Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

As I have said, we are already increasing the fees for those who take on legal aid work in connection with the Illegal Migration Act 2023. That is a 15% increase on the increase that we have already seen. On top of that, we are rolling out remote access to the duty advice scheme and introducing payment for travel. Those are major steps towards ensuring the availability of legal aid. I therefore do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s description of the position. If he wants to start swapping comments from the Bar Council, I can quote the Scottish Bar Council’s views on the SNP’s record.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

14. What recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of outcomes data from the Justice Data Lab on the recommissioning of HM Prison and Probation Service reoffending programmes in the last 12 months.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)]

Reducing reoffending is a core mission of this Government. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor said in an earlier answer, we act on the basis not of emotion but of evidence, deploying a series of carefully researched interventions from the prison employment leads to the provision of 12 weeks of accommodation post release. That is why the reoffending rate has decreased from 31% to 25% since 2010. The Justice Data Lab makes an important contribution by providing HMPPS and external organisations with a robust assessment of whether their interventions work, and we will continue to consider their work carefully.

[John Penrose]

I welcome the adherence to an evidence-based approach to working out whether or not these various programmes work effectively, but may I urge Ministers to go even further by ensuring that every programme we currently commission is reassessed on the basis of outcomes, and then not recommissioned unless those outcomes measure up?

[Gareth Bacon]

I can confirm that the Government will continue to base our investment decisions to reduce reoffending on the best available evidence at the time. We are continuously improving our evidence base, for instance through the cross-governmental Better Outcomes through Linked Data programme.