Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to enable prisoners with work outside the confines of prison to be paid a wage.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We know that employment reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. That is why we have committed to break the cycle of reoffending by better supporting prisons to link up with employers and the voluntary sector to get more people with convictions into work.
Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) allows prisoners to be released temporarily into the community for specific purposes, including to engage in employment. Prisoners working on ROTL are paid the same as their counterparts in the community and are subject to the same income tax, National Insurance and child support requirements, as well as other court ordered deductions.
In addition, the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996 (PEA) gives governors the power to deduct up to and including 40% from prisoners’ earnings on ROTL. Currently, the money deducted is given to the charity Victim Support. An average of £296 per prisoner per month was raised through the levy; totalling £4.2 million raised for the year ending March 2024.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the budget for education purposes provided to each prison during the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
The attached table shows the annual education budget for each public sector prison in England and Wales in 2022-23. The total includes core education provider funding, library provision, the Dynamic Purchasing System budget (which the Governor can use flexibly to fund provision to meet particular local needs), and the information advice and guidance budget. The figures do not include other sources of funding that can be separately bid for, such as the Employment Innovation Fund.
Education budget totals for the following privately-managed prisons are also included in the table: HMP Doncaster, HMP Northumberland, HMP Oakwood, and HMP Thameside. The education budgets for these establishments form part of the Authority Education Framework Contract and can therefore be disaggregated from the overall funding total. It is not possible to disaggregate education provision for the remaining privately-managed prisons.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many immigration decisions were overturned on appeal in (1) 1993, (2) 2003, (3) 2013 and (4) 2021.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
Data on appeal outcomes is not available for appeals concluded prior to 2007. For the period January to December in each of the years set out below the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal allowed the following number of appeals against Home Office decisions:
1) 29,189 appeals in 2013
2) 11,506 appeals in 2021
The latest release of Official Statistics for Tribunals (Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: October to December 2022) published on 9 March 2023 can be found on Gov.uk.
The percentage Allowed/Granted in the Official Statistics for Immigration and Asylum (FIA3) are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the total spend in England on prison services in 2020 (1) in cash terms, and (2) as a percentage of total government expenditure.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
In answer to part 1, for the 2020-21 financial year, the direct cost of prison services was £2.6bn. This is based on our published Prison Unit Costs.
For part 2, we have used the 2019-20 financial year direct costs of £2.4bn which amounts to approximately 0.26% of the total government spend. The reason for using the earlier year to calculate the percentage of total government expenditure is that the latest published Whole of Government Accounts is for 2019-20.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which the Judicial Review and Courts Bill meets their aspirations in this policy area.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
The Judicial Review and Courts Bill delivers on the Government’s Manifesto commitment to ensure that Judicial Review is available to protect the rights of individuals against an overbearing state, without being abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays.
The Bill reduces inefficiency by overturning the Cart judgment and creates new powers for the courts to modify quashing orders, allowing them to tailor their decisions more closely to the circumstances of individual cases
The courts elements of the Bill contains measures to streamline procedures across the justice system. It gives the criminal courts powers to progress cases more quickly, avoid unnecessary hearings, and ensure cases are heard in the most appropriate court at the earliest opportunity. This will save court time so that resources can be focused on trials and on reducing the backlog.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cases involving anti-Semitism or Islamophobia were prosecuted in UK courts in (1) 1980, (2) 2000, and (3) 2015.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions in England and Wales for racially or religiously aggravated offences, however to identify which of these, or wider hate crime offences involved anti-Semitism or Islamophobia would require a manual search of court records which would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker whether all staff employed by the House of Lords will be supported financially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord McFall of Alcluith
All permanent and part-time staff employed by the House of Lords Administration continue to be paid. Staff employed on variable hours contracts and who are not currently being offered shifts are being paid based on their average earnings for the last four sitting weeks in which they worked.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people were serving a period of imprisonment under the provisions of the Vagrancy Act 1824 in (1) 1989, (2) 2000, (3) 2010, (4) 2015, and (5) 2017.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
Data for the number of people serving prison sentences under the provisions of the Vagrancy Act 1824 as at 30 June in each year can be seen in the table below:
| 2000 | 2010 | 2015 | 2017 |
Total | 14 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
The Ministry of Justice is unable to provide data for 1989, for to do so would have meant providing the information at disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to reintroduce legal aid for refugee family reunion; and if not, why not.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
We have committed to introduce legislation to bring non-asylum immigration matters into the scope of legal aid for separated migrant children.
Legal aid for family reunion may be available under the Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) scheme, where there is a breach or risk of breach of ECHR rights, and subject to means and merits tests. We recently committed to work with legal practitioners to review and simplify the ECF application forms and guidance and ensure that funding is provided in as timely a manner as possible.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what recompense is made to individuals who at their own expense challenge appeals by the Home Office against immigration decisions made by Upper Tribunals.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
The Court of Appeal may order the losing party to pay the winning party’s costs. That is the case regardless of whether the winning party was legally represented or not, although the costs that can be recovered by litigants in person are subject to some limitations set out in Rule 46.5 of the Civil Procedure Rules.