Became Member: 27th June 2001
Left House: 21st December 2017 (Retired)
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
These initiatives were driven by Lord Condon, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
Lord Condon has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Lord Condon has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
All cases are kept under constant review as they progress through the criminal justice system. If new evidence comes to light, a witness decides to no longer support a prosecution or a co-defendant pleads guilty to the offence, the CPS will then review the case. If there is no longer sufficient evidence or if it is no longer in the public interest, the CPS will stop a prosecution.
The Transforming Summary Justice (TSJ) and Better Case Management (BCM) initiatives, introduced nationally, are recent programmes which will have a material and positive impact on both levels and timing of discontinuance. These include earlier, pre-first magistrates’ hearing case review by prosecutors; an emphasis on early defence engagement; listing periods that support the time required to prepare the case; and improved processes to gather and serve evidential material and disclosure prior to court hearings.
Broadband Delivery UK’s (BDUK) Superfast Broadband Programme remains on track to achieve 90% superfast broadband coverage within the next few months, and 95% by December 2017. The programme has provided coverage to more than 3.5 million homes and businesses across the UK that would otherwise not have it, and will reach 4 million by spring 2016.
All schools are required to teach a balanced and broadly based curriculum that promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils, and prepares them for adult life. The new national curriculum focuses on the essential knowledge so that teachers can design a wider school curriculum that best meets the needs of their pupils.
Schools have the freedom to teach subjects or topics such as First Aid training beyond the prescribed curriculum to ensure that children receive a rounded education.
The Government welcomes the work of expert organisations such as the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation to support schools in this aspect of teaching and are currently working with the sector to provide information to young people about first aid, CPR and how to deal with medical emergencies.
We now have almost 700 military personnel, over 50 police, and a senior search and rescue adviser from the UK’s fire and rescue services in the Caribbean region to assist in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. DFID has sent over 18 humanitarian and logistics advisers in the region, including humanitarian advisers in Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, and the British Virgin Islands, where they are supporting Governors and local authorities.
All UK personnel are deployed as part of a coordinated cross-Government response, bringing together military, aid, and consular effort. Across the affected area, our personnel have delivered urgent humanitarian relief, assisted in restoring vital infrastructure, and supported local institutions in maintaining law and order. We will continue to work closely with our advisors on the ground and with the Overseas Territories governments to deploy our specialists where they are most needed.
The Government will continue to do all it can to support those affected. Further details of our work are available on our website.
The Government is increasing road capacity as outlined in the Road Investment Strategy (RIS) for 2015 to 2020 and includes the ongoing conversion of the motorway hard shoulder into a running lane, known as the Smart Motorways. Following construction, all smart motorway schemes are monitored to assess their safety and operational performance by measuring changes in journey times, congestion and journey time reliability, as well as safety figures.
England’s motorways are among the safest roads in the world and Highways England is confident that smart motorways will maintain this. On sections of the most recently completed schemes on the M25, the monitoring shows that collision and casualty rates are down, congestion is reduced and there are fewer unexpected delays.
This, like any other industrial dispute between a Train Operating Company and a trades union, is a matter for the union and operator to resolve. The Government condemns any industrial action that disrupts the travelling public. RMT has advised its members to accept the new On-Board Supervisor roles on offer. The Government’s strong opinion is there are no grounds at all for any further industrial action and these strikes must stop now.
My Hon Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Claire Perry MP, as Rail Minister, chairs a monthly meeting with Network Rail, train operators in the South East, Transport Focus, and Department for Transport officials. This group monitors performance and passenger experience and it is absolutely committed to identifying improvements and ensuring rail passengers see the benefits of these improvements being delivered. Network Rail and Southeastern both need to show much greater improvement in their ability to fix faults quickly and communicate with their passengers more effectively. The Department will ensure that lessons are learned from the disruption in Kent that day.
The Government has listened to the communities and businesses of Kent and taken action to deal with the causes and effects of Operation Stack. In Autumn Statement 2015, the Chancellor announced up to £250m for an off-road lorry area.
Highways England completed a public consultation on proposals on 26 January 2016 and is now carefully assessing all the responses. Subject to the outcome of this assessment, the Government intends to make public its next steps shortly.
