Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Written Ministerial Statement of 25 February 2016, HCWS549, what progress her Department has made on procuring new electronic monitoring based on satellite tracking technology; and what the costs of that procurement process have been to date.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The procurement for the supplier of the new Electronic Monitoring Tags is ongoing and we expect to confirm the outcome in due course.
Since April 2016, the cost of procurement activity for the supplier of the new electronic monitoring tags has been £450,000.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many funerals were conducted by each unitary and district council in England under section 46 of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 in 2016; and what the cost to each local authority was for conducting such funerals.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The Ministry of Justice has not led on operational policy relating to burial and cremation and, therefore, we have not collected information on this issue to date.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the wastage rate of staff employed by the Legal Aid Agency in each year since that agency's creation on 1 April 2013.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The wastage rate of staff employed by the Legal Aid Agency is shown below.
Twelve months to: | Wastage rate |
31-Mar-14 | 6.5% |
31-Mar-15 | 4.6% |
31-Mar-16 | 4.6% |
30-Sep-16 | 4.6% |
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the wastage rates of public sector prison support staff in each year since 2010.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Leaving rates of prison staff, broken down by grade are included in the NOMS Workforce Bulletin which are published quarterly on gov.uk
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 11 October 2016 to Question 46111, if she will say where on the gov.uk website there are details of the number of people convicted for offences under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 in each of the last three years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The statistics are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2015 in the CJS outcomes by offence data tool.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 5 September 2016 to Question 43488, what the reason is for the discrepancy between the figure provided in that answer and data in recent research published by Women's Aid on 13 September 2016 on the proportion of survivors of domestic abuse that had access to a separate waiting room in the family court.
Answered by Phillip Lee
These two pieces of data are not comparable. Question 43488 refers to the Crown and Magistrates’ courts specifically, and family courts were not included. We are clear that security in the family courts is taken extremely seriously and we have robust arrangements in place to protect court users.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of prisoners released on licence to a bail hostel have been subsequently recalled to prison in 2016 to date.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Between January 2016 and March 2016 (the latest date for which figures are available), 715 offenders were recalled to prison whilst residing in an approved premises.
We are unable to give an accurate figure for the proportion of departures from an approved premises that were attributable to the offender being recalled to custody. This is because some residents of an approved premises are not offenders released from custody on licence; in terms of departures, these cannot be distinguished from other residents.
Approved premises provide for effective supervision of certain high risk of harm offenders, particularly on release from custody. It would not be possible to provide such effective supervision elsewhere in the community, which is the only alternative for offenders who have completed the custodial part of their sentence. Offenders who breach their licence conditions (including the rules of residence of an approved premises in which they are required to reside) are liable to be recalled to custody, in order to protect the public.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been convicted of offences under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The information requested can be found on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to implement the actions identified for it in the Government's Ending Violence against Women and Girls Strategy 2016-2020, published in March 2016; and when a member of staff from her Department last attended a Violence against Women and Girls Stakeholder Meeting chaired by the Home Office.
Answered by Phillip Lee
Actions in the VAWG Action Plan are monitored through the VAWG Delivery Board, the VAWG Inter Ministerial Group and bilateral meetings between Home Office and OGD officials.
The VAWG Stakeholder Meeting is a meeting between Home Office officials and attendees from the voluntary and community sector working in the violence against women and girls policy area. It is not routinely attended by officials from other government departments. The most recent meeting took place on July 11. While OGDs do not routinely attend, as this meeting is primarily between the Home Office and the sector, an action point raised by the sector at this meeting was their desire for other Government departments to be represented at future meetings. This will be taken forward by the Home Office by inviting OGD officials to future meetings.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which magistrates' and Crown courts have separate waiting rooms for victims of domestic violence and those accused of assaulting them.
Answered by Phillip Lee
All Crown Court Centres have separate waiting facilities for victims and witnesses, including victims of domestic violence.
97% of magistrates’ courts have some kind of separate witness waiting facility. For those courts that do not have this facility, special arrangements will be put in place providing the court is notified in advance.
There are separate secure facilities for those accused that are held in custody. The accused who are remanded on bail, do not have designated waiting rooms.