Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of criminal court cases.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We remain committed to reducing the outstanding caseload in the Crown Court and have introduced a series of measures since the start of the pandemic to increase capacity of the courts, and to improve the experience of court users and delivery of swift justice.
Steps taken to maximise court capacity and optimise efficiency include: extending unlimited sitting days in the Crown Court for the last two financial years; opening two new ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough; extending the use of 24 Nightingale courtrooms beyond March 2023 to provide additional capacity for all jurisdictions; passing the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act so that remote hearings can be used in criminal proceedings; recruiting up to 1,000 judges across jurisdictions in 2022/23; retaining an extra 400 judges and tribunal members (per year) by raising the statutory mandatory retirement age; and increasing spending on criminal legal aid by £141 million a year.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential effectiveness of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Albania.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
A new Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Albania came into force in May 2022.
In May 2023, we announced a complementary arrangement whereby the UK Government has agreed to provide support to modernise and expand the Albanian prison system and in return Albania has agreed to accept the return of up to 200 Albanian Nationals currently serving sentences of 4 years or more in the UK.
The arrangement will save taxpayers’ money, as it is cheaper to house prisoners in Albania than in England and Wales, and will also free up capacity in our prisons.
We expect to see the first transfers under this agreement later this year. The deal builds on the prisoner transfer agreement signed between the UK and Albania in 2021, which came into force in May 2022. This implementation package will ensure Albania has the right processes and prison capacity in place, meaning transfers can now proceed at pace.
Albanians are the most common nationality in the Foreign National Offender population, making up approximately 14% of the total Foreign National Offender prison population. Between January 2021 and December 2022, 1,484 Albanian FNOs were removed from the UK (from custody and the community).
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent estimate he has made of the number and proportion of people in employment six months after release from prison.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
I am pleased to say that the proportion of prisoners released from custody who were employed at six months from their release has more than doubled between April 2021 and March 2023, from 14% to over 30%. In March 2023, 715 people released 6 months previously were in the workforce and contributing to the economy, an increase from 394 in April 2021.
We know that employment reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. That is why we are determined to increase the number of prison leavers securing employment on release to cut their chances of reoffending and so we can keep the public safe.
We are offering more offenders the chance to work in prison and on release from custody, supported by our new, dedicated Prison Employment Leads, who are now in post at 92 prisons. They provide case-level employment support, match prisoners to roles on release, and head up our new Employment Hubs, where prisoners can access support with job applications and CVs.
We are building stronger links with employers, including through our prison Employment Advisory Boards, which are chaired by local business leaders. They will provide challenge and advice on how to align the skills delivered in prisons with labour market demand. Chairs have now been appointed to 92 Employment Advisory Boards.
Data on the number and proportion of people in employment after release from prison is published regularly and can be found on the Gov website at Employment Rates following Release from Custody - Ad Hoc - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking through the criminal justice system to help young people avoid crime.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Beating Crime Plan 2021 highlighted the importance of early intervention for all young people; targeted support for those at risk of involvement in criminality; and targeted interventions for those who have started to offend. It is better that children do not enter the justice system at all, which is why the Ministry of Justice works with partners across and outside of government on programmes which provide help earlier on.
The Turnaround programme is providing £56.5m multi-year grant funding to Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) across England and Wales until March 2025, enabling them to intervene earlier and improve outcomes for children on the cusp of entering the youth justice system. This additional funding will enable YOTs to work with up to 17,500 more children not currently on their caseload. The department’s Youth Justice Sports Fund also recently provided £5m to early intervention sport programmes working with 10–17-year-olds considered to be at risk of entering the justice system, who have benefitted from mentoring, volunteering and sports-based activities.
For those children who do enter the justice system, we want to see local areas addressing the underlying needs which drove that offending behaviour. As part of this, last year the Ministry of Justice developed new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor and drive Youth Offending Teams’ and partners’ effectiveness in, for example, ensuring more children who commit crime have the education, training or employment opportunities to break the cycle of offending. These new KPIs came into force on 1 April.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to help prisoners develop new skills.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We know that getting prisoners into employment on release is key to leading law-abiding lives in the community. Prisoners who participate in in-prison education are 9 percentage points less likely to reoffend on release. To help prisoners develop new skills we are:
delivering a Prisoner Education Service which raises the level of the numeracy, literacy and skills of prisoners, with the aim of securing jobs or apprenticeships after they leave custody;
rolling out new Heads of Education Skills and Work to provide expert guidance to governors in designing education and training provision for their populations;
establishing an Employability Innovation Fund to enable Governors to work with more employers and training providers to repurpose workshops, deliver sector specific skills training and to improve prisoners’ literacy via a Literacy Innovation Fund; and
allowing prisoners to undertake apprenticeships which they can complete in the community following a change in the law made in September 2022.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the rollout of new prison scanners in preventing contraband from entering those sites.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We have invested £100m to combat crime in prisons, including reducing the conveyance of illicit items such as drugs and mobile phones.
