Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Written Statement of 13 July 2023 entitled Justice system update, HCWS941, what estimate he has made of the (a) number of and (b) cost to the public purse of closed-grade prison officers leaving employment since 1 April 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds
From 1 April to 30 June 2023, 94 closed-grade prison officers left the prison service. The Department does not make a specific assessment of the cost to the public purse of closed-grade prison officers leaving the prison service.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of 23 March 2023, Official Report, column 1850, if he will provide a breakdown of financial expenditure within (a) the core programme and (b) special development strategies of the prison education budget.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The prison education budget is broken down as follows: (a) the core programme is £115.7 million, and (b) special development strategies is Dynamic Purchasing System (niche and short-term initiatives): £10.4 million, Information, Advice and Guidance: £7.6 Million, Library (non-Prison Education Framework): £5.8 million, Grants (Open University/ Prisoners Education Trust): £1.2 million, OFSTED: £1.4 million, Virtual Campus: £1.4 million.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of exclusions of prison staff from a prison have led to prosecutions in each of the last four years broken down by role of those staff.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prison staff were excluded from a prison by (a) their role and (b) the category of exclusion in each of the last 16 quarters.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make it his policy to convene a Royal Commission on criminal justice before the next general election.
Answered by Mike Freer
Although we recognise the opportunity that a Royal Commission could present to look at structural questions in the criminal justice system, we think it is right that, following the pandemic and the CBA’s disruptive action, we focus on delivering recovery priorities over the coming months.
We continue to keep issues in the wider criminal justice system under review.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help tackle the backlogs in the probate service.
Answered by Mike Freer
Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the probate service during the Covid 19 pandemic, and the increased volume of applications that have been seen since, the average length of time taken for a grant of probate following receipt of the documents required has been maintained at between five and seven weeks – with the average responses being almost 1 week faster in quarter 2 of 2022 than the yearly average for 2020 and 2021.
Average waiting times for probate grants, up to April to June 2022, are published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 25): https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-court-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2022.
HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand following an increased number of estates requiring probate and is further increasing resourcing to further bring down overall timeliness on digital and paper applications.
The improvement of the online probate system remains a priority for HMCTS, to ensure more applications can be issued first time and resources can be focused on reducing waiting times.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the areas of development set out on page 6 of the Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board for HMP/YOI Low Newton for 2020-21, published in October 2021, what funding the Government plans to provide to enable the governor of HMP/YOI Low Newton to invest in new educational and vocational initiatives to allow for additional and less stereotypically women’s employment opportunities.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The funding of Prison Education is based on the number of prisoners and the type of establishment. Governors are able to decide, within limit, how much of the education budget is allocated to the core (Prison Education Framework) contract and how much is spent on niche provision via an Education Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). There is further scope to move allocated monies around between establishments to cater for individual learner need at the discretion of the Director. The total education budget is just under £150 Million.
The Curriculum at HMP Low Newton is reviewed annually and learners are surveyed to ensure courses are relevant and of interest to them. Whilst it is important to provide learning that meets the wishes of learners, we also deliver the core skills of numeracy, literacy and IT. We also continue to deliver courses which will support the women into employment on release and provide personal development, specifically tailored to meet the needs of the women in Low Newton’s care.