Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, what assessment they have made of the competence of the Youth Justice Board given that girls are being accommodated in male prisons, despite specific care needs illustrated by the official statistics 'Safety in the Children and Young People Secure Estate: Update to December 2023', published on 25 April, which stated that the rate of self-harm among girls on the secure estate is 66 times higher than for boys.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Responsibility for the management of the youth secure estate in England and Wales was transferred from the Youth Justice Board to the Youth Custody Service, a distinct arm of His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), in 2017.
There are various mechanisms to monitor the performance of the Youth Justice System, including youth custody. The Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probation chairs the Youth Justice Quarterly Performance Board (YJQPB), which provides strategic oversight on how effectively the Youth Justice System is performing. The Board uses key metrics and other intelligence across the entirety of the system to identify challenges and drive action to address these. Senior representatives across the Youth Justice System, including the Youth Custody Service, Youth Justice Board and other stakeholders within Government and the public sector collaborate to monitor the key metrics and drive change.
In addition, the Minister monitors specific custody-related performance updates through regular meetings with senior managers from Youth Custody Service.
Girls in the youth estate may be accommodated in mixed-gender settings, including within the Secure Children’s Home sector, Oakhill Training Centre and at HMYOI Wetherby. Placement decisions are made according to individual need, within the placement options available. Within each sector, each child has his or her own room - boys and girls do not mix. However, as they may do while at school within the community, boys and girls do mix in education and association areas- and are supervised by staff at all times.
Any girl in the youth estate who is at risk of self-harm will be supported through the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) process, ensuring she has a dedicated case manager; and girls with the most complex needs will receive additional monitoring and more intensive case management.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to house girls convicted of crimes in female-only prison units.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
As of February 2024, girls make up less than 1 per cent of the children and young people in the youth estate. There have been fewer than 10 girls in the youth estate at any one time during the period September 2023 to February 2024 (the latest for which figures are available).
Within the youth estate, girls may be placed in establishments that also accommodate boys: in Secure Children’s Homes, at Oakhill Secure Training Centre and at HMYOI Wetherby. Within each sector, every child has his or her own room. When boys and girls come into contact with each other – in education and association areas – they are supervised by staff at all times. The availability of these options is designed to enable the needs of each individual girl to be met in the most appropriate way. We are keeping the position of girls in the youth estate under constant review, and the Youth Custody Service is developing a gender-specific operating model for HMYOI Wetherby, as well as gender-responsive guidance for the wider youth estate.
For the longer term, we are reviewing options, and examining future placement locations and services, for girls who require custody, together with the training and operational support that staff need to enable them to care for girls in the youth estate.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to take action against the management and guards of Wetherby Young Offenders Institution who permitted male officers to forcibly strip girls there, as reported by His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons in December 2023.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
There is no plan to take formal action against staff members who were responding to an emergency to preserve life. In emergencies, the first priority of staff is always to safeguard the life and safety of those in their care.
This incident was not a strip search as erroneously reported but the removal of clothing from a child who was using it to create ligatures and self-strangulate. She was placed into anti-ligature clothing to prevent causing further harm to herself.
Following the incident highlighted by H M Inspectorate, a learning review has been conducted by the Youth Custody Service’s Safeguarding Team. It focused on four main themes:
protecting the well-being of children and staff during and after incidents
further training and guidance for staff in incident management of girls
integrated care management to ensure all departments work effectively with a child
management of resources to ensure there is an appropriate gender balance of staff on night duty.
The Youth Custody Service (YCS) will oversee the action in response to the learning review. This includes the provision of additional support to HMYOI Wetherby in its management of exceptionally complex high-risk, high-harm girls, the development of specific gender-responsive operating guidance, and effective use of available resources to support children.
The YCS has revised the Minimising and Managing Physical Restraint syllabus, which is the behaviour management and restraint system used to provide youth estate staff with the ability to identify behaviour that causes concern and use de-escalation and diversion strategies to minimise the use of restraint through the application of behaviour management techniques. This has been rolled out at HMYOI Wetherby.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reported findings of the study commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, due to be published later this year, that male sexual offenders were twice as likely to claim to be transgender in order to access women’s prison units compared with men jailed for other types of offences.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service take the allocation of transgender women in custody very seriously. The study in question concerns the lived experience of transgender women in two men's prisons. None of the participants stated that their motivation was to access the women’s estate, and the preliminary findings of the research did not suggest that any of the participants were motivated by this.
