Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of reports that retail companies have increased the price of domestic heating oil separate to and above increases in wholesale prices; and whether he will refer the market to the Competition and Markets Authority.

Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government is aware that off-grid households have seen a sharp increase in heating oil prices due to volatility in international markets. Suppliers often have limited storage, buying daily on the spot market. These changes are then reflected immediately in the price consumers pay.

Following discussions with the Competition and Markets Authority, we welcome the CMA's launch of a comprehensive examination into the heating oil industry.

We will work closely with the CMA to understand their findings and develop options to increase consumer protections, including how regulation can increase stability.

While this work is ongoing, the Chancellor has announced £53m for low-income households that heat their homes with oil. In England, funding will be distributed by local authorities via the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF), which comes into effect from 1 April. The additional funding has targeted areas with higher proportions of oil heating.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what estimate his Department has made of the increase in the average price of domestic heating oil since the start of the conflict with Iran; and what assessment he has made of the impact of those increases on households that rely on heating oil.

Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government is aware that off-grid households have seen a sharp increase in heating oil prices due to volatility in international markets. Suppliers often have limited storage, buying daily on the spot market. These changes are then reflected immediately in the price consumers pay.

Following discussions with the Competition and Markets Authority, we welcome the CMA's launch of a comprehensive examination into the heating oil industry.

We will work closely with the CMA to understand their findings and develop options to increase consumer protections, including how regulation can increase stability.

While this work is ongoing, the Chancellor has announced £53m for low-income households that heat their homes with oil. In England, funding will be distributed by local authorities via the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF), which comes into effect from 1 April. The additional funding has targeted areas with higher proportions of oil heating.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to support households that rely on heating oil for domestic heating following recent increases in heating oil prices linked to the conflict with Iran.

Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government is aware that off-grid households have seen a sharp increase in heating oil prices due to volatility in international markets. Suppliers often have limited storage, buying daily on the spot market. These changes are then reflected immediately in the price consumers pay.

Following discussions with the Competition and Markets Authority, we welcome the CMA's launch of a comprehensive examination into the heating oil industry.

We will work closely with the CMA to understand their findings and develop options to increase consumer protections, including how regulation can increase stability.

While this work is ongoing, the Chancellor has announced £53m for low-income households that heat their homes with oil. In England, funding will be distributed by local authorities via the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF), which comes into effect from 1 April. The additional funding has targeted areas with higher proportions of oil heating.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what evidence his Department has gathered from schemes overseas comparable with the proposed Interest on Lawyers’ Client Accounts scheme.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Interest on Lawyer’s Client Account schemes have been successfully employed in several international jurisdictions for decades. As part of developing this proposal, the Ministry of Justice has undertaken extensive research and engagement with experts, officials and administrators from several international comparators. This includes schemes in Australia, Canada, France and the USA.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many offences against Jewish people and places of worship have been (a) recorded and (b) prosecuted in each year since 2020 broken down by the (i) ethnicity, (ii) nationality, and (iii) faith of the offender.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The Home Office publishes official statistics on religious hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales by targeted religion, including Jewish people. The latest statistical bulletin containing this information can be found here: Hate crime, England and Wales, year ending March 2025 - GOV.UK

Information on whether the offence was targeted at a place of worship or not, or the ethnicity, nationality or faith of the offender for these offences is not centrally held.

The CPS does not maintain a central record of the number of offences committed against Jewish people or the location of the offending, such as a place of worship. Nor is any central record kept of the nationality or faith of defendants prosecuted. To establish the number of prosecutions where these circumstances applied would require a manual review of case files and this would be at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential (a) administrative and (b) regulatory challenges that the ILCA scheme may place on SME law firms.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Department has engaged with a range of relevant stakeholders to help shape policy proposals. We have engaged with firms that undertake legal aid work, as well as representative bodies, through bilateral engagement, legal aid providers’ roundtables and our recent consultation.

We have also been working with relevant experts to consider the potential impacts of an ILCA scheme and the consultation collected evidence on the administration of the scheme and regulatory challenges.

