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Written Question
Prisoners: Parents
Monday 19th February 2024

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in identifying prisoners’ children, by sex and age, and obtaining other relevant data for their welfare, through the Better Outcomes through Linked Data programme.

Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice’s most comprehensive estimate remains that over the course of a year, approximately 200,000 children may be affected by a parent being in or going to prison. This estimate is based on 2009 survey data.

The Prison Strategy White paper detailed our intention to work with other government departments to commission updated research to improve our collective understanding of the overall number of children affected by parental incarceration.

As part of this work, changes have been made to the Basic Custody Screening Tool (BCST) to enable us to collect data on entry to prison about how many primary carers are in custody and how many children under the age of 18 are affected by their imprisonment, which means that we can access this information centrally. Questions contained within the BCST are under continuous review to reflect learning from operational colleagues and people with lived experience of prison. While the BCST does include questions on the sex and ages of dependents of prisoners, the collection of this information relies solely on self-declaration of the parent in prison and therefore may raise challenges as to the accuracy or consistency of this information without being able to verify with other sources.

The Government is delivering on its white paper commitment to improve our data and evidence in this area, through the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) Programme. BOLD is a £19.7m cross government Shared Outcomes Fund programme which is linking data to enable better evidenced and more joined up cross government services. The purpose of BOLD is to identify the overall scale of the issue by improving our understanding of the number of children affected by parental imprisonment. The BOLD programme aims to do this by exploring data available across government, including information that does not rely on self-disclosure. We expect findings from the project to be published in Spring 2024.


Written Question
Prisoners: Guardianship
Monday 19th February 2024

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in collecting data on prisoners who are primary carers and their children through the Basic Custody Screening Tool so that this information can be accessed centrally.

Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice’s most comprehensive estimate remains that over the course of a year, approximately 200,000 children may be affected by a parent being in or going to prison. This estimate is based on 2009 survey data.

The Prison Strategy White paper detailed our intention to work with other government departments to commission updated research to improve our collective understanding of the overall number of children affected by parental incarceration.

As part of this work, changes have been made to the Basic Custody Screening Tool (BCST) to enable us to collect data on entry to prison about how many primary carers are in custody and how many children under the age of 18 are affected by their imprisonment, which means that we can access this information centrally. Questions contained within the BCST are under continuous review to reflect learning from operational colleagues and people with lived experience of prison. While the BCST does include questions on the sex and ages of dependents of prisoners, the collection of this information relies solely on self-declaration of the parent in prison and therefore may raise challenges as to the accuracy or consistency of this information without being able to verify with other sources.

The Government is delivering on its white paper commitment to improve our data and evidence in this area, through the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) Programme. BOLD is a £19.7m cross government Shared Outcomes Fund programme which is linking data to enable better evidenced and more joined up cross government services. The purpose of BOLD is to identify the overall scale of the issue by improving our understanding of the number of children affected by parental imprisonment. The BOLD programme aims to do this by exploring data available across government, including information that does not rely on self-disclosure. We expect findings from the project to be published in Spring 2024.


Written Question
Prisoners: Guardianship and Parents
Monday 19th February 2024

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their most recent estimate for the number of children with (1) a parent in prison, and (2) a primary carer in prison.

Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice’s most comprehensive estimate remains that over the course of a year, approximately 200,000 children may be affected by a parent being in or going to prison. This estimate is based on 2009 survey data.

The Prison Strategy White paper detailed our intention to work with other government departments to commission updated research to improve our collective understanding of the overall number of children affected by parental incarceration.

As part of this work, changes have been made to the Basic Custody Screening Tool (BCST) to enable us to collect data on entry to prison about how many primary carers are in custody and how many children under the age of 18 are affected by their imprisonment, which means that we can access this information centrally. Questions contained within the BCST are under continuous review to reflect learning from operational colleagues and people with lived experience of prison. While the BCST does include questions on the sex and ages of dependents of prisoners, the collection of this information relies solely on self-declaration of the parent in prison and therefore may raise challenges as to the accuracy or consistency of this information without being able to verify with other sources.

The Government is delivering on its white paper commitment to improve our data and evidence in this area, through the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) Programme. BOLD is a £19.7m cross government Shared Outcomes Fund programme which is linking data to enable better evidenced and more joined up cross government services. The purpose of BOLD is to identify the overall scale of the issue by improving our understanding of the number of children affected by parental imprisonment. The BOLD programme aims to do this by exploring data available across government, including information that does not rely on self-disclosure. We expect findings from the project to be published in Spring 2024.


Written Question
Divorce
Monday 17th July 2023

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the 22 per cent rise in divorce applications since reforms were introduced in April 2022.

Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Government continues to monitor and assess divorce application statistics. In the first year since divorce reforms were introduced in April 2022, 119,000 divorce applications were made through the new process, compared to almost 108,000 applications for the last full year under the previous legislation. This is an increase of 11 per cent. We expected a temporary spike in the volume of applications following implementation of the divorce reforms. This is because people will have waited to apply for a divorce under the new process. However, international evidence shows that long-term divorce rates are not increased by removing ‘fault’ from the divorce process. We expect volumes to return to previous levels once the initial peak has occurred.


Written Question
Prisoners: Suicide
Thursday 26th November 2020

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost of suicides in prison over the last 12 months.

Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Every death in custody is a tragedy and the Government is committed to reducing the number of self-inflicted deaths in prison.

There is a variety of financial costs associated with responding to and investigating each self-inflicted death, making it difficult to calculate the total. However, it is the human cost, in terms of the loss of life, and the impact on the lives of others, including the bereaved family and friends and the staff who worked with the individual, that is of concern to the Government. It is our determination to avoid these harms, and our commitment to the welfare of those in our care, that drive our work to prevent self-inflicted deaths.


Written Question
Prison Governors: Length of Service
Thursday 26th November 2020

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the average length of (1) a completed prison governor tenure, and (2) existing prison governor tenures.

Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

(1) The average length of service of a completed prison governor tenure who left over the last 5 years is 4.2 years.

To note, the averages are based on total governor tenure (which would include them moving to different prisons) and not specific to time spent in one post.

(2) As at 30 June 2020, existing prison governors had spent an average of 2.7 years in their current post.

To note, this includes substantive band 10-11 Governing Governors only and does not include any deputy governors who may be filling the role on a temporary promotion.


Written Question
Prison Governors: Length of Service
Thursday 26th November 2020

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of prison governors have stayed in post for more than (1) two, and (2) three years.

Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

As at 30th June 2020, 48% of prison governors had stayed in their current post for more than two years, and 39% had stayed in their current post for more than three years.

To note, this includes substantive band 10-11 Governing Governors only and does not include any deputy governors who may be filling the role on a temporary promotion.


Written Question
Prisons: Visits
Thursday 26th November 2020

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made in increasing awareness of the Assisted Prisons Visits scheme among (1) prisoners, and (2) visitors, since the publication of the report by the National Offender Management Service Families Do Matter Project Report 2009, which found that 38 per cent of prisoners and visitors were unaware of that scheme.

Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

A new online Help with Visits service (formerly known as the Assisted Prison Visits Scheme) was introduced in June 2017 to simplify the application process and the ease of access to the service for members of the public who are visiting prisons.

Family service providers have continued to assist HMPPS with raising the profile of the Help with Visits Scheme and, through their service user forum, have provided feedback on the design of the updated literature. This will be launched once Covid-19 restrictions ease across the prison estate.

Additionally, a pilot across a number of prisons will be used to review eligibility criteria to help inform potential changes that may be made to improve access to social visits for prisoners and their families.


Written Question
Prisoners: Children
Tuesday 10th November 2020

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children who were living with people now in prison, are currently living with the prisoners' partners.

Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

The information requested is not held centrally and could not be collated without incurring disproportionate cost as individual records would need to be analysed.


Written Question
Prisoners: Children
Tuesday 10th November 2020

Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to update the study by the Home Office Research Directorate Imprisoned Women and Mothers, published in 1997; and what assessment they have made of the finding in that report that only five per cent of female offenders’ children remain in the family home while their mother is in prison.

Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Although responsibility for the children of offenders sits with the Secretary of State for Education, we are actively committed to joined-up working across Government and, in our Female Offender Strategy 2018, encouraged a partnership-focused approach to addressing the needs of both imprisoned mothers and children affected by maternal imprisonment.

The Female Offender Strategy, published in June 2018, sets out our commitment 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.

We recognise that maternal imprisonment can have particularly detrimental impact on family life, and that children whose mothers are in prison are a vulnerable group and may need additional help to address both the short and long-term impacts that maternal imprisonment can have.

We have accepted the recommendations made in your secondary report on women, which demonstrated that supporting women to build and maintain health family ties is one of the many important factors to successful rehabilitation. We are making good progress with implementation of the Review and where needed we are working across Government to deliver the recommendations to their best effect. Going forward, we acknowledge the need for improved collection and transparency of data on primary carers in prison and their dependents in the community.

At the moment, information on a prisoner’s caring responsibilities and children living in the community is monitored locally by prison Governors/Directors to ensure the appropriate support can be provided to women and their families. On reception into custody, all prisoners are asked if they have any children living at home and what their ages are. Currently, this information is not captured in a way that can be centrally monitored, and we know that there are challenges around parents being reluctant to disclose this information due to fear of involvement from social services. However, we are considering how to monitor and publish this information.