Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many arrest warrants for non-payment of fines have been issued by the courts in England in the last year for which information is available.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The department does not hold verifiable centralised records on the number of arrest warrants issued for non-payment of fines, and it would incur disproportionate costs to answer this question using local records.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he will implement the order of a judge at Winchester Crown Court that Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai be removed from a young offenders' institution as he is an adult; and what processes his Department has in place to assess whether those awaiting trial on remand are adults accommodated in the Youth estate and under-18 young offender institutions.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Following the determination by Mrs Justice Cutts on 25 October 2022 that he is 21 years old, Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai was placed in Feltham B Young Offender Institution, which accommodates 18- 21-year-olds. He has now transferred to another site within the adult prison estate.
If there is reason to suspect that someone presenting at court as a child is 18 years old or over, an age assessment will be carried out by the local authority. If it confirms that the person is aged 18 or over, the court warrant will be amended accordingly. If an appeal is lodged, the young person will remain in the current placement with measures in place to safeguard the young person and others. While checks are being carried out, a contingency plan will be made to transfer them to the adult estate, should that prove necessary.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2022 to Question 137967, on Prisoners: Food, whether prisoner A5586CP has been categorised as at risk.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
I will write to the honourable member in due course.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will investigate for what reason prisoner A5586CP is not being given food in their prison cell.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
All prisoners are offered three meals per day and are required to collect them from serveries unless unable to for health reasons, or where intelligence suggests their safety is at risk. In such instances, other provisions are put in place.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 8 February 2021 to Question 148677, how many and what proportion of people serving an IPP sentence who have previously been released are in custody following recall; and how many people in custody following recall have been in custody for more than one year.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
As at 31 December 2020, there were 1,338 people serving an IPP sentence in custody following recall. This is approximately 28% of all offenders who have been released on an IPP licence. On 31 December 2020, 812 recalled IPP offenders were known to be still in custody more than a year after their recall.
These figures have been drawn from the Public Protection Unit Database held by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. As with any large-scale recording systems, the figures are subject to possible errors with data migration and processing.
The power to recall is a vital public protection measure and all individuals on licensed supervision in the community are liable to recall to prison if they fail to comply with the conditions of their licence in such a way as to indicate that their risk may no longer be effectively managed in the community. It falls to the independent Parole Board to determine whether it is safe to re-re-release offenders serving an IPP sentence following recall. Consequently, where an offender has spent more than one year in custody following recall, it is because the Parole Board has judged that their risk is too high for them to be safely managed afresh on licence in the community.
Our primary responsibility is to protect the public; however, HMPPS remains committed to safely reducing the number of prisoners serving IPP sentences in custody.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners in England are currently serving sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection; and when those prisoners will be released.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Prison population data, broken down by sentence type, are published quarterly. As of 31 December 2020, the number of prisoners in England and Wales serving a sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) who have not yet been released was 1,849, down from 2,134 on 31 December 2019. (This does not include those serving an IPP sentence who have previously been released but are now back in custody following recall.) IPP prisoners continue to have a high chance of a positive outcome from Parole Board hearings. In 2019/20 72% of Parole Board hearings resulted in either a recommendation for a progressive transfer to an open prison or release.
A prisoner serving an IPP sentence will be released only when the independent Parole Board concludes that the risk they present to the public is capable of being safely managed by the National Probation Service and its partner agencies in the community.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what avenues are available to applicants for Probate whose applications have not been actioned for at least four months and who are informed by the recorded message at the Probate Office that no information will be provided on the progress of existing applications.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
As of March 2020, all calls are now answered by the Courts & Tribunals Service Centres, which are equipped with modern technology to monitor performance levels and make improvements to the service being offered.
The service can be contacted Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm, moving to 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 2pm on a Saturday from the 1st February via:
The Courts and Tribunals Service Centre is currently focusing on providing progress updates via telephone on cases over eight weeks of age due to high levels of demand.
For professional users, real time information about the progress of digital cases can be obtained via the online Probate service without the need to contact HMCTS.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of the milk and dairy products used by the Prison Service in England comes from UK producers; what steps he is taking to increase that proportion; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Ministry of Justice prison food supply contract is used by 102 Public prisons and 3 Private prisons in England and Wales. Between April 2019 and March 2020, by spend value, 77.1% of all milk and dairy product used was UK produced. The remainder, 22.9% was sourced from the EU.
99% of milk supplied through the contract is British produce.
The prison retail contract offers a range of milk and dairy products for prisoners to purchase. During the period of 1 March to 31 May 2020 77.9% of dairy goods were produced in the UK and 22.1% sourced from the EU.
This national food supply contract for prisons directly encourages the use of UK produce, and includes this as a key performance measure. We will continue to actively manage the contract, and all avenues for the use of UK produce will be explored.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that parole board hearings can be heard by video link so that offenders in custody, of whom a probation recall report recommends release, can have their cases resolved without further delay; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Parole Board is ensuring, where appropriate, that the conclusion of all parole cases can continue via a remote telephone or video hearing; or via an intensive paper review.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to prevent such prisoners being released with a drug dependency being subject to immediate recall as a result of that drug dependency.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The decision to recall an offender from the community, whether that be from an indeterminate or a determinate licence, is based on a thorough assessment of risk in the round, and a relapse into substance misuse is not necessarily a justification for recalling the offender immediately. The Probation Service will take into account the individual circumstances of each case and will consider alternatives to recalling offenders from the community where appropriate, based on the level of risk the offender poses.
Those with drug dependency problems often have complex needs, particularly health needs that benefit best from cross-organisation co-operation. Health and justice partners are working closely to improve support and continuity of care when an offender leaves prison, and this is one of the three overarching objectives of the National Partnership Agreement between HM Prison and Probation Service, Ministry of Justice, Public Health England, NHS England and Department of Health and Social Care.
Protection of the public is our priority, and offenders will be recalled to prison if that is assessed as necessary to protect the public from further serious offending.