monitoring strategy is being developed to assess the effectiveness of these contracts, including their impact on reoffending. This will help build a robust evidence base to inform future improvements and ensure the service delivers on its rehabilitative aims.