As an interim measure, the Government secured the use of a site at Manston in North Kent last summer. The Department for Transport and Highways England continue to work with Kent partners, including the county and district councils, emergency services, hauliers and ports to reduce the impact of Operation Stack on Kent should it need to be implemented.
Phase one of the telematics research project has been completed and a written report is currently being finalised for Ministerial consideration. Initiation of phase two research will be dependent upon the findings from phase one.
The Government are taking steps to assess the effectiveness of Operation Stack and on 22 January, My Rt Hon Friend, the Minister of State for Transport, the Hon Member for South Holland and the Deepings (John Hayes) met with a number of Honourable Members from the Kent area to discuss Operation Stack in more detail. As a result, officials are:
1) working with key partners to determine the feasibility of a number of lorry parks and any new or innovative approaches to reduce the impact of Operation Stack; and
2) investigating plans for additional parking capacity being undertaken by Dover Harbour Board, Eurotunnel and other developers.
Operators undertaking commercial aerial work using Remotely Piloted Aircraft need the permission of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The CAA keeps a record of permissions given to those operators.
The regulation of small unmanned aircraft is specifically covered by two articles within the Air Navigation Order, which legislate for the ‘general’ flying aspects and the flight of those equipped for surveillance. However, as well as these specific articles, a more general article, which prevents a person ‘causing or permitting an aircraft to endanger the safety of any person or property’, also remains applicable.
We do not believe that any additional regulatory changes are needed to ensure adequate privacy and data protection.
Maritime and Coastguard Agency surveyors, or other relevant staff, have undertaken a total of 38 Port State Control inspections in support of Ship to Ship transfer operations, during the period 1 January 2011 to 27 June 2014.
The Government strongly supports the need to provide more employment opportunities to adults with a learning disability or autism.
In 2015 3,140 individuals with a learning disability started the Work Choice programme, with 61% achieving a job outcome. 2016 annual data are not yet available. In 2015 the department introduced Specialist Employability Support (SES) to provide up to a further 1700 places per year intensive and personalised support for people, including those with learning disabilities.
Disability Confident works to influence employers to take on more disabled people, including those with learning disabilities, and to market Access to Work to disabled people.
Access to Work has a new Hidden Impairment Support Team which aims to give advice and guidance to employers, and offers eligible workers an assessment of their needs at work and a support plan.
Last year, Paul Maynard MP led a taskforce that made recommendations to Government on how to improve access to apprenticeships for people with learning disabilities. Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education are working together to implement all of these recommendations.
Looking forward, we are testing ways to improve our support for people with learning disabilities through a Local Supported Employment proof of concept and Supported Work Experience for young people, which offers young people with learning disabilities and other long term conditions a chance to spend time with an employer.
Increasing disability employment is a key part of the government’s aim to achieve full employment. That is why this Government has an ambition to halve the disability employment gap by creating the opportunity for a million more disabled people to work.
The Government has a variety of initiatives and programmes in place to support and encourage people with special learning needs to find and retain work. Performance statistics are published for a number of these.
For example:
Improving the oral health of young children is a Public Health England (PHE) priority. PHE’s Child Oral Health Improvement Programme Board provides national system leadership for the delivery of the shared ambition that every child grows up free of tooth decay as part of getting the best start in life.
The two key actions to prevent tooth decay are reducing sugar consumption and getting fluoride onto teeth which can be by means of fluoride toothpaste, fluoride varnish and water fluoridation. PHE has published a number of toolkits to support local authorities in improving child oral health.
In addition the Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan, launched in August 2016, contained proposals for a broad, structured sugar reduction programme to remove sugar from the categories of food that contribute the most to children’s sugar intakes. The Government also announced the Soft Drinks Industry Levy last year, which will apply from April 2018.
To support families to reduce their sugar intake, PHE’s Change4Life launched the Be Food Smart campaign in January 2017 which encourages families to download the app which reveals the amount of sugar, saturated fat and salt in food and drink.
