Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase the availability of comprehensive palliative care across England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of palliative care and end of life care services to meet the needs of their local populations.
NHS England has also developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population.
The Department and NHS England are currently working at pace to develop plans on how best to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan. We will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to support the establishment of more hospices in England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has set out that integrated care boards (ICBs) are required to commission palliative care and end of life care services to meet the needs of their local populations, which can include hospice services available within the ICB catchment.
We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are also committing £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many women currently in prison have been sentenced to a term of (1) less than 4 weeks, (2) 4 to 8 weeks, (3) 8 to 12 weeks, (4) 3 to 6 months, (5) 6 to 12 months and (6) over 12 months.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is provided below.
Table 1: Number of female prisoners on remand and sentenced on 30 September 2025
Custody type |
|
Remand | 972 |
Sentenced | 2,535 |
Table 2: Number of female prisoners serving determinate sentences broken down by sentence length on 30 September 2025(1)
Sentence length |
|
Less than 4 weeks | 4 |
4 weeks to less than 8 weeks | 3 |
8 weeks to less than 12 weeks | 43 |
3 months to less than or equal to 6 months | 136(2) |
More than 6 months to less than 12 months | 149 |
12 months and over | 1,327 |
Notes
The figures in this table exclude recalled prisoners, as well as non-criminal prisoners and those serving indeterminate sentences.
In order to provide complete data, this figure includes a prisoner serving more than 12 weeks but less than 3 months.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many women are currently in prison (1) on remand and (2) serving a sentence.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is provided below.
Table 1: Number of female prisoners on remand and sentenced on 30 September 2025
Custody type |
|
Remand | 972 |
Sentenced | 2,535 |
Table 2: Number of female prisoners serving determinate sentences broken down by sentence length on 30 September 2025(1)
Sentence length |
|
Less than 4 weeks | 4 |
4 weeks to less than 8 weeks | 3 |
8 weeks to less than 12 weeks | 43 |
3 months to less than or equal to 6 months | 136(2) |
More than 6 months to less than 12 months | 149 |
12 months and over | 1,327 |
Notes
The figures in this table exclude recalled prisoners, as well as non-criminal prisoners and those serving indeterminate sentences.
In order to provide complete data, this figure includes a prisoner serving more than 12 weeks but less than 3 months.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many women currently in prison, having been released on license, have been recalled to prison for (1) less than 4 weeks or (2) 4 to 8 weeks.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
On 30 June 2025, the latest date for which we can provide data from published statistics, there were 170 women in prison, having been released on licence, who had been recalled to prison and had served less than 4 weeks in custody and, similarly, 44 who had served 4-8 weeks in custody, out of a total of 517 women in the recall population.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many women who were remanded into custody in the last 12 months were (1) not subsequently sentenced or (2) released having served the length of their sentence on remand.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The number of women who were not sentenced after being remanded in custody in the latest year available, year ending June 2025, can be found in the table below:
Table: The number of women who were not sentenced after being remanded in custody at the magistrates’ court and Crown Court, year ending June 2025
| Year ending June 2025 |
Magistrates’ Court | 189 |
Crown Court | 416 |
Notes:
The number of defendants not sentenced refers to cases discontinued or discharged, charges withdrawn or dismissed, acquittals and other disposals without conviction.
Figures for magistrates’ courts exclude cases committed to Crown Court for trial and sentencing.
Defendants are reported against their most serious remand status. All hearings except for sentence hearing are considered and ranked with custody as most serious, then bail and then not remanded or not applicable. A defendant’s remand status may change several times throughout their court journey, however what we report only reflects the most serious status they received in that set period and does not reflect the number of remand decisions made in those periods.
These figures are presented on a principal offence and principal disposal sentence – i.e. reporting information relating to the most serious offence that a defendant was dealt with for and the most severe sentence issued for the offence.
Further important caveats are found in the ‘Notes’ tab of the data source "Remands data tool: June 2025 which is available through the following link: Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: June 2025 - GOV.UK
Information relating to women who were remanded in custody and were released having served the length of their sentence on remand is not centrally held by the Ministry of Justice.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what national guidance they have issued to NHS trusts regarding the roles and responsibilities of nursing associate apprentices.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Apprenticeship standards set out the roles and responsibilities of an apprentice, and the skills, knowledge, and behaviours an apprentice will need to have learned by the end of their apprenticeship. The Nursing Associate Apprenticeship standard has been developed by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, in partnership with employers, and the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The standard is publicly available, including to all National Health Service trusts.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to improve the education of all prisoners in England.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service are committed to improving prison education across England. We have introduced key roles such as Heads of Education, Skills and Work, and Neurodiversity Support Managers, supported by regional leads and strengthened oversight of education contracts. Investment in digital infrastructure is expanding access to secure, flexible learning. Governors can commission enrichment and vocational courses through the Dynamic Purchasing System, while apprenticeships and the Future Skills Programme further support employment pathways. Ofsted feedback is closely monitored to drive improvements.
New Prison Education Service contracts have recently launched which aim to strengthen the quality of delivery, as well as standardising the assessment of prisoners and improving support for learners with additional needs. The Ministry of Justice is developing a strategy to evaluate prison education, and this will inform our plans for further improvements.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of (1) men, and (2) women who are released from from prison on licence are recalled to prison on the first occasion for breaking licence conditions; and, of these, what proportion are sentenced for an additional period of (a) up to two weeks, (b) two weeks to four weeks, (c) four weeks to eight weeks, (d) eight weeks to twelve weeks, and (e) over twelve weeks.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information is not held in a readily reportable format and so could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 23 July (HL9674), how they determine the allocation of (1) capital and (2) revenue funding to hospices in England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The £100 million capital funding allocation for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England has been calculated by the Department, informed by Hospice UK, and is based on the care expenditure of each hospice.
Some of the organisations that are eligible for this capital funding for hospices in England are national charities, providing services across the United Kingdom. Therefore, a £5 million cap per organisation, of the total £100 million, was introduced to ensure that the Department was not indirectly funding hospice capital projects elsewhere in the UK, beyond England.
This is deemed the fairest model that can release funding to the hospice sector fastest, helping hospices to fully utilise the allocated funds, and doing so in a way which results in best value for money.
Regarding revenue funding for children’s hospices, the £26 million of revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26 will be disseminated by integrated care boards on behalf of NHS England. As in previous years, individual allocations of the revenue funding have been determined using a prevalence-based model, enabling allocations to reflect local population need.
This is in line with the NHS devolution and promotes a more consistent national approach, supporting commissioners in prioritising the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population.