Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Justice, how many people have been convicted of trying to smuggle drugs into the UK in each of the last two years.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Ministry of Justice has published information regarding convictions for unlawful importation of drugs offences in England and Wales which be found at the following link –
In the ‘Offence’ field, filter by -
‘92A.01 Unlawful importation - Class A’
‘92A.02 Unlawful importation - Class B’
‘92A.03 Unlawful importation - Class C’
‘92A.04 Unlawful importation - unknown class’
to obtain these figures. The total number of defendants convicted for the unlawful importation of drugs across the 2008-2018 decade will appear in row 25 of the pivot table.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were convicted for selling drugs in the last two years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Available data show the number of offenders found guilty of supplying drugs in England and Wales. This can be found in the Experimental statistics: Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence data tool in the annual criminal justice statistics publication, linked below. From the Offence drop down box, select 92A.09, 92A.10, 92A.11 and 92A.12, then drag the Detailed offence filter into the row box for the pivot table. The table will display figures for possession, production and supply of drugs including intent to supply drugs offences separately.
Court proceedings and convictions data for 2018 are planned for publication on 16 May 2019
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding his Department allocates to measures designed to prevent and tackle antisocial behaviour among young people.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) play an important role in preventing offending and reoffending by children, which encompasses anti-social behaviour. The Ministry of Justice provided £71.6 million to YOTs through the Youth Justice Board’s (YJB) annual grant in 2018/2019.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential benefits of increasing the use of community service rather than short term prison sentences for minor offences.
Answered by Rory Stewart
There is a strong case to abolish sentences of six months or less, with some exceptions. We are therefore exploring options to restrict the use of short custodial sentences, but we have not at this stage reached any conclusions.
There is persuasive evidence showing community sentences, in certain circumstances, are more effective than short custodial sentences in reducing reoffending. The MoJ study ‘The impact of short custodial sentences, community orders and suspended sentence orders on re-offending’ published in 2015 found that over a 1-year follow up period, a higher proportion of people re-offended having been sentenced to custody of under 12 months without supervision on release than other similar people given community orders.
Unless we tackle the underlying causes of offending, we cannot protect the public from being victims of crime. Effective community orders can address offenders’ behaviour, answer their mental health and alcohol or drug misuse needs, and provide reparation for the benefit of the wider community.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people aged under 18 are in youth detention facilities.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
As of 1 February 2019 the population of the secure estate for children and young people, for under 18 year olds was 812. Statistics on Youth Custody population of the prison estate in England and Wales are regularly published and can be found at;
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/youth-custody-data
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which as with any large scale recording system are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing and can be subject to change over time.
We are fundamentally reforming youth custody to ensure that the safety, welfare and rehabilitation of young people are prioritised across all aspects of the system. In addition, we increased frontline Youth Custody Service staff by over a third in 2018 and are completely changing our approach by investing in Secure Schools to put education at heart of youth custody.
Prisons in Scotland and Northern Ireland are a devolved matter and responsibility lies with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive respectively.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people under the age of 18 were charged with common assault in 2018.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The Ministry of Justice will publish data related to prosecutions and court outcomes in 2018 on 16 May 2019.
The Home Office is responsible for publishing data in relation to charges.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many restraining orders were issued in each of the last three years.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The total number of restraining orders issued at Magistrates Courts and Crown Courts in each of the last three years can be found in the table below. The Ministry of Justice will publish court outcome data for 2018 on 16 May 2019.
Table 1. Number of restraining orders issued in England and Wales, 2015-2017.
2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
23,057 | 25,293 | 21,207 |
Asked by: David Simpson (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 employ more staff and reduce the length of time personal independence payment claimants have to wait for their appeal to be heard.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS), administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), administers appeals from appellants living in England, Scotland, and Wales. The Northern Ireland Courts & Tribunals Service administers appeals for appellants living in Northern Ireland.
The provision of staff does not increase capacity in the tribunal, the critical factor is the recruitment and availability of judicial office holders. Consequently, HMCTS has been working with the tribunal’s judiciary both to appoint additional judges and panel members and to list more Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals into each Tribunal session.
Additional fee-paid judicial office holders have been recruited: 250 judges across the First-tier Tribunal, 125 disability qualified members and up to 230 medical members. In addition, more PIP appeals are being listed per session and case-management “triage” sessions have been introduced, with the aim of reducing the time taken for appeals to reach final determination. All these measures will increase the capacity of the tribunal, with the aim of reducing waiting times for appellants.
HMCTS is also developing a new digital system with a view to enabling speedier processing of appeals and a better service for all parties to the proceedings. Information on the new digital service can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-online-service-launched-for-pip-appeals.
Finally, HMCTS is working with the Department for Work and Pensions to understand what could be done to reduce the number of appeals being submitted to the tribunal, through their focus on improving decision-making and the mandatory reconsideration process.
Latest figures (to September 2018) indicate that since PIP was introduced, 3.7 million decisions have been made, and of these 10% have been appealed and 5% have been overturned at tribunals.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on the attack on Londonderry courthouse on 20 January 2019.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Policing and justice (including the courts) is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland and, as such, there have not been discussions between the Ministry of Justice and the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service on this subject. The Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service is an executive agency of Northern Ireland’s Department of Justice. However, I know my Right Honorable Friend, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is well briefed on this matter and we stand together with the people of Northern Ireland in ensuring that we never go back to the violence and terror of the past.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people failed to appear for their court hearings in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Data for the number of people who failed to appear for their court hearings has been published up to December 2017 and can be found in the ‘Remands: Magistrates’ Court data tool’ and the ‘Remands: Crown Court data tool’, available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2017.
When using the data tools, remove ‘Remand status at the magistrates’ court’ (Magistrates’ Court tool) or ‘Remand status at the Crown Court’ (Crown Court tool) from the Rows and select ‘01: FTA’ in the Outcome filter to see the number of people who failed to appear for their court hearings.