We are currently considering all the evidence received through engagement as part of our ongoing policy development and consultation response.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what analysis his Department has undertaken on the potential impact of the proposed Interest on Lawyers’ Client Accounts scheme on the financial viability of legal aid providers.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Department has engaged with a range of relevant stakeholders to help shape policy proposals. We have engaged with firms that undertake legal aid work, as well as representative bodies, through bilateral engagement, legal aid providers’ roundtables and our recent consultation.

We have also been working with relevant experts to consider the potential impacts of an ILCA scheme and the consultation collected evidence on the administration of the scheme and regulatory challenges.

We are currently considering all the evidence received through engagement as part of our ongoing policy development and consultation response.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to confirm how many child sex offenders have been deported in each year since 2020, broken down by the number of previous convictions.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

The information you have requested on foreign national offenders (FNOs) returned from the UK (of which ‘deportation’ is a legal subset) who have been convicted of sexual offences against a child is not available from published statistics.

Work is currently underway to improve the quality of information held by the department on FNOs. The Home Office intends to publish more detailed information on FNOs returned. Further information on this work can be found at: Statistics on foreign national offenders and the immigration system - GOV.UK.

A breakdown by the number of previous convictions is not centrally held, and could only be collected and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.

Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced and, where appropriate, we will pursue their deportation.

Between this Government coming to power and January 2026, over 8700 FNOs have been returned either voluntarily or by enforced means. This is a 32% increase on the number of FNOs returned in the same period 19 months prior. Figures on deportations, which are a subset of enforced returns, are not separately available.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison places have been closed due to reasons concerning (a) health and safety, (b) security, (c) resources and (d) physical conditions in each year since 2010, broken down by location.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

The information requested has been provided in the table below. Please note that, since 2010, 23 prisons (7519 places) have been permanently closed. The site-specific reasons for closure vary, but in the main these prisons were assessed as old and uneconomic and the decision to close was based on the suitability, sustainability and the cost of running and maintaining these prisons. For the purposes of the breakdown in the table below, these full prison closures have been identified as “physical conditions”

Some of the places included on the list below as closed due to physical conditions have either been, or are due to be, returned following refurbishment. This includes places removed at Liverpool, Birmingham, Haverigg ,Feltham and Swinfen Hall.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers have been (a) investigated, (b) disciplined and (c) dismissed for illicit relationships with inmates in each year since 2020, broken down by sex.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

We only hold data on cases where staff were recommended for dismissal, as individuals may choose to resign before a dismissal can be formally enacted. As a result, we have used this field to respond to the question to avoid undercounting the number of people involved. This data can be found in the following tables.

Table 1: Band 3-5 prison officers(1) investigated(2) due to an allegation of 'Inappropriate Relationship with a Prisoner / Ex-Prisoner'

Table 2: Band 3-5 prison officers facing a conduct and discipline(3), (4)charge of 'Inappropriate Relationship with a Prisoner / Ex-Prisoner'

Table 3: Band 3-5 prison officers recommended for dismissal following a conduct and discipline(3) charge of 'Inappropriate Relationship with a Prisoner / Ex-Prisoner'

Notes to tables:

1. Band 3-5 Officers includes Bands 3-4 / Prison Officers (incl specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officers, and Band 5 / Custodial Managers.

2.    Staff subject to at least one investigation that was concluded during the relevant year.

3.    Conduct and discipline cases are defined as where a penalty has been imposed on a member of HMPPS staff for a reason of conduct.

4.    Staff with at least one conduct and discipline case concluded during the year. Equally staff involved in more than one case during the year are counted only once.

5.    Allegations which meet a criminal threshold will be referred to the Police for investigation. If a criminal justice outcome is secured, this will result in a summary dismissal as per PSI 10/2016 Conduct and Discipline and will not be recorded against a specific ‘type’ of misconduct in the Conduct and Discipline data,

6.    Years run from 1st April to 31st March.

7.    In terms of the Gender data presented, the MoJ HR system holds demographic data on staff.  In the HR system there is a database field called Gender. The Gender field can only be one of two options – male or female. It is filled in for all staff when new staff records are created using details to confirm identity (i.e. name, date of birth, address) from official documentation supplied by the successful job applicant. However, it is possible for this information to be updated in line with departmental policy. The Office for Statistics Regulation recognises that this is an evolving area both for society and statistics, so advice and guidance is likely to change over time.