Since 2020, we have installed an additional 75 X-ray body scanners, bringing the total to 97 and providing coverage to the entire closed adult male estate. As of October 2022, there have been 28,626 positive indications recorded on these scanners.
A full evaluation of our security investments is underway and will be published in 2023.
We are also in the process of deploying 83 X-ray baggage scanners across the prison estate. The effectiveness of these scanners will be considered as part of a separate evaluation.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to modernise prisons.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Providing safe, decent, and secure prisons is a key priority for the Government. We are taking a number of steps to modernise our prisons, including building new prison places and increasing our investment in refurbishment and maintenance to upgrade the existing estate.
As announced at the spending review, we have committed over £4 billion capital funding to make significant progress in delivering 18,000 additional prison places across England and Wales by the mid-2020s, and £315m to improve the prison estate. These 18,000 prison places include 10,000 places being made available through the construction of four new prisons; the expansion of a further four prisons; refurbishment of the existing prison estate and the completion of our ongoing prison builds at Glen Parva and HMP Five Wells.
Digital technologies will also contribute to the Government’s modernisation of prisons. Access to modern, robust technology is a vital part of current prison design. During the pandemic, HMPPS delivered unprecedented digital innovation through the rollout of secure video call technology into every single prison in the male, female and youth estate, with 124,000 calls made as of 22nd February 2021. We are committed to expanding the use of digital technology in the existing estate and future prisons, including in-cell technology for prisoners.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce crime in prisons.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Reducing crime in prisons is a key priority for the Ministry of Justice. In August 2019 we committed to spend £100m on prison security, and we are delivering on this commitment. This includes X-ray body scanners which have been installed in 40 prisons across England and Wales. These detect drugs and contraband that fuel crime in prisons and their use has already prevented over 2,300 illegal items from entering our prisons. This investment will also strengthen staff resilience to corruption and target organised criminals who seek to exploit prisons as a lucrative market.
Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service also works closely with law enforcement agencies so that crimes committed in prison are dealt with effectively. In May 2019, a Crime in Prisons Referral Agreement was published jointly with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Crown Prosecution Service to help achieve an improved and consistent performance in the investigation and prosecution of offences in a custodial setting.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that offenders find employment on release.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Since we launched our Education and Employment Strategy in May 2018, we have overhauled the prison education system, allowing governors to commission skills-based training and education that meets the needs of the local labour market.
We have also introduced the New Futures Network, a specialist part of the Prison Service which brokers partnerships between prisons and employers in England and Wales. New Futures Network is now operating in 14 out of 15 geographical prison group areas and more than 360 businesses have registered an interest in working with prisons to provide work and training opportunities.
Additionally, we established new rules to allow governors to get offenders our to work earlier on temporary licence. This will increase the opportunities available for prisoners to secure jobs on release and reduce their chances of reoffending.
Asked by: Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department plans to review sentencing policy for prolific offenders.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Protecting the public will always be our priority. One of the first acts by this Prime Minister was to order an urgent review of sentencing. The focus of the review has been on the sentencing for the most serious violent and sexual offenders and the rules governing when and how those offenders are released. As part of the review, we have also considered changes to sentencing for prolific offenders which could help break the cycle of reoffending.
Based on the findings of the review, we will be bringing forward proposals shortly for a comprehensive package of legislative reform. This will include amending the automatic release point for the most serious sexual and violent offenders (where the offence carries a maximum life sentence) from the half-way point to two thirds of the sentence.
As part of this package of reform, we also plan to bring forward proposals for community penalties that offer an appropriate level of punishment, while tackling the underlying drivers of offending. We know that prolific offenders generally have multiple and complex needs which are linked to their offending behaviour, in particular drugs, alcohol and mental health needs. If we are to break the cycle of reoffending, solutions will often lie in community sentences, including those which address offenders’ behaviour, answer their mental health and alcohol or drug misuse needs, or provide reparation for the benefit of the wider community. On 1 October we announced that we would be introducing Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirements (AAMR) across England and Wales, starting in 2020.