The Transforming Care programme is making progress in moving people out of inpatient settings. Local Transforming Care Partnerships reduced the overall number of people with learning disabilities and/or autism in mental health hospitals by 11% from October 2015 to December 2016, according to published data. This is line with the 35-50% reduction we committed to achieving by 2019 in Building the Right Support.
NHS England is supporting areas to put in place new preventative services, such as intensive community support teams, to support people at points of crisis so that they do not need to be admitted to hospital. NHS England is investing £10 million per year, matched by clinical commissioning groups, to support the growth in services such as these.
NHS England is also rolling out pre-admission care and treatment reviews to assess whether there are viable alternative options when making a decision to admit an individual. NHS England is making available £20 million in capital per year to support an expansion in community based support for people with a learning disability.
The Department is commissioning a full and independent evaluation of the Transforming Care programme, which will focus on measuring changes in quality of life and of care over time, to assess the impact of the programme on the lived experience of people with learning disabilities.
The Government welcomes Sir Stephen Bubb’s report Time for Change – the Challenge Ahead which focuses on improving the experience of care and outcomes for people with learning disabilities. Sir Stephen’s report acknowledges the real progress that has been made in the last year.
The Department will consider the recommendations in Time for Change – the Challenge Ahead in our development of a Learning Disability Action Plan. However, new statutory roles and legislation are not necessarily the answer to achieving the changes envisaged by the Steering Group. We believe that we can make more rapid and meaningful progress by ensuring that the rights that exist under current laws and statutes are properly understood, implemented and exercised by those with learning disabilities and/or autism.
According to data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the number of people detained in police custody as a place of safety under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 fell by 34% in England between 2013-14 and 2014-15. This corresponds to an increase in the use of hospital-based places of safety of 14%, according to the Health & Social Care Information Centre. The figure amounts to a 54% reduction in the use of police custody since 2011-12, surpassing the ambition of a 50% reduction set out in the Government’s Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat, which was published in February 2014 and is attached. Existing guidance in the Concordat and the Mental Health Act Code of Practice makes it clear that police custody should only be used as a place of safety in exceptional circumstances.
The Concordat – signed by over 25 national organisations – has led to the establishment of 96 local groups covering the entirety of England, consisting of health, policing and local authority partners who have pledged to work together to improve mental health crisis care and set out detailed, publicly available plans, including to reduce the use of police custody for those detained under the Act.
However, although significant progress has been made, the Government has signalled its intention to go further by amending legislation through the forthcoming Police and Criminal Justice Bill, so that, among other measures, police custody can never be used as a place of safety for under-18s and so custody can only be used for adults in the most exceptional circumstances.
Moreover, in May this year the Home Secretary announced that the Government would invest up to an additional £15 million in 2016-17 to reduce the use of police custody as a place of safety. Further announcements around this will be made shortly.
Public Health England (PHE), alongside various stakeholders including local authorities, undertakes a number of local and national initiatives to raise public awareness of the risks posed by ticks and the illnesses they may carry. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence and Lyme Disease Action have produced guidance, which is attached, and training modules for general practitioners (GPs), and PHE has a helpline for doctors, as well as running GP training days.
The Government is already taking action to prevent the inappropriate use of police cells as a place of safety under the Mental Health Act 1983.
The Government has an ambition to reduce this practice by 50% this year – and to see how police and health colleagues can work together so that it does not happen at all to children and young people.
Last year the number of people taken to police cells as places of safety fell significantly. Emerging figures for police forces for 2014-15 appear to be continuing this downward trend.
The police have told us that between the six months of April and September this year there have been 2,282 such cases – which, if maintained over the rest of the year, would result in a further 24% decrease in use of cells over last year. At the same time the use of health-based places of safety increased by 3,019 uses between 2012-13 and 2013-14.
This puts us well on track to achieve our aim of reducing the 2011-12 figure of 8,667 uses of police cells by half in 2014-15.
In February, we published a Crisis Care Concordat to make sure people in crisis get the help they need. All localities are working to complete local crisis declarations agreed by all the local relevant agencies, by the end of the year.
In conjunction with the Home Office, the Department of Health has conducted a review of section 135 and section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. This is due to report shortly.
