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Written Question
Prison Service: Coronavirus
Wednesday 3rd June 2020

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the average quantity of personal protective equipment required on a daily basis by the prison service, broken down by type of equipment; and if they have not made such an assessment, why not.

Answered by Lord Keen of Elie

The supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) required by the prison service is kept under regular review by the department. These requirements will fluctuate according to the changing situation in individual prisons and we will continue to monitor the situation closely.

Typical PPE items for tasks involving a confirmed or suspected case of Covid-19 include fluid resistant surgical masks; aprons; gloves; hand sanitisers; and eye protection.


Written Question
Ministers: Conduct
Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Leader of the House who is responsible for ensuring that ministers adhere to paragraph 6.14 of the Companion to the Standing Orders and Guide to the Proceedings in the House of Lords which specifies that they should give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, and be as open as possible in answering questions.

Answered by Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Individual Ministers are responsible to the House for the answers they provide. As Leader of the House I regularly remind Ministers of the importance of their obligations to the House and will continue to do so.


Written Question
Domestic Abuse
Thursday 18th October 2018

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many responses they have received to their consultation Transforming the response to domestic abuse; and when they will publish their response.

Answered by Lord Keen of Elie

The joint Home Office and Ministry of Justice consultation Transforming the Response to Domestic Abuse was launched on 8 March and ran for 12 weeks until 31 May. During this period, we received over 3,000 responses. We expect to publish a formal Government response later this year.


Written Question
Ministry of Justice: Internet
Friday 18th May 2018

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cloud services contracts that were previously delivered by British cloud services providers for the Ministry of Justice are now delivered by multinational cloud service providers; what is the value of those contracts; and what are the names of the previous providers.

Answered by Lord Keen of Elie

Only a small number of services were previously hosted with a British cloud service provider (UK Cloud, formerly SkyScape, £241,000, 1 year, 3 services) and have now been moved onto a wider multinational public cloud service provider (Amazon Web Services, £2.5million, 2 years, ~50 services).


Written Question
Ministry of Justice: Databases
Wednesday 9th May 2018

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of the Ministry of Justice's data is hosted (1) in the UK, and (2) overseas.

Answered by Lord Keen of Elie

We estimate that 90% of the data held by the MOJ is hosted in the UK, and the remaining 10% overseas. No standard methodology exists for calculating this figure, and as such a significant margin of error should be assumed.


Written Question
Prisoners: Health Services
Tuesday 9th January 2018

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many medical appointments have been missed by prisoners as a result of a shortage of escort staff in each prison and young offender institution in each of the last three months.

Answered by Lord Keen of Elie

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The Government is fully committed to making our prisons deliver safe and decent regimes and is actively taking the measures necessary to ensure that. External escorts which include hospital appointments are profiled based on the agreement between the individual establishment and the healthcare provider.

We do not hold data showing missed medical appointments and would need to request this from each establishment.

We are boosting the number of prison officers by 2,500 and we have already reached the halfway mark.


Written Question
Prisons: Education
Tuesday 9th January 2018

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government which prisons and young offenders institutions have cancelled educational activities as a result of staff shortages on any day in the last three months; and what was the number of days in each instance.

Answered by Lord Keen of Elie

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. A key priority for HMPPS is to make our prisons safe so that they can provide the maximum time out of cell for meaningful and purposeful activity to give prisoners the education, training, skills and work experience to enable them to obtain employment on release to their home areas. The new consistent core day models optimise the time available to provide appropriate regimes and to staff them efficiently.


Written Question
Prisons
Tuesday 9th January 2018

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government which prisons and young offenders institutions have confined prisoners to their cells for more than 22 hours per day on any day in the last three months; and what was the number of days in each instance.

Answered by Lord Keen of Elie

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The Government is fully committed to making our prisons safe so that they can provide the maximum time out of cell for meaningful and purposeful activity to give prisoners the training, skills and work experience needed on release.


Written Question
Council Tax: Unpaid Taxes
Thursday 26th November 2015

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each of the last three years, how many cases of individuals imprisoned for defaulting on their council tax were appealed to the High Court, and in how many of those cases the appeals were upheld.

Answered by Lord Faulks

Data showing how many people were imprisoned for non-payment of council tax in 2012, 2013 and 2014 are presented in the table below:

Year

Total

2012

107

2013

108

2014

89

Notes:

These data are sourced from the Libra Management Information System (MIS). As such this data set is not subject to the same levels of quality assurance as national statistics

In extracting this data only offences of complaint for council tax committal application have been included where the court hearing date occurred within each year reported (i.e. between 1 January and 31 December).

It should also be noted that, although committals to prison are reported as occurring within a particular financial year, the non-payment of council tax itself may relate to a previous financial year or even a period covering more than one financial year.

Committal to prison for non-payment of council tax can be challenged through a judicial review in the High Court. The table below shows the number of judicial reviews relating to imprisonment for non-payment of council tax in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and the outcomes.

Year

Number of Judicial Reviews

Upheld

Refused

2012

0

0

0

2013

0

0

0

2014

2

0

2

Notes:

These data were obtained from a manual check of judicial reviews carried out specifically to answer this question.


Written Question
Council Tax: Unpaid Taxes
Thursday 26th November 2015

Asked by: Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each of the last three years, in how many instances people have been imprisoned for defaulting on payment of their council tax.

Answered by Lord Faulks

Data showing how many people were imprisoned for non-payment of council tax in 2012, 2013 and 2014 are presented in the table below:

Year

Total

2012

107

2013

108

2014

89

Notes:

These data are sourced from the Libra Management Information System (MIS). As such this data set is not subject to the same levels of quality assurance as national statistics

In extracting this data only offences of complaint for council tax committal application have been included where the court hearing date occurred within each year reported (i.e. between 1 January and 31 December).

It should also be noted that, although committals to prison are reported as occurring within a particular financial year, the non-payment of council tax itself may relate to a previous financial year or even a period covering more than one financial year.

Committal to prison for non-payment of council tax can be challenged through a judicial review in the High Court. The table below shows the number of judicial reviews relating to imprisonment for non-payment of council tax in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and the outcomes.

Year

Number of Judicial Reviews

Upheld

Refused

2012

0

0

0

2013

0

0

0

2014

2

0

2

Notes:

These data were obtained from a manual check of judicial reviews carried out specifically to answer this question.