Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when criminal legal aid remuneration rates were last raised in real terms for legal professionals.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Criminal defence lawyers play a crucial role in upholding the rule of law and the Government greatly values their contribution.
Last year we spent £1.6bn on legal aid, with more than half on criminal legal aid. In addition, following consultation with the profession, we increased overall funding of the Advocates Graduated Fee Scheme (AGFS) by £23m and brought forward a 1% increase in fees which came into effect along with the new scheme on 31 December 2018. This represents a 10% increase on AGFS spend in 2016-17.
In addition, we are conducting a fundamental review of criminal legal aid fee schemes, which will report back by the end of Summer 2020. This will go far beyond our previous proposals, including pre-charge advice at the police station, advice and advocacy services in the Magistrates’ Court, and litigation and advocacy services in the Crown Court.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many women in prison have been Released on Temporary Licence in the last 12 months; and how many women are currently on Release on Temporary Licence.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The latest data available shows that there were 649 women released on temporary licence from 1 October 2017 to 30 September 2018, the latest 12-month period for which data is available.
The number released on temporary licence varies each day. A snapshot of the data taken on 29th March 2019 shows that there were 138 women released on temporary licence on that day.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to publish updated statistics on employment outcomes for women and men previously published in the Ministry of Justice (2013) National Offender Management Service Offender Equalities Annual Report 2012-13.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Employment outcomes were published until 2014-15 in the NOMS Management Information Addendum to the Annual Report. Users can get a broad male / female split based on the prison type. They are available via the link below:
Later this year, subject to data quality, we are intending to publish employment outcomes for 2018-19 as an Annex to the HMPPS Community Performance publication.
In addition, in line with the commitments in the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper, we are developing employment measures to assess the performance of prison and probation in supporting prison leavers into employment.
From April 2019-20, one such measure will hold governors to account, through the HMPPS Prison Performance Framework, on securing employment for offenders after release.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate his Department has made of the number of women in prison on a sentence of imprisonment for public protection that have children.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
There are 2,489 unreleased IPP prisoners, of which 46 are women. We know that when coming into contact with the criminal justice system, some women choose not to disclose that they have children. Data is therefore not currently collected on numbers of prisoners with children (whether that be total numbers of children or dependent children).
Our Female Offender Strategy is committed to improving outcomes for women at all stages of the justice system, and this includes supporting those who have children. We know that female prisoners are more likely than male prisoners to be a primary carer and imprisoned mothers are more likely to be living with their children prior to custody – around 60% of women compared with about 45% of men in prison who have children. Figures from a 2015 data matching exercise with the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions showed that between 24% and 31% of all female offenders were estimated to have one or more child dependents.
We recognise the impact that imprisonment of a parent can have on families. That is why we have asked Lord Farmer to continue his work on the importance of family ties by conducting a further review into female offenders in custody and the community. Lord Farmer is expected to report his findings to Ministers shortly.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the article in the Guardian of 13 November 2018 entitled Female prisoners in England left to give birth without midwife, what steps he is taking to ensure midwifery care is provided to perinatal women in custody.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
All pregnant women in custody have an individual care and management plan that is communicated to all staff and all pregnant women are seen by a mid-wife at least fortnightly or as required. Healthcare in prisons is provided by trained medics and nurses, but we have also made training on dealing with pregnant women available to all prison officers and new guidance will make clear that pregnant women should have access to 24-hour midwifery advice.
We know it is extremely rare for a woman to give birth in prison - because every step is taken to get them to hospital - but those unique cases are invariably down to the unpredictability of labour.