The new Children and Young People's Mental Health and Well-Being Taskforce will also be looking at the issue of under 18s being detained in police custody as part of its Access and Prevention work.
Supermarkets do not provide this information to customers. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is publishing quarterly results from its year-long retail survey of campylobacter on whole fresh chickens in order to further drive the implementation of poultry production methods that reduce campylobacter throughout the supply chain. The prime objective is to lower the levels of campylobacter on chickens so that there is minimal risk to consumers.
In addition, through Food Safety Week 2014, the FSA has successfully focused on the message about safe handling of raw poultry which has had widespread coverage in the media. The FSA intends to periodically reinforce the messages to consumers to minimise the risk from cross-contamination by handling raw chicken carefully and to avoid washing it. The FSA has also worked closely with retailers so that the ‘Do not wash’ message is now being rolled out across all poultry packaging at retail.
There are a number of possible factors which may have contributed to the fall in the number of arrests since the year ending March 2008. Inspections carried out by HMICFRS in 2016, as part of their police effectiveness assessments, did not identify one single cause (PEEL report on police effectiveness).
One possible reason linked to the fall in the number of arrests is the increased use of voluntary attendance, where an individual attends voluntarily at a police station or at any other place where a constable is present without having been arrested for the purpose of assisting with an investigation. It is thought that the use of this practice has increased due to a more stringent application of the necessity test (which was introduced in 2012), where, for an arrest to be lawful, there must be reasonable grounds for believing that the arrest is necessary (PACE Code G).
There is also evidence of greater use of other outcomes, such as community resolutions, as part of efforts to reduce the number of young people entering custody. Other factors that may have had an impact on the fall in the number of arrests are discussed in the HMICFRS PEEL report 2016. See http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/peel-police-effectiveness-2016.pdf
Police recorded crime figures for England and Wales are published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Annual figures for the years ending June 2014 to June 2017 are included in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Police recorded crime, ONS, year ending June 2014 – year ending June 2017. Taken from ‘Crime in England and Wales: Bulletin Tables’, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesbulletintables
| Year Ending | June 2014 | June 2015 | June 2016 | June 2017 |
| Total police recorded crime in England and Wales (inc fraud) | 3,717,089 | 4,260,239 | 4,577,375 | 5,156,928 |
Overall police recorded crime (including fraud) increased by 13% in the year ending June 2017 compared with the previous year. The ONS points to improvements to recording practices by forces, expanded offence coverage, an increased willingness of victims to come forward and report certain crimes like sexual offences and domestic abuse to the police and genuine increases in some crime categories, especially in those that are well recorded, as important factors in explaining trends in police recorded crime.
Crimes traditionally measured by the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales are down by almost 40% since 2010 and by 70% since their peak in 1995.
The most recent national crime figures are published by the Office for National Statistic in ‘Crime in England and Wales: year ending June 2017’ (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/june2017).
It is for the Chief Constable and the directly accountable Police and Crime Commissioner of each force area to take decisions on the size and composition of the workforce including community support officers in order to meet local needs and priorities.
The Home Office fully supports the police exploiting technology to help cut crime wherever possible. Body worn video can be a powerful tool to help the police be more effective, efficient and accountable. The decision to procure and deploy it is an operational one for chief officers.
The Home Office does not collect this information. Decisions on the local deployment of assets and resources, including marine units, are for individual chief constables working with their police and crime commissioner.
All information pertaining to the candidates who stood in the 2016 Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections, including details of those elected, is available on the Government website: www.choosemypcc.org.uk.
In the 2016 PCC elections, 3 independent candidates were elected to the role. In the 2012 PCC elections, 12 independent candidates were elected to the role.
Twenty seven of forty current police and crime commissioners (PCCs) for police force areas where ordinary PCC elections are taking place this May are standing for re-election.
This excludes Greater London, where the elected mayor exercises PCC functions in respect of the Metropolitan Police, and Greater Manchester, where the ordinary PCC election has been cancelled to pave the way for the transfer of PCC functions to an elected mayor in May 2017, with the term of the current PCC extended to that point.
