Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce (1) a Community Sentence Treatment Requirement for gambling addiction, or (2) a Gambling Treatment Requirement, similar to community sentence treatments for offences where alcohol, drugs or mental health issues were an underlying factor.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
Offenders with a gambling addiction may be suitable for a Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR) as part of a community or suspended sentence order where mental health has been identified as an underlying factor.
The MHTR clinical practitioner assessment would identify an individual’s vulnerability (for example gambling addiction) and this would determine the psychological interventions suitable for them. Due to the complexity of gambling addiction, different approaches are used to enhance therapeutic effectiveness.
HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is committed to increasing awareness of the hidden harms of addiction to gambling and helping to support those with a problem, at all stages of the criminal justice system. To this end, a needs analysis is planned so that we can better understand the size of the issue. The results will inform the development of an HMPPS national gambling strategy, designed to raise awareness of problem gambling and ensure that our probation officers have the confidence to help identify and signpost individuals into the most appropriate care.
I refer the noble Lord to the answer given to HL980 for a more detailed account of the work in hand to raise awareness and knowledge of problem gambling with prison staff, probation and the police.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made towards introducing Integrated Domestic Abuse Court pilot schemes.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
Planning for the Integrated Domestic Abuse Court pilot is under way with the Steering Group and Design Groups established and developing detailed proposals. We intend to launch the pilots later this year, despite the challenges brought by Covid-19 and the significant ongoing work to ensure the family courts continue to function throughout the pandemic.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to amend the list of circumstances in which a registered medical professional has a duty to notify a relevant senior coroner of a death to include suicide as a result of problem gambling.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
Under the Notification of Deaths Regulations 2019, registered medical practitioners are required to notify the coroner of a death in specified circumstances, which include cases of suspected self-harm or where the cause of death is unknown. As part of the notification process, the medical practitioner must tell the coroner which of the specified circumstances they believe apply to the death. The guidance for registered medical practitioners (published in September 2019 and available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/notification-of-deaths-regulations-2019-guidance) makes clear that, in most cases, the practitioner should provide the coroner with a detailed narrative explanation of the likely cause of death.
In practice, therefore, a requirement already exists for cases of suspected suicide – which would include suicide as a result of problem gambling – to be notified to the coroner and, consequently, the Government has no plans to amend the 2019 Regulations in this regard.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many prosecutions for hare coursing were brought to trial which did not lead to a guilty verdict in (1) 2013, (2) 2014, (3) 2015, (4) 2016, (5) 2017, and (6) 2018.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
The Ministry of Justice has published data on the number of people prosecuted and convicted in England and Wales up to December 2017 for the following hare coursing offences:
Figures can be found in the table below, if an offence does not appear in the table, it means there were no prosecutions or convictions for it in the period given. Data for 2018 will be published in May 2019.
Table 1. Number of prosecutions and convictions for hare coursing offences in England and Wales, 2013-2017.
| 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
Attending a hare coursing event |
|
|
|
| |
Prosecuted | 11 | 3 | - | - | - |
Convicted | 8 | - | - | - | - |
Participating in a hare coursing event |
|
|
|
|
|
Prosecuted | 12 | - | 8 | 6 | 1 |
Convicted | 4 | - | 4 | - | - |
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many successful prosecutions for hare coursing there were in the UK in (1) 2013, (2) 2014, (3) 2015, (4) 2016, (5) 2017, and (6) 2018.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
The Ministry of Justice has published data on the number of people prosecuted and convicted in England and Wales up to December 2017 for the following hare coursing offences:
Figures can be found in the table below, if an offence does not appear in the table, it means there were no prosecutions or convictions for it in the period given. Data for 2018 will be published in May 2019.
Table 1. Number of prosecutions and convictions for hare coursing offences in England and Wales, 2013-2017.
| 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
Attending a hare coursing event |
|
|
|
| |
Prosecuted | 11 | 3 | - | - | - |
Convicted | 8 | - | - | - | - |
Participating in a hare coursing event |
|
|
|
|
|
Prosecuted | 12 | - | 8 | 6 | 1 |
Convicted | 4 | - | 4 | - | - |
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Keen of Elie on 3 April (HL6247), what are the measures that will be put in place to help support prisoners who are at risk of self-harm or suicide.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
The Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) process is the multi-disciplinary case management system that is used to provide support for prisoners assessed as being at risk of self-harm or suicide.