Most transgender women in custody do not request a move to the women’s estate, and of those that do, most are not granted a move. As a result, well over 90% of transgender women in custody are held in the men’s estate.
In February of this year, we strengthened our policy so no transgender woman who has been convicted of a sexual or violent offence, and/or who retains birth genitalia, can be held in the general women’s estate. Exemptions to this rule can only be considered for the most truly exceptional of cases, and each case must be risk assessed by a multidisciplinary panel of experts and signed off by a minister before the individual can be held in the women’s estate.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the reported findings of the study commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, due to be published later this year, what steps they are taking to prevent male offenders from seeking moves to the female prison estate due to faking their claims to be female.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service take the allocation of transgender women in custody very seriously. The study in question concerns the lived experience of transgender women in two men's prisons. None of the participants stated that their motivation was to access the women’s estate, and the preliminary findings of the research did not suggest that any of the participants were motivated by this.
Most transgender women in custody do not request a move to the women’s estate, and of those that do, most are not granted a move. As a result, well over 90% of transgender women in custody are held in the men’s estate.
In February of this year, we strengthened our policy so no transgender woman who has been convicted of a sexual or violent offence, and/or who retains birth genitalia, can be held in the general women’s estate. Exemptions to this rule can only be considered for the most truly exceptional of cases, and each case must be risk assessed by a multidisciplinary panel of experts and signed off by a minister before the individual can be held in the women’s estate.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government which protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 the Ministry of Justice routinely (1) collects, and (2) publishes data on, in respect of prisoners.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The nine protected characteristics are as follows:
The data for age; gender reassignment; being pregnant or on maternity leave; race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin; religion or belief; sex and sexual orientation is collected and published regularly.
The data for disability and being married or in a civil partnership is collected but not published.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that the courts service record the gender of a person convicted of a sexual assault as “male” if they possess male genitalia, regardless of their preferred gender identity.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Courts are required by the Courts Act 2003 and Criminal Procedure Rules to ask defendants to provide name, date of birth and nationality (the latter now only after sentence and in circumstances specified by the relevant rule). If and once an individual is remanded or sentenced into prison custody, HM Prison Service records their legal gender. Where the individual’s self-identified gender differs, this is also recorded, whilst making clear on the record that this is not their legally recognised gender.
There are currently no plans to alter these procedures.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many women in prison were sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983 in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (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 female prisoners to a secure hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met.
The number of women prisoners transferred to hospital in each of the last five years are:
2021 – 184
2020 - 181
2019 - 213
2018 - 192
2017 – 180
The data for 2022 are not currently available, they are due for publication later this year.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bellamy on 7 December (HL3687) concerning guidance issued by a staff network in the HM Prison and Probation Service, whether that guidance has now been withdrawn; and what steps they are taking to ensure guidance is not issued which does not comply with departmental policies and legal responsibilities.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The document in question was produced by a staff network. It was not Government guidance. The content was not cleared by the Ministry of Justice, does not reflect departmental policy and should not have been shared. It will not be further disseminated.
His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is reviewing its Employee Networks Protocol. This review will strengthen the process for ensuring that all information and materials communicated comply with our policies and legal responsibilities. This will include a review of sign-off procedures for nationally distributed employee network communications. HMPPS will also provide further communications training for its network leads. We remain committed to promoting diversity and awareness and maintaining robust professional standards.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government which minister, if any, was responsible for approving the guidance entitled Recognising transphobic coded language which the HM Prison and Probation Service diversity and inclusion team was reported to have sent to staff employed by the Ministry of Justice.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The guidebook was not approved by ministers and was published by a staff network, rather than as a corporate HM Prison and Probation Service document.
To prevent this happening again, the Ministry of Justice is reviewing the rules around communications to staff from network groups, to ensure that all information and materials comply with our policies and legal responsibilities.