The Government is committed to ensuring that young people are protected and treated appropriately while in police custody. This is why in January last year, the Home Secretary commissioned a multi-agency Working Group on Section 38(6) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which concerns the transfer of children from police custody to local authority care when charged and denied bail. The purpose of the group is to better understand the problems with the operation of the law and to develop solutions to enable forces and local authorities to meet their respective statutory responsibilities. The group is currently finalising a package of measures and will present these to the Home Secretary once the work is complete.
Further to the Noble Lord's previous question HL2559, the Home Secretary has received the conclusions of Chief Constable David Shaw's Use of Force Review and will report on its recommendations shortly.
The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is an operational matter for individual police forces, and the Home Office does not hold information on which forces use them. A number of forces are conducting trials to assess whether the use of drones can bring benefits to the provision of the police service. Any use would need to comply with existing Civil Aviation Authority Regulations. Monitoring the police use of drones is not within Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Constabulary's (HMIC) general remit. HMIC have confirmed that they have no plans to consider police use of drones at this stage.
Chief Constables and PCCs are best placed to consider whether and how their forces’ operational or support functions should be shared. The number of collaborations continues to increase, with at least 4 new alliances involving 9 forces announced in 2015.
Regional Organised Crime Units, the National Crime Agency and local law enforcement continue to develop specialist capabilities to tackle a range of threats, including serious and organised crime, child sexual abuse and cyber crime. The Government supports the current review by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners into where specialist policing capabilities best sit, and how they should be delivered, to provide a common basis for future collaboration decisions.
To continue to strengthen and improve mutual aid arrangements, the National Police Coordination Centre is working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing to develop consistent national standards.
Chief Constable David Shaw’s Use of Force Data Review is expected to report to the Home Secretary later this year. The review will present options for collecting, collating and publishing data on how force including Taser is being used by the police, who it is being used on and what the outcomes are. The Government supports the need for transparent and accurate data on how the police are using force. As with sensitive powers like stop and search, the police use of force warrants proper accountability and transparency.
The Government recognises the outstanding work of Kent County Council in caring for unaccompanied asylum seeking children, but believes a national response is required. We have offered additional funding to other Local Authorities willing to accept cases from Kent and are working closely with the Local Government Association and Association of Directors of Children’s Services to finalise plans for a new scheme to disperse unaccompanied child asylum seekers to the care of other local authorities.
At the same time we continue to work with French authorities to monitor the pressures of illegal immigration at the UK border and work with port operators to bolster security. Significant investment has been made by the UK and French governments to provide additional security measures in Coquelles, including fencing, extra private security personnel, round-the-clock searching and additional French mobile policing units.
The large number of displaced people in Calais is, in part, a consequence of the Schengen Area, in which the UK does not participate. The maintenance of law and order on French soil is, of course, a matter for French Government, but it is in the UK's interest to work with them to bolster security at the port.
The Home Secretary and French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve set out a number of commitments in a joint declaration on 20 September 2014 to tackle problems at the port of Calais. This included £12m from the UK Government to help reinforce security.
We continue to work with the French Government to implement the practical solutions that have been agreed. We are also working to address the wider problem of illegal migration, for example by increasing joint intelligence work with the French to target the organised crime gangs behind people smuggling.
It is vital that we do all we can to ensure the police use of Taser and other use of force are appropriate and proportionate, and for its use to be transparent to the public. That is why the Home Secretary asked the national policing lead Chief Constable David Shaw to work with the Home Office on an in-depth review of the publication of Taser data and other use of force by police officers. CC David Shaw is due to update the Home Secretary shortly on the emerging findings of the review.
It is vital that the police reflect the communities they serve and I am determined to improve Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) representation in all 43 forces in England and Wales.
A number of police forces are currently recruiting officers. Decisions on when and how to recruit individuals are for the chief officer of a police force. It is important that they use equalities legislation, including positive action provisions, to make better progress in terms of recruitment of under-represented groups.
This Government's reforms have already made improvements, for example we set up the College of Policing which has embarked on a major programme of work, BME Progression 2018, looking at recruitment, retention and progression of black and minority ethnic officers, including the development of an evidence base of successful approaches used by forces.
