Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many meetings he has had with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on the Bill of Rights bill.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Secretary of State has written to Alyson Kilpatrick, the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, about the Bill of Rights twice in the last year, in addition to which my predecessor Lord Wolfson met representatives of the Commission in March this year in the context of the Government’s consultation. Departmental officials have also met representatives of the Commission on a number of occasions in the past year to discuss work on the Bill of Rights.
We will continue to work closely with key stakeholders in Northern Ireland on the Bill of Rights, including the Human Rights Commission, to ensure that any reforms will work in, and for the benefit of, the whole of the UK
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has plans to amend the equality impact assessment for assaults on emergency workers in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to include information on the impact on disabled people.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government has already published a full equalities assessment on its proposals to increase the maximum penalty of assaulting an emergency worker. I am aware of the ongoing nature of the Public Sector Equality Duty and our obligation to consider the equalities impacts of the proposals as they develop and are implemented in light of any new evidence. However there are no plans to update this assessment at this stage. As explained in the assessment, statistical data in relation to offenders who are disabled are not centrally recorded.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to publish the Covid Recovery Plans submitted by youth offending teams to the Youth Justice Board.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Youth Justice Board has oversight of Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) and has received Covid-19 Recovery Plans from each YOT. There is no current plan for MoJ or the YJB to publish Covid-19 Recovery Plans as it is the responsibility of local authorities to make their individual plans available to the public.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the size of the case backlog in the youth court system.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
In 2020 outstanding youth cases at the magistrates' court reached an annual peak of 12,138 in June, then consistently fell to 9,930 cases by December. In the same period, outstanding youth cases at the Crown Court remained stable, peaking at 665 in October then falling to 629 by December.
The focus for 2021 will be to drive the continued reduction of outstanding cases in the Youth Court, working with agencies across the Criminal Justice System to minimise delays.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many suspects in (a) murder and (b) rape cases received bail in each of the last five calendar years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Ministry of Justice has published information on defendants remanded on bail in England and Wales up to December 2019, prior to court, at magistrates’ court and at Crown Court:
Remand status prior to court (relating to suspects) is available in the magistrates’ court data tool and is labelled ‘Remand status with Police’.
Magistrates’ court
Crown Court
In the data tools, search for murder and rape using the ‘Offence’ filter and the pivot table will populate with the number of defendants by principal (i.e. most serious) remand status for the chosen offences.