To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.


Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
Prison Officers: Retirement
Wednesday 15th December 2021

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what consultations his Department has had with prison officers before raising their retirement age to 68.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Prior to 2007, the pension age within the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme was 60. In July 2007 Cabinet Office introduced a career average scheme for new entrants, which increased the normal pension age from 60 to 65. In designing the 2007 scheme, Cabinet Office did give consideration to the fact that the prison officer role was a physically demanding one, but they concluded that, as there were a number of other Civil Servants whose jobs were similarly demanding, that a lower pension age could not be justified compared to other scheme members. From 2015 the pension age in the Civil Service Pension Scheme was increased to reflect the State Penson Age of the member, after the recommendations made in the 2011 Hutton Report on the sustainability of public sector pensions.

We highly value our hardworking prison staff and offer access to medical professionals and an employee assistance programme to ensure continued physical and mental wellbeing. The pension age for Prison Officers is set under the Civil Service Pension Scheme, which is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office and consultation was undertaken by them.

I have met the Prison Officer’s Association for our introductory meeting at which a range of issues were raised, including pension age. I am meeting them in the new year to discuss this issue again.


Written Question
Legal Opinion: Gender Recognition
Thursday 21st October 2021

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the new edition of the Equal Treatment Bench Book, published in February 2021 and the Answer of 29 June 2021 to Question 19486, what legal advice was used to inform the information and guidance provided in Chapter 12 on Transgender People.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

No assessment of the effect of the Equal Treatment Bench Book is made by the Ministry of Justice. To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ), the Senior President of the Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training. These responsibilities are exercised through the Judicial College, which also produces the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

Fair treatment is a fundamental principle embedded in the judicial oath and the Equal Treatment Bench Book is compiled by the judiciary to provide general guidelines for judicial office holders to apply as appropriate in any particular case. It is reviewed by a judicial editorial panel, with content from judicial experts and information from subject experts. The identities of the principal contributors appear in the Acknowledgments. The external documentary sources relied upon by the editors of the Bench Book are set out in full in the footnotes.


Written Question
Disclosure of Information: Gender Recognition
Thursday 21st October 2021

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 330 in Chapter 12 of the Equal Treatment Bench Book, what evidence exists to support the claim that It is important to be alive to the fact that the gender history of a person may be something an opponent litigant may seek to use in order to place pressure on them.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

No assessment of the effect of the Equal Treatment Bench Book is made by the Ministry of Justice. To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ), the Senior President of the Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training. These responsibilities are exercised through the Judicial College, which also produces the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

Fair treatment is a fundamental principle embedded in the judicial oath and the Equal Treatment Bench Book is compiled by the judiciary to provide general guidelines for judicial office holders to apply as appropriate in any particular case. It is reviewed by a judicial editorial panel, with content from judicial experts and information from subject experts. The identities of the principal contributors appear in the Acknowledgments. The external documentary sources relied upon by the editors of the Bench Book are set out in full in the footnotes.


Written Question
Crimes of Violence and Sexual Offences: Victims
Thursday 21st October 2021

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference t to Chapter 12 of the Equal Treatment Bench Book, what assessment he has made of the effect on victims of violent and sexual assault of instances where those victims are instructed to use preferred pronouns instead of referring to their alleged attacker as a member of the sex that they experienced them to be.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

No assessment of the effect of the Equal Treatment Bench Book is made by the Ministry of Justice. To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ), the Senior President of the Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training. These responsibilities are exercised through the Judicial College, which also produces the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

Fair treatment is a fundamental principle embedded in the judicial oath and the Equal Treatment Bench Book is compiled by the judiciary to provide general guidelines for judicial office holders to apply as appropriate in any particular case. It is reviewed by a judicial editorial panel, with content from judicial experts and information from subject experts. The identities of the principal contributors appear in the Acknowledgments. The external documentary sources relied upon by the editors of the Bench Book are set out in full in the footnotes.