As part of this programme the College recently published Positive Action Practical Advice, which advises forces on the use of lawful positive action to support the recruitment, retention and progression of officers from under-represented groups.
Also, under this Government innovative schemes such as Direct Entry and Police Now are increasing the number of BME recruits to the police, showing that you can achieve better representation while attracting the best and the brightest into policing.
Of the nine direct entry superintendents who began their superintendent training four (44%) are women and two (22%) are from an ethnic minority background. This is significantly more representative than the current make up of the superintendent rank which is comprised of 17% women and 4% from an ethnic minority background.
Police Now, an innovative graduate scheme implemented in the Metropolitan Police, received such a high calibre of applicants that it made provisional offers to 79 individuals, up from an anticipated 50. Of these, 16% per cent are from a BME background as compared to the Metropolitan Police’s current BME officer make up of 11%, and the national police BME proportion of 5.2%.
The Metropolitan Police also introduced its London residency criteria for recruits in August 2014 since when the proportion of BME applicants has risen to approximately 40%, a percentage which now matches the BME population of London.
The Home Secretary announced in October 2014 an in-depth review of the publication of Taser data and other use of force by police officers, to ensure these powers are being used appropriately and in a transparent way. The review will present options for publishing data on how Taser is being used, who it is being used on and what the outcomes are.
Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) have an important role in holding their forces to account and focussing on cutting crime. It is right that they are held to the very highest standards. It is precisely because PCCs are visible, elected individuals that they are able to be held to account in this way, quite in contrast to police authorities. PCCs are delivering a level of transparency, visibility and accountability that did not exist before 2012 under the Police Authority model of police governance.
There have been 44 PCC related complaints referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Of these referrals, only six have led to an independent investigation conducted by the IPCC, and two managed investigations which are carried out by external police forces under the direction and control of the IPCC. The remainder did not meet the IPCC’s threshold for investigation. No IPCC referrals have so far led to a PCC being charged or convicted of any offence.
The French Interior Ministry issued a correction to Associated French Press on 5 November saying that M. Cazeneuve was in fact making reference to British "officials" and not police.
The UK will not be posting any British police in Calais.
There has been a sharp rise in numbers of illegal immigrants in Calais and the surrounding area, since 2013. This stems from the fact that France, unlike the UK, is part of the border free Schengen Area. We are clear that it is for the French to maintain law and order on their soil, but it is in the UK's interest to work with France to secure the border at Calais and other key ports.
On 20 September 2014, the Home Secretary and French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, signed a joint declaration outlining a number of joint initiatives to tackle increasing migratory flows in Europe. That includes a range of improvements to security and infrastructure in Calais, to strengthen the port and provide greater protection to hauliers and tourists.
Her Majesty’s Government has long been alive to the challenges posed in Calais. Millions of pounds have already been invested in improving security and upgrading technology in Calais. The Government has increased staffing levels in the port and extended security patrols. In addition to physical searches, Border Force officers use detection dogs, heartbeat detectors and carbon dioxide probes to find those hiding clandestinely in vehicles and freight.
The Special Constabulary is an integral part of policing.
Individual police forces are responsible for determining their own recruitment requirements in order to meet local policing needs. In line with the Government's commitment to increase the number of volunteers, the Home Office continues to support the development of the Special Constabulary in England and Wales.
Every death in custody is a tragedy, and the Government is committed to reducing the number of self-inflicted deaths in prisons.
All prisons are required to have procedures in place to identify, manage and support people who are at risk of harm to themselves. Building on this, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has put in place additional resources for safer custody work in prisons and at regional level. These staff support safer custody work in prisons and share good practice across establishments. NOMS will be conducting a review of the operation of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork system (the case management process for prisoners assessed as being at risk) in 2015.
Young adults are a particularly challenging and vulnerable group, and that is why we have commissioned an independent review into the deaths of 18 to 24-year-olds in prison custody. This review will report in the Spring.
We continue to explore the reasons for the recent increase in the number of self-inflicted deaths, but there is no simple explanation for it. Strenuous efforts are made to learn from every self-inflicted death, and we have accepted and acted on the vast majority of recommendations from recent investigations by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.