Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the probation service in the West Midlands.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Performance ratings for prisons in the West Midlands are published by the Ministry of Justice as part of the Annual Prison Performance Ratings. The 2023-24 ratings can be found at: Prison Performance Ratings: 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK.
The performance of the Probation Service in the West Midlands is published as part of the Community Performance Annual publication. The 2023-24 edition can be found at: Community Performance Annual, update to March 2024 - GOV.UK.
The ratings for 2024-25 for both prisons and probation will be published on 31 July 2025.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of prisons in the West Midlands.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Performance ratings for prisons in the West Midlands are published by the Ministry of Justice as part of the Annual Prison Performance Ratings. The 2023-24 ratings can be found at: Prison Performance Ratings: 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK.
The performance of the Probation Service in the West Midlands is published as part of the Community Performance Annual publication. The 2023-24 edition can be found at: Community Performance Annual, update to March 2024 - GOV.UK.
The ratings for 2024-25 for both prisons and probation will be published on 31 July 2025.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to help reduce reoffending rates.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We are tackling the root causes of reoffending by investing in a range of interventions which address offenders’ underlying criminogenic needs and support their rehabilitation journey. This includes education, employment, accommodation and substance misuse treatment services.
We continue to work with prisons to improve offenders’ access to purposeful activity, such as education, which we know reduces the likelihood of reoffending. We have also recently launched regional Employment Councils, which will bring businesses together with Probation Services and the Department for Work and Pensions to support offenders in prison and the community.
Recognising that reoffending is twice as high among those released homeless, compared to those released to accommodation, we are expanding our community accommodation service; and working closely with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and other Departments on a new cross-government strategy to put us back on track to ending homelessness and to improve outcomes over this Parliament.
We are also reforming sentencing to ensure that we never run out of prison places again. Community sentences have been shown to be more effective than short custodial sentences at reducing reoffending. We are working closely with the Department for Health and Social Care to support the increased use of Drug Rehabilitation Requirements and Alcohol Treatment Requirements as robust alternatives to custody, in line with the recommendations of the Independent Sentencing Review.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of released convicts go on to reoffend within two-years of their release.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The proven reoffending rate and methodology is calculated using a one-year follow up period. Providing this information for a new two-year reoffending measure would be of disproportionate cost.
The proven reoffending rate for adult offenders released from custody was 37.5% for the 2022/23 offender cohort (latest year for which reoffending data is available).
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the merits of increasing the six year period for claims allowed under s.32(1)(c) of the Limitation Act from the consequences of a mistake.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The effect of the legislation is that for civil claims which involve the consequences of a mistake, the relevant limitation period only starts when the claimant discovers the mistake or could have discovered it with reasonable due diligence (subject to certain exceptions). As such it enables a normal statutory time limit to be postponed if a court is satisfied the conditions are met in an individual case.
It is important that the law of limitation achieves a balance between the competing interests of claimants and defendants. The Government has no plans to review this section.