Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to help prevent reoffending by people convicted of violent offences.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This Government is committed to tackling the causes of reoffending to keep our communities safe. Between 2010/11 and 2020/21, the overall proven reoffending rate has decreased from 31.6% to 24.4%.
Rehabilitation is critical to reducing reoffending. It is the process by which we assist people either to change themselves or improve their life circumstances, addressing their drivers of reoffending and therefore cutting crime. Rehabilitation takes many forms, ranging from the delivery of a cognitive behaviour programme to enabling a person to access suitable accommodation and the means to earn a living.
HMPPS offers 5 Accredited Programmes specifically designed for those individuals convicted of general, domestic, intimate partner violent offending: Kaizen, Becoming New Me Plus (BNM+), Building Better Relationships (BBR), New Me Strengths (NMS), and Living as New Me (LNM). The Thinking Skills Programme (TSP) is a responsive and flexible Accredited Programme that may be suitable for those offenders who do not meet the eligibility criteria for more specific programmes, as well as the New Me MOT toolkit, offering continuity of support to those who have completed the Kaizen, BNM+, or NMS programmes.
In addition to our targeted work to prevent violent crime reoffending, we are also working hard to ensure that prison leavers across the estate have the right building blocks in place to ensure they are successful on release. For example, we are helping prison leavers to secure accommodation, employment, and substance misuse treatment, all of which are essential for rehabilitation and can significantly reduce the likelihood of reoffending. We are also delivering Commissioned Rehabilitative Services which provide offenders with tailored, community-based services to support rehabilitation and drive down reoffending. On top of this, we are expanding the use of electronic monitoring for both community-based sentences and post-custody licence to help reduce the risk of reoffending and support robust offender management.
Finally, public protection work is central to the work of the Probation Service. We have also increased our baseline funding by £155 million per annum which is helping us to increase staffing and take other action to improve delivery across HMPPS so that the service can best achieve its purpose of protecting the public and reducing reoffending.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the ethnicity of offenders convicted of theft in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice holds data on the ethnicity of offenders convicted of theft offences covering the period requested and these are published and can be viewed in Outcomes by Offence tool: June 2023.
The tool allows users to select offences (in this case Offence ’04: Theft offences’). Yearly totals can be broken down by quarter using the Quarter variable.
The ethnicity of the offenders can be found by using either the Ethnicity or Detailed Ethnicity filter. Furthermore, the number of convictions by ethnicity can be seen by dragging the Ethnicity or Detailed Ethnicity from Filters to Rows in the PivotTable Fields.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has had discussions with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on its guidance to healthcare professionals relating to the reporting of suspected illegal abortions.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the criminal law relating to abortion. However, the overall policy on abortion is the responsibility of the Department for Health and Social Care. Therefore, the Secretary of State for Justice has not had discussions with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on its guidance for healthcare staff on “Involvement of the police and external agencies following abortion, pregnancy loss and unexpected delivery”.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing a new offence for (a) encouraging or (b) assisting serious self-harm in the new online safety regime.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Law Commission, in its report “Modernising Communication Offences”, recommended the creation of a specific offence of encouraging or assisting a person to self-harm. The Government is currently considering that recommendation and the details of such a new offence.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times the Computer Misuse Act 1990 has been used successfully to prosecute offences or attacks against computer systems that involve (a) ransomware (b) malware and (c) phishing in each of the last five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The number of prosecutions and convictions for offences which take place online is not centrally held in the court proceedings database as this type of offence is not separately identified in legislation. Equally, offences involving ransomware, malware and phishing are not separately identified in legislation. Identifying these offences separately would require a manual search of court records, which would be at disproportionate costs.
Published figures provide the number of prosecutions and convictions for the following offence that may include offences which occurred online:
Computer Misuse Act 1990
The number of prosecutions and convictions can be found by searching the above offences in the ‘Detailed offence’ filter in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool available here:
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times the Computer Misuse Act 1990 has been successfully used to prosecute cyber crime in each of the last five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The number of prosecutions and convictions for offences which take place online is not centrally held in the court proceedings database as this type of offence is not separately identified in legislation. Equally, offences involving ransomware, malware and phishing are not separately identified in legislation. Identifying these offences separately would require a manual search of court records, which would be at disproportionate costs.
Published figures provide the number of prosecutions and convictions for the following offence that may include offences which occurred online:
Computer Misuse Act 1990
The number of prosecutions and convictions can be found by searching the above offences in the ‘Detailed offence’ filter in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool available here:
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what criteria his Department uses to determine good faith security research, as outlined in his Department’s Vulnerability Disclosure Policy.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The intention behind the reference to 'in good faith' is to support a mechanism for cooperation with security researchers with the aim to identify and quickly remediate reported vulnerabilities. As such research and vulnerability disclosure must be carried out "in an honest and sincere way" without affecting the safety, security and continuity of any data or service in accordance with the disclosure policy and consistent with the law. Each situation is different and thus must be judged on its own merits, but the MoJ would consider whether the individual's approach has been proportionate to the problem they are trying to uncover, has been limited to simply proving the existence of the problem, and has protected confidentiality of data within the systems concerned.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times the Fraud Act 2006 has been used successfully to prosecute phishing offences in each of the last five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The number of prosecutions and convictions for phishing offences is not centrally held in the court proceedings database as this type of offence is not separately identified in legislation. Identifying these offences separately would require a manual search of court records, which would be at disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many third parties have been prosecuted under Section 59 of the Offences Against the Persons Act 1961 in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018, and (e) 2019.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Data on the number of prosecutions that have occurred in England and Wales for offences under section 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 is available in the Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code data tool (select table entitled HO code (principal offence), then select Offence Code filter – 01402).
Annual statistics for the year ending 31 December 2019, will be available in May 2020.