Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to Legal Aid for discrimination claims in the Employment Tribunal.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Legal aid is available for legal advice and assistance in relation to discrimination cases which fall under the Equality Act 2010 or previous discrimination legislation, subject to passing the means and merits tests. Legal aid for other employment matters may be available through the Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) Scheme, if a failure to provide legal aid would breach, or likely risk a breach of, an individual’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Ministry of Justice has recently undertaken a comprehensive review of civil legal aid and, having considered the evidence collected, we acknowledge that the sector is facing a number of challenges. We are committed to improving the experience of users and providers and, as an important first step towards this, we intend to consult on uplifts to housing and immigration legal aid fees in January 2025. We will continue to consider the fees paid in other categories of civil legal aid, including as part of the second phase of the Government’s Spending Review.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning legal aid services in England and Wales. There are currently 20 providers who offer legal aid services in relation to the Discrimination category of legal aid operating out of 24 offices across England and Wales. The LAA monitors supply across its legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis. Where additional supply is needed it takes action within its operational remit to ensure access to legal aid-funded services.
The LAA also maintains the Civil Legal Advice (CLA) Helpline. This is a national telephone helpline that helps members of the public check whether they may be eligible for civil legal aid and triages them to appropriate sources of advice. The CLA Helpline provides specialist remote advice though legal aid in four categories of law, including discrimination, for any individual that is determined to be eligible for these services. The majority of advice and assistance cases in the discrimination category are currently delivered by the CLA service.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that specialist violence against women and girls services are aware of the early release of prisoners with known histories of those offences.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The decision that this Government has taken to release some prisoners early is a difficult but necessary one.
We want women and girls to feel safe, and ministers and officials are meeting regularly with the specialist women and girls’ sector to ensure they have the information they need to support victims and survivors throughout early release of prisoners. On 22 August, Minister Timpson and I chaired a roundtable meeting with over thirty groups representing victims and survivors to provide detail on the release process and support available for them. I have also been working closely with the sector and the Victims’ and Domestic Abuse Commissioners to ensure information reaches those working directly with victims and survivors every day.
Ensuring victims and survivors are safe and supported is my priority, and I will continue to engage closely with the victims’ sector throughout this process and beyond.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish data on the gender of people ordered to wear an alcohol monitoring device in each year since 2020.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Shadow Minister and Shadow Minister for London
Alcohol monitored, electronic monitoring subjects by gender, England and Wales, at month's end, from March 2021. Source: AMS Contractor data. | ||||
|
| Mar-21 | Mar-22 | Mar-23 |
| Males and Females |
|
|
|
Number | Females | 7 | 116 | 248 |
Number | Males | 28 | 778 | 1,991 |
Number | Other | .. | 4 | 9 |
Total number | Total | 35 | 898 | 2,248 |
| Males and Females |
|
|
|
Proportion of total | Females | 20% | 13% | 11% |
Proportion of total | Males | 80% | 87% | 89% |
Proportion of total | Other | .. | 0% | 0% |
These figures are drawn from administrative data systems provided by contractors. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent.
‘Other’ refers to instances in which data on gender has not been received, or the individual has not disclosed their gender or identifies as non-binary.
The table includes individuals wearing an alcohol monitoring device and subject to an Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirement (AAMR) as a requirement of a community order or suspended sentence order, and individuals subject to an Alcohol Monitoring on Licence (AML) condition following custody.
AAMR is a community-based sentence requirement for alcohol related offending which imposes an alcohol ban for up to 120 days, compliance is electronically monitored using an alcohol tag. AAMR was introduced in Wales in October 2020 and was expanded to all England and Wales in March 2021.
AML allows probation to impose an additional licence condition that either bans drinking alcohol or limits use, monitored by an alcohol tag. Rollout in England and Wales was completed in June 2022.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department conducted a women-specific impact and health needs assessment prior to the roll out of the use of alcohol monitoring tags.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Shadow Minister and Shadow Minister for London
There have been two equalities impact assessments, both of which considered offenders’ sex, prior to the Department’s introduction of alcohol monitoring.
An Equalities Impact Assessment was carried out on the alcohol monitoring measures introduced by the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, it is published and available using this link: Alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement (justice.gov.uk).
A further Equalities Impact Assessment was carried out and published alongside the Statutory Instrument to commence the Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement, The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2020, and is available using this link: The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2020 (legislation.gov.uk).
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he is taking steps to reduce the cost of crown court transcripts for victims of serious crime.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Ministry of Justice and HM Courts and Tribunals Service continue to seek ways to reduce the fees that victims are required to pay to obtain transcripts in criminal proceedings. In particular, we will explore how technology can be used to reduce the costs of transcription, with a view to passing on the savings to parties.
Victims can apply to the court for permission to listen to the audio recording of the hearing at a suitable court location, free of charge and at judicial discretion. In certain serious criminal cases, a copy of the Sentencing Remarks may be made available to the public free of charge at the judge’s discretion
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the length of waiting lists for counselling for victims of sexual violence.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The NHS Long Term Plan commits this Government to investing at least £2.3 billion of extra funding a year to expanding and transforming mental health services by March 2024. This will enable an extra two million people, including victims of sexual violence, to be treated by NHS mental health services. In February 2022, NHS England also published the outcomes of its consultation on the potential to introduce five new access and waiting time standards for mental health services. Which will enable victims of sexual violence to be referred sooner. These give new access and waiting time standards are:
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been convicted of the offence of illegal working since that offence was introduced under the 2016 Immigration Act.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of convictions between 2017 and 2021 in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2021.
Information on the number of people convicted prior to 2017 can be found in the Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code data tool, however, there are no convictions for illegal working in this period.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support his Department is providing to LGBTQ+ young people aged 16-25 who have been victims of (a) hate crime, (b) serious violence or (c) malicious communications in the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government funds services for all victims of crime, regardless of the crime type, when it happened, or whether it has been reported to the police. The Ministry of Justice provides funding for victim support services both at a national and local level. Local funding is routed through Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) who commission services in their local area based on an assessment of need. This includes providing tailored services for victims with protected characteristics. Whilst we collect voluntary demographic data on the victims these services support, such as age, ethnicity, and sexuality, we do not hold data to the level of granularity requested.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many child victims of sexual abuse reached the age of 18 before there case was heard; and how many of those people were then cross examined in each year from 2016.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The age of victims throughout the progression of a case through the Criminal Justice System and the number that were cross examined is not held centrally.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the court backlog is for child sexual abuse cases.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
At the end of June 2021 (latest available data) there were 4,614 outstanding child sexual abuse cases in the Crown Court and 572 in the Magistrates’ Court in England and Wales.