Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what meetings his Department has had with Teesside Magistrates Court on preparations for the UK leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The department is working closely with HMCTS, meeting regularly to consider the impacts on courts and tribunals of leaving the EU without a deal.
HMCTS is putting in place contingencies, including ensuring that resources and training are in the right place and working with courts on an individual level where appropriate.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what meetings his Department has had with Kirklevington prison on preparations for the UK leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The department is working closely and meets regularly with HMPPS to consider the impacts on prisons of leaving the EU without a deal.
Preparations include ensuring that our food and retail contracts have alternative arrangements in case of disruption through ports; working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to make sure that the supply of health products to prisoners is not disrupted; and co-operating with other government departments to prepare for other contingencies.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of the prison population have (a) a learning disability, (b) autism and (c) other special educational need.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Data on offender learning participation, and learner characteristics, is published by the Department for Education.
Data on learning difficulties and/or disabilities amongst those prisoners who engage in prison education is at: OLASS: participation and achievement by equality and diversity & English and maths level: 2010/2011 to 2017/18. Self-declared data on learning difficulties and/or disabilities gathered as part of the assessment of prisoners’ levels of maths and English on reception is at: OLASS English and maths assessments by ethnicity and learners with learning difficulties or disabilities: participation 2014/2015 to 2017/2018. The data consistently show that around one third of prisoners have a learning difficulty and/or disability.
In April 2016, the Department for Education published a breakdown of the type of learning difficulty and type of learning disability amongst prisoner learners for academic years 2011/12 to 2014/15. That data is at: Offender Learning breakdown by disability and learning difficulty 2011/12 to 2014/15.
From 1 April, prison governors will arrange for all new prisoners to be screened for learning difficulties and/or disabilities on reception. Following this, for those who go into learning and where screening indicates an issue, education suppliers will assess them to ensure the right adaptations and support arrangements are put in place.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will set a target for the maximum time limit for people to wait for a personal independence payments appeal to be heard.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The Ministry of Justice is not planning to set a target for the maximum time limit for people to wait for a Personal Independence Payment appeal to be heard. This is because waiting times fluctuate geographically owing to a number of factors including venue capacity, the volumes of benefit decisions made locally, the complexity of the case and the availability of panel members. Furthermore, the listing of appeals, including consideration of whether a hearing should be expedited, is a function of the Tribunal’s judiciary. We are however working on measures to improve the capacity and performance of the Tribunal, including the appointment of additional judges and panel members.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to protect prison officers from exposure to new psychoactive substances.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
HMPPS’ priority is to reduce any potential use or secondary exposure to Psychoactive Substances (PS) by drug supply prevention, reduction and detection.
Intelligence and security procedures are available to activate strategies including lock-down searches and the use of dog teams to detect and reduce supply. Co-operation and liaison with police and CPS at local and national level is also ongoing, to work on prosecutions and supply intelligence.
In October health and safety guidance was published which brought together existing procedures for the control of exposure to all airborne contaminants in prisons.
In order to establish an evidence-base for reported exposures to staff, experts have been appointed to undertake air sampling to identify and assess concentrations, if any, of PS in prison wings and this program is due to start as a pilot in one prison in January 2018.
HMPPS continues to monitor and investigate apparent adverse effects of PS exposure and to seek to ensure that methods to reduce supply are fully implemented.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress has been made on the implementation of a smoking ban on the prison estate in England and Wales.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
There are now 68 prisons smoke free. More prisons across England are currently preparing for the safe implementation of a smoke free environment during the next six months. All prisons in Wales are already smoke free.
In every prison, the decision on when to go smoke free is only taken after careful planning and preparation to ensure it is operational safe to do so and all necessary healthcare support is available to help prisoners give up smoking.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made on the effect of the implementation of the smoking ban in prisons on order and discipline in those prisons.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Government remains fully committed to making all prisons smoke free. The decision to go smoke free in every prison is only taken after careful planning and preparation (Readiness Assessments); and the final decision is only taken when each prison has met stringent checks to ensure that it is safe to do so and all necessary healthcare support is available to help prisoners give up smoking.
Maintaining order and control in our prisons is our priority and this large-scale project has been actively managed under usual project management disciplines.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on plans to increase housing available for women leaving prison.
Answered by Phillip Lee
Making sure that we address female offenders’ housing and support needs is a priority, at a national and local level, given the link between homelessness and re-offending.
I recently met with the Minister for Local Government to discuss how we can work together to better support the housing needs of female offenders. We will continue to work together on this important issue. In cooperation with Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), we are making Prisons and Probation providers subject to a new duty to refer. This requires specified public authorities in England to notify the local housing authority of service users they think may be homeless or at risk of homelessness.
Asked by: Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking, through community-based services, to help reunite mothers with their children after imprisonment.
Answered by Phillip Lee
Families, and children, can play a significant role in supporting an offender and positive family relationships are an important factor in reducing reoffending.
To improve the support for prisoners and their families we have:
Funded a contract worth over £1.4m for Barnardo’s to operate the i-HOP service - an England wide one-stop information service for all professionals who come into contact with the children and families of offenders - to share evidence on practice and advise commissioners and practitioners on the options available to support the families of offenders.
Given prison governors the budget and flexibility to spend their resources as they see fit to help prisoners establish or maintain important family and significant other ties in advance of their eventual release from prison.
Awarded a new contract for family services across the female estate in October 2017, allowing women’s prisons to work closely with a single professional family services provider, to develop innovative services including those to support mothers in preparing for their release and reuniting with children.
We are also investing £1million seed funding between 2015 and 2020 to help local areas develop improved, multi-agency approaches to female offenders and women who are at risk of offending. This approach aims to bring together and improve services at each stage of the criminal justice system and address a broad range of needs.
Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are required to deliver Through-the-Gate services to female prisoners to help them resettle in the community. These should be tailored to the particular needs of offenders.