~ denotes suppressed values of 2 or fewer or other values which would allow values of 2 or fewer to be derived by subtraction. Low numbers are suppressed to prevent disclosure in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2018.

Additional Note:

As with all HR databases, extracts are taken at a fixed point in time, to ensure consistency of reporting. However the database itself is dynamic, and where updates to the database are made late, subsequent to the taking of the extract, these updates will not be reflected in figures produced by the extract. For this reason, HR data are unlikely to be precisely accurate.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many court interpreters have been requested for translation services in each year since 2020, broken down by the language requested.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

The Ministry of Justice publishes quarterly data on the volume of completed language interpreter and translation services requests, split by requestor type, as part of the Criminal court statistics release. However, published data is not broken down by language.

Criminal Court Statistics: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK

The Ministry of Justice has provided a table in the attachment showing the number of completed service requests both through contracts (with thebigword Group Ltd and Clarion UK Ltd) and off-contract, for each year from 2020 to 2024, split by language. The table is a breakdown of the published figures, split by language.

Given the request for ‘court interpreters’, we have filtered the data to include criminal courts and civil & family courts. We have not included data for Tribunals or other types of Ministry of Justice interpreter usage.

Data has not been provided for 2025 as we do not yet have a complete dataset for this year.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate has his Department made for capital spending on the youth secure estate for the next year.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

Budget allocation for the 2026/27 financial year within the Department has not yet been concluded and as such forecasted spend on the youth secure estate has not been committed.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences: second report by Jonathan Fisher KC.

Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)

The Government has received Jonathan Fisher KC’s second report and will publish it, along with a government response, in due course.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding has been provided to legal aid providers to represent appellants in the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber in each year since 2020, broken down by (a) ethnicity, and (b) nationality of the appellant.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Legal aid expenditure in respect of cases before the First-Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum) broken down by ethnicity is set out in the annexed table. Data is self-reported to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) by applicants or their legal aid solicitor, it is not verified by the LAA. It is not mandatory for applicants to complete the Equality and Diversity section of an application. Where this has been left blank ethnicity is recorded as ‘unknown’.

Legal aid funding is not paid directly to the individual in receipt of legal aid. Legal aid is only paid to legal providers for the provision of legal advice and representation. Data in the annexed table therefore reflects expenditure relating to bills submitted by legal aid providers.

Information relating to nationality of applicants is not centrally held.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much legal aid funding has been provided to appellants in the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber in each year since 2020, broken down by (a) ethnicity, and (b) nationality of the appellant.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Legal aid expenditure in respect of cases before the First-Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum) broken down by ethnicity is set out in the annexed table. Data is self-reported to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) by applicants or their legal aid solicitor, it is not verified by the LAA. It is not mandatory for applicants to complete the Equality and Diversity section of an application. Where this has been left blank ethnicity is recorded as ‘unknown’.

Legal aid funding is not paid directly to the individual in receipt of legal aid. Legal aid is only paid to legal providers for the provision of legal advice and representation. Data in the annexed table therefore reflects expenditure relating to bills submitted by legal aid providers.

Information relating to nationality of applicants is not centrally held.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve recruitment and retention in the Youth Custody Service.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

The Youth Justice Worker (YJW) recruitment process includes multiple assessment stages designed to test candidates against the YJW success profile and give them realistic insight into the role. The success profile is based on job analysis with serving YJWs and identifies the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for effective practice.

YJWs have a defined progression pathway. After completing their 12 month probation, they are offered a Level 4 qualification focused on working with children and young people in custody.

His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service has a comprehensive approach to improving retention across the Prison and Probation Services. The Retention Framework sets out how data and insight are used to identify drivers of attrition and guide targeted interventions. This is supported by a retention toolkit, structured exit interviews, and an oversight process that conducts deep dive reviews at high attrition sites. National activity is coordinated through the Retention Delivery Committee to ensure alignment and minimise operational impact.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many legal aid providers have represented appellants in the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber in each year since 2020.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Information about the number of distinct provider offices completing at least one case in the First-Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum) in each financial year since 2020 can be found in the table below:

Legal aid for immigration and asylum services, including proceedings before the First Tier Tribunal is subject to both a legal merits test and an assessment of the individual’s financial circumstances.