Our new Female Offenders Strategy made clear that we want fewer women serving short sentences in custody and more remaining in the community, making use of women’s centres to address needs such as substance misuse and mental health problems.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of (a) women and (b) men who received custodial sentences of less than six months in each of the past three years had previously received (i) one (ii) between two and four (iii) five or more community sentences.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The number of offenders sentenced to immediate custody for less than six months in 2015 – 2017, broken down by gender and the number of community sentences the offender had previously received, can be viewed in the table. This information is broken down by 0 previous community sentences received, 1 previous community sentence received, 2-4 previous community sentences received, and 5 or more previous community sentences received.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) women and (b) men were recalled to custody in each of the last three years as a result of (i) breach of licence conditions on release following a custodial sentence of over 12 months and (ii) breach of conditions during post-release supervision following a custodial sentence of under 12 months.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The breakdown of the number of women and men serving determinate sentences that were recalled to custody as a result of breach of licence conditions on release:
Year(1) | (a) Women | (b) Men | ||
(i) Custodial sentence of 12 months and over | (ii) Custodial sentence of under 12 months | (i) Custodial sentence of 12 months and over | (ii) Custodial sentence of under 12 months | |
2015 | 706 | 434 | 15,198 | 4,554 |
2016 | 637 | 726 | 12,410 | 7,092 |
2017 | 646 | 986 | 11,714 | 7,839 |
(1) The figures provided are for women and men recalled in each full year from 2015 to 2017. The figures do not include indeterminate sentenced offenders but may include offenders recalled more than once across multiple years or within years. The figures in these tables 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.
Offenders serving a custodial period of less than 12 months became subject to supervision and licence conditions as a result of the commencement of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 (ORA) provisions in February 2015. Prior to this, these offenders were released unconditionally.
The breakdown of the number of women and men serving indeterminate sentences that were recalled to custody as a result of breach of licence conditions on release:
Year(2) | (a) Women | (b) Men | ||
Life Sentence | Indeterminate sentence for Public Protection (IPP) | Life Sentence | Indeterminate sentence for Public Protection (IPP) | |
2015 | 6 | 9 | 206 | 354 |
2016 | 6 | 9 | 206 | 473 |
2017 | 6 | 13 | 216 | 494 |
(2) The figures provided are for women and men recalled in each full year from 2015 to 2017 and may include offenders recalled more than once across multiple years or within years. The figures in these tables 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.
As more offenders are reaching their minimum tariff dates, the number of first-time IPP releases continues to rise year on year, and there are consequently ever greater numbers of offenders on an IPP licence in the community. Correspondingly, and as is to be expected, the number of offenders on an IPP licence who are recalled to custody also continues to rise.
Public protection is our priority and offenders on licence must comply with a strict set of conditions. If any offender breaches his licence conditions, s/he is liable to be recalled immediately to prison.
(3) Further recall figures are available in published statistics https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of VAT on legal services on access to justice.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Ministry of Justice does not hold information on the VAT revenues collected on legal services. Tax is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and HM Treasury keeps all taxes under review.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to paragraph 52 of his Department's Education and Employment Strategy 2018, Cm 9621, published in May 2018, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that prison governors have adequate resources to commission careers advice services.
Answered by Rory Stewart
We are empowering governors to make decisions about their own prisons – ultimately, they are best placed to do this. We will devolve the entire establishment-level budget to prison governors from 1 April 2019. We will merge previously separate budgets for education, Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG), and libraries into a single budget.
Governors will treat this as a single ‘pot’ and decide how much to spend on which services. They will be able to make local decisions on how much of their budget they want to spend commissioning careers advice. This will allow governors to shape a coherent IAG service, reflecting the particular needs of their establishment.
In the meantime, the experienced Offender Learning and Skills Service providers, the DWP work coaches and the Community Rehabilitation Companies will continue to provide a range of employment support services for prisoners.
Asked by: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of ex-offenders who (a) worked and (b) did not work in prison industries are in P45 employment one year after release from prison
Answered by Rory Stewart
We do not currently record the data as requested. We are working with HM Revenue and Customs to enable us to capture this information in the future.
A joint exercise was carried between MoJ, HMRC and DWP in 2013 to analyse the links between employment, benefits and reoffending (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/304411/experimental-statistics.pdf). This found that only 17% of adults released from prison were in P45 employment at point of release. This analysis did not, however, establish whether or not the prisoners worked whilst in custody.
Reoffending is costing society approximately £15 billion a year. Effective rehabilitation needs prisoners to be willing to commit to change, take advice, learn new skills and take opportunities to work. For those individuals willing to engage, the prison system must deliver.
That is why we launched the Education and Employment strategy to create a system where each prisoner is set on a path to employment from the outset. We will empower governors to commission education provision that leads to work, we will engage and persuade employers to take on ex-prisoners via the New Futures Network (NFN) and we will consult on proposals to increase the opportunities available to prisoners to gain experience in real workplaces through Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL).