Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the answer of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to the urgent question of 14 January 2025 on Drones: High-security Prisons, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of using military technology to block drones flying over prisons; and whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence on this issue.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We are working hard to deter, detect and disrupt the illegal use of drones to deliver contraband into prisons. We conduct vulnerability assessments across the estate to identify risks, and to develop and implement plans to manage and mitigate them. HM Prison & Probation Service uses targeted countermeasures such as improvements to windows, netting and grills to stop drones delivering contraband such as drugs, mobile phones and weapons.
We work across government, including with the Ministry of Defence, to examine options to mitigate the threat of drones to prisons. We are also engaging with international counterparts to develop our learning, support our strategy and share best practice. Due to operational sensitivities, we are not able to discuss in detail the tactics used by HMPPS to disrupt drones, including technologies used, however our response must be specific to a prison setting and tailored to individual prisons.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his policy is on the future of Just Solutions International.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
Just Solutions international (JSi) was established in the previous parliament as the internal commercial brand of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).
Given our ambitious justice reform programme and the need to focus departmental resources on domestic priorities, the Justice Secretary has decided that JSi should cease to operate. NOMS will therefore not pursue any new projects with international partners through JSi.
One project led by NOMS through JSi is sufficiently far advanced that the Government has decided withdrawing at this late stage would be detrimental to HMG’s wider interests. Under the JSi brand, NOMS submitted an initial bid to the Saudi Arabian authorities in August 2014, and a final bid in April 2015, to conduct a training needs analysis for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prison service staff, via ELM, an executive agency of the Saudi Ministry of Finance. NOMS’s bid was signed off through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) process, and was supported by UKTI and the British Embassy in Riyadh.
NOMS will therefore honour this outstanding bid and enter into a contract subject to the final decisions of ELM. All work relating to this project will be completed within 6 months of starting.
My Department will continue to promote the rule of law, good governance and judicial reform internationally, working with FCO, DFID and other Government Departments as required. In future, any support will be provided on a cost recovery rather than a commercial basis.