We are committed to improving the support that we offer to prisoners at risk. We expect the most important and effective measures to be the recruitment of 2,500 new staff, and the introduction of new offender management arrangements in prisons under which each key worker will have particular responsibility for a small number of prisoners. These will greatly enhance the time and resources available to support prisoners who are at risk.
We continue to work in partnership with the Samaritans to provide the Listener scheme, through which volunteer prisoners are trained to provide support to other prisoners in emotional distress. Additional grant funding for the Samaritans in 2017-18 will facilitate a number of improvements to that scheme and some other initiatives, including a pilot project to provide training on building emotional resilience for prisoners in their early days in custody, to be delivered by released ex-Listeners.
Other measures are being developed as part of our safety programme, which includes specific strands of work on the early days in custody, the case management of prisoners at risk, and building hopefulness amongst prisoners, including through family and peer support.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the increasing annual number of self-inflicted deaths in prisons since 2012, what steps they are taking to reduce the number of such deaths.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
We are clear that violence, self-harm and deaths in our prisons are too high. The department has taken immediate action to stabilise the estate by tackling the drugs, drones and phones that undermine security and are also investing £100m annually to boost the frontline by 2,500 officers. These are long-standing issues that will not be resolved in weeks or months but our wholesale reforms will lay the groundwork to transform our prisons, reduce reoffending and make our communities safer. We will carefully study the details of all deaths in custody to determine whether there are any patterns, or lessons to be learned, to further our understanding of why these tragic events happen. A range of measures will be put in place to help support prisoners who are at risk of self-harm or suicide, especially in the first 24 hours where prisoners are at their most vulnerable. We are also investing more in mental health awareness training for staff.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recent increases in the number of non-natural deaths in prisons; and what plans they have to improve mental health support for those in prison who are at risk of suicide.
Answered by Lord Faulks
Every death in custody is a tragedy. We are taking forward a wide range of work to reduce violence and the use of drugs, including new psychoactive substances, in prisons and to address the levels of suicide and self-harm.
All deaths in prison custody are subject to a police investigation, an independent investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), and a Coroner’s inquest. We are committed to learning from these investigations to inform the approach of both health and custodial services in identifying and supporting prisoners at risk.
All prisons are required to have procedures in place to identify, manage and support people who are at risk of harming themselves. The Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) process is a prisoner-centred, flexible care planning system for prisoners identified as being at risk of suicide or self-harm. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has recently reviewed compliance with the ACCT process and is working to implement the recommendations, which include improvements to multi-disciplinary working between prison and clinical mental health staff.
NHS England is implementing new prison clinical information systems which will improve the availability of clinical information to staff in prisons from the early days in custody.
In addition, the government has initiated a cross departmental Mental Health Taskforce, tasked with developing integrated mental health service pathways in the least restrictive settings and aimed at providing support and intervention to those in need of help at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of those individuals who previously claimed a motability allowance under the Disability Living Allowance and have lost that allowance after being reassessed for Personal Independence Payments, have (1) appealed that decision, and (2) succeeded at appeal.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The First-tier Tribunal – Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service hears appeals against decisions by the Department for Work and Pensions on a range of benefits including Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
Information about the number and success rates of SSCS appeals by benefit type, including PIP, is published in the Tribunal and Gender Recognition Certificate Statistics Quarterly. The most recent report can be located on the government website.
The specific information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that support is made available for vulnerable defendants by registered intermediaries in the criminal justice system, as currently is the case for vulnerable witnesses.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The Government is committed to ensuring that all defendants receive a fair trial. We are currently considering formalising the provision of intermediaries for vulnerable defendants. It should be noted that, as well as a variety of measures currently available to courts to ensure a fair trial, if necessary, the Judiciary can already grant the use of an intermediary to assist vulnerable defendants.