Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of his planned reforms to sections 3 and 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 on delivering equality under the law to humanists, atheists, and other non-religious people.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
In December, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Government is consulting on proposals to overhaul and replace the Human Rights Act (HRA) with a Bill of Rights. The consultation process is ongoing and we are carefully considering the impact of proposed policies on the legislative framework and legal systems of each devolved nation within the UK. Engagement with stakeholders, including in the devolved administrations, is underway and roundtable events with religious, humanist and secularist groups are planned. In line with our manifesto commitment, we want to ensure there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our national security and effective government.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his planned reforms to sections 3 and 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 will ensure that references to religion in legislation and guidance will be interpreted as religion or belief.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
In December, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Government is consulting on proposals to overhaul and replace the Human Rights Act (HRA) with a Bill of Rights. The consultation process is ongoing and we are carefully considering the impact of proposed policies on the legislative framework and legal systems of each devolved nation within the UK. Engagement with stakeholders, including in the devolved administrations, is underway and roundtable events with religious, humanist and secularist groups are planned. In line with our manifesto commitment, we want to ensure there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our national security and effective government.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential effect, including any retrospective effect, of proposed reforms to sections 3 and 6 of the Human Rights Act on the existing legal framework regarding human rights law; and whether he has conducted an impact assessment on that matter.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
In December, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Government is consulting on proposals to overhaul and replace the Human Rights Act (HRA) with a Bill of Rights. The consultation process is ongoing and we are carefully considering the impact of proposed policies on the legislative framework and legal systems of each devolved nation within the UK. Engagement with stakeholders, including in the devolved administrations, is underway and roundtable events with religious, humanist and secularist groups are planned. In line with our manifesto commitment, we want to ensure there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our national security and effective government.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people prosecuted for TV licence evasion in each year since 2015 were women.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions for TV licence evasion in England and Wales, up to December 2020, available in the ‘Outcomes by Offence’ data tool, which can be found here:
For prosecutions of women for this offence, follow the steps below.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the (a) average, (b) shortest and (c) longest time taken to grant probate in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The average wait for people telephoning the national Courts and Tribunal Service centre with queries relating to Probate between April 2019 to March 2020 is 2 minutes 21 seconds.
The most recently published waiting times for a grant of probate covers July 2019 to March 2020 as March to June 2019 data is subject to data quality issues following the move to a new computer system. All calculations have therefore been calculated based on a 9-month period from July 2019 rather than a 12-month period as requested.
The information requested as to the shortest and longest time taken to grant probate in the last 12 months could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The information requested as to the average time taken to grant probate in the last 12 months can be found in the table below:
Average time to grant issue for grants of representation, by grant type, England and Wales 1,2, 3, 4 |
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Probate |
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Application submission to grant issue | Document receipt to grant issue3 |
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| Mean weeks | Median weeks |
| Mean weeks | Median weeks |
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July 2019 to March 2020 |
| 8.1 | 6.6 | 7.9 | 6.4 |
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Source HMCTS Core Case Data |
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1) HMCTS Core Case Data (CCD) came into effect at the end of March 2019, following a transition between data systems recording information regarding The Probate Service | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2) The average timeliness figures are produced by calculating the time from application/document receipt (which may be from an earlier period) to the grant issued made in that period. 3) Document receipt occurs after payment has been made and all accompanying paperwork has been received by HMCTS 4) Due to quality issues in the transition between data systems, the breakdown by type of grant has not been published for Q2 2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average wait is for people telephoning the national Courts and Tribunal Service centres with queries relating to probate applications in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The average wait for people telephoning the national Courts and Tribunal Service centre with queries relating to Probate between April 2019 to March 2020 is 2 minutes 21 seconds.
The most recently published waiting times for a grant of probate covers July 2019 to March 2020 as March to June 2019 data is subject to data quality issues following the move to a new computer system. All calculations have therefore been calculated based on a 9-month period from July 2019 rather than a 12-month period as requested.
The information requested as to the shortest and longest time taken to grant probate in the last 12 months could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The information requested as to the average time taken to grant probate in the last 12 months can be found in the table below:
Average time to grant issue for grants of representation, by grant type, England and Wales 1,2, 3, 4 |
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Probate |
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Application submission to grant issue | Document receipt to grant issue3 |
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| Mean weeks | Median weeks |
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July 2019 to March 2020 |
| 8.1 | 6.6 | 7.9 | 6.4 |
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Source HMCTS Core Case Data |
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1) HMCTS Core Case Data (CCD) came into effect at the end of March 2019, following a transition between data systems recording information regarding The Probate Service | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2) The average timeliness figures are produced by calculating the time from application/document receipt (which may be from an earlier period) to the grant issued made in that period. 3) Document receipt occurs after payment has been made and all accompanying paperwork has been received by HMCTS 4) Due to quality issues in the transition between data systems, the breakdown by type of grant has not been published for Q2 2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the range of civil and criminal powers that are available to financial services regulators to investigate and protect investors who have entrusted funds to regulated firms in the financial services sector.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The Secretary of State has had no recent discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the range of civil and criminal powers available to financial services regulators to protect consumer investment in the regulated financial services sector.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions for dishonest concealment of material information under Section 397 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 there have been since 2008.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates’ courts for offences under section 397 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, from 2011 to 2014, can be viewed in the table.
Defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for offences under Section 397 Financial Services and Markets Act, England and Wales, 2011 to 2014 (1)(2) | |||
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
- | 2 | 4 | - |
'-' = Nil | |||
(1) The figures given in the table relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. | |||
(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. | |||
Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice. | |||
Ref: PQ 19198 | |||
Offences under this section were recorded under an offence grouping, which it is only possible to separately analyse from 2011 onwards.