Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans her Department has to review the use of automatism as a legal defence.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
There are no current plans for the Government to review the defence of automatism.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders convicted of actual bodily harm and sentenced to under four years in prison have been released early from prison since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
On 7 November, the Ministry of Justice published transparency data on how many offenders were released on the first days of Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 of SDS40 (1,889 prisoners on the first day of Tranche 1, and 1,223 prisoners on the first day of Tranche 2).
Data on prison releases forms a subset of prison population data which is intended for future publication. In accordance with the requirements of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, we may not give any early indication of the contents of this statistical report.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any offenders who were convicted of actual bodily harm have been released early from prison since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Sentences for serious violent offences, such as ABH, of 4 years or more are excluded from SDS40. Shorter ABH sentences are eligible for release under SDS40. This was also the case for ECSL under the previous Government.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any offenders who were convicted of child sexual abuse have been released early from prison since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Sex offences were automatically excluded from both the End of Custody Supervised Licence Scheme which ceased on 9 September 2024 and from the current SDS40 scheme.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any offenders convicted of gang rape have been released early from prison in the last six months.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
There is no single offence for gang rape defined in legislation.
All sex offences are automatically excluded from the SDS40 scheme.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign nationals have been convicted for grooming.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on convictions for a wide range of offences, including grooming up to and including June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here:
Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK.
However, convictions data held centrally does not include if the offender is a foreign national. This information may be held in the court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to make being (a) the leader of and (b) involved in a grooming gang a statutory aggravating factor during sentencing.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile and horrific of crimes - involving rape, violence, coercive control, intimidation, manipulation, and deep long-term harm.
That is why this Government is determined to act – strengthening the law, taking forward recommendations from independent inquiries, supporting stronger police action and protection for victims.
As part of this package of measures, the Government has committed to legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, to ensure that this behaviour is reflected in the sentencing of perpetrators.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to prevent domestic abusers convicted of other offences from being released early.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This Government inherited a criminal justice system on the brink of collapse, with prisons weeks away from overflowing. This would have meant complete gridlock of the system and impacted the police’s ability to arrest people. As a result, we were forced to bring in emergency measures that see the automatic release points for standard determinate sentences reduced to 40%.
There are a number of offences excluded from this change including serious violent offences with sentences of four years or more, sex offences and a series of offences connected to domestic abuse. Exempting domestic abuse related offences and allowing probation a number of weeks to prepare is a significant departure from the previous Government’s End of Custody Licence scheme which saw c13,000 offenders released early.
It is only possible to legally exempt specific offences and domestic abusers are prosecuted under many crimes. Our exclusions send a very clear message about how seriously this Government takes domestic abuse.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, of the total convictions recorded in the last five years involving a crime committed by a prisoner against a prison officer or another employee of Her Majesty's Prison Service, how many and what proportion of those convictions resulted in an additional (non-concurrent) sentence for the perpetrator.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Violence against our hardworking staff will not be tolerated and any prisoner who commits an act of violence will be held to account.
Currently, data is not held centrally on the number of convictions for crimes committed by a prisoner against prison employees. This is being reviewed with the aim to collate data from all establishments for all crimes committed in prison, whilst also creating guidance on how to appropriately refer crimes committed in prison to the police.
The ‘Crime in Prison Referral Agreement’ was created in May 2019 and sets out the agreement between Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The aim is to ensure that acts of criminality that occur in prison are appropriately addressed within the Criminal Justice System.
In line with the Crime in Prison Referral Agreement, assaults against members of staff will be referred to the police for investigation and consideration for prosecution. Less serious assaults, where there is little or no injury, are more appropriately dealt with by the prison disciplinary system.
The courts retain the discretion to decide whether sentences should be served concurrently or consecutively, based on the facts of the case. The Sentencing Council’s Totality guideline provides courts with guidance on whether sentences should be served concurrently or consecutively. Where the individual is serving a determinate sentence and commits another offence after the original sentence was imposed, the new sentence will generally be consecutive to the original sentence.
Our Assaults on Emergency Workers Act increased the maximum penalty for to 12 months and we recently announced we will double the penalty further to two years.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many attacks on prison officers occurred in the last five years by (a) year and (b) type of offence.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Please see the attached table showing the number of prisoner assaults on staff, by offence of prisoner, 2016 to 2019 and January to September 2020 and the number of assaults on staff for 2015.
Violence against our hard-working prison officers is unacceptable and will never be tolerated, and we work closely with the police and Crown Prosecution Service to bring the perpetrators to justice. Additionally, as outlined in our Sentencing White Paper, we will double the maximum sentence for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months to two years.
We are also giving officers tools like PAVA pepper spray and body-worn cameras to make their jobs safer, as well as access to post incident care teams, occupational health support and counselling for those who need it. More widely, we are spending £100 million to bolster prison security, clamping down on the weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel violence and crime behind bars. This is funding tough measures including X-ray body scanners, drug dogs and phone-blocking technology.