Written Question
Contempt of Court: Gender Recognition
Tuesday 29th June 2021

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference the advice of Chapter 12 of the Equal Treatment Bench Book, what assessment has been made of the potential effect of the advice that the court may consider making reporting restrictions under section 4 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 to prevent disclosure of a transgender person’s previous name and transgender history or it may direct a private hearing on the freedom of the press.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lord Chief Justice, the Senior President of the Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training, under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and Coroners and Justice Act 2009 respectively. These responsibilities are exercised through the Judicial College and are outside the remit of the Ministry of Justice which means that no assessment is undertaken by the Ministry of Justice of its effect.

The Equal Treatment Bench Book (ETBB), reviewed by a judicial editorial panel, with content from judicial experts and other subject experts including academics and external bodies, is a general guidance document designed to encourage effective communication between all court users. It is not legally binding on judges or court users, who are free to decide what is appropriate in any given set of circumstances.

The content referred to in chapter 12 reflects the current law in the Gender Recognition Act 2004 regarding the revealing of transgender history of applicants for a Gender Recognition Certificate. It is for individual judges to balance reporting restrictions with the requirements of open justice in any particular case involving a transgender person where transgender history is not at all relevant to the subject of the proceedings.


Written Question
Divorce
Wednesday 18th March 2020

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the oral contribution of 3 March 2020 of the Advocate General for Scotland in Committee on the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill, HL Deb column 579, if he will publish the evidence base for the assertion that rather more than 80% of divorces take place sooner than the timescale set out in the Bill.

Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

The Government published an Impact Assessment for the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill when first introduced to Parliament in June 2019. This document can be found at

https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/2017-19/divorcedissolutionandseparation/documents.html

The Bill seeks to introduce a new minimum 20-week period between the start of divorce proceedings and when the court can be asked to make the conditional order of divorce (currently known as Decree Nisi). Together with the existing 6-week minimum period between Decree Nisi and Decree Absolute a divorce under the Bill would take a minimum of 26-weeks overall. The Impact Assessment estimates that 78% of cases with no linked financial remedy application and 82% of cases with such a linked application would take longer under the Bill.


Written Question
Abortion: Clinics
Thursday 10th May 2018

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many convictions there have been for public order offences involving pro-life vigil participants outside abortion clinics in England and Wales in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The information requested is not held centrally and could only be collated at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Domestic Violence: Children
Tuesday 24th April 2018

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps with the Home Secretary to encourage Police and Crime Commissioners to work with schools to ensure that early support is provided for children experiencing domestic abuse.

Answered by Phillip Lee

Prevention and early intervention remains the foundations of our approach to tackling violence and domestic abuse and we support approaches which focus on partnership working. It is important that there is effective working between agencies and schools to protect children experiencing domestic abuse.

The Ministry of Justice provides £68 million per year to Police and Crime Commissioners to support victims of crime in their areas. This includes services specifically supporting children suffering the impact of domestic abuse.

We have launched a consultation seeking views on what we can do across government to transform the response to domestic abuse. We welcome the expertise of Police and Crime Commissioners to help inform our approach.


Written Question
Domestic Abuse: Children
Tuesday 24th April 2018

Asked by: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps with the Home Secretary to encourage Police and Crime Commissioners to work with schools to ensure that early support is provided for children experiencing domestic abuse.

Answered by Phillip Lee

Prevention and early intervention remains the foundations of our approach to tackling violence and domestic abuse and we support approaches which focus on partnership working. It is important that there is effective working between agencies and schools to protect children experiencing domestic abuse.

The Ministry of Justice provides £68 million per year to Police and Crime Commissioners to support victims of crime in their areas. This includes services specifically supporting children suffering the impact of domestic abuse.

We have launched a consultation seeking views on what we can do across government to transform the response to domestic abuse. We welcome the expertise of Police and Crime Commissioners to help inform our approach.