Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 12 February 2025 to Question 28962, whether his Department has conducted a value for money assessment of the proposed agreement with Mauritius on the Chagos Islands.

Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)

The treaty is not finalised yet, when the deal is finalised, the Government will put it before the House.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what meetings (a) she and (b) her Ministers have had with the (i) Albanian, (ii) Polish, (iii) Romanian, (iv) Irish and (v) Jamaican Government to discuss increasing the number of foreign national offenders returned from UK prisons in the last six months.

Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

Increasing the numbers of foreign national offender returns from our prisons is a priority for this Government. We are working with international partners to achieve this.

In the last six months, Ministers from the Ministry of Justice have met with Polish and Romanian counterparts to discuss cooperation on prisoner transfers in the context of our bilateral criminal justice cooperation.

Since 05 July, there have been 1,557 Early Removal Scheme returns for foreign national offenders, which is a 26% increase compared to 1,231 in the same period 12 months prior.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 23 December 2024 to Question 20393 on Prisoners’ Release: Electronic Tagging, what the longest period of time was that a person released under the standard determinate sentence (SDS40) release scheme was without a prison tag after being released.

Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

The longest period between receipt of an electronic monitoring requirement order by the Electronic Monitoring provider and installation for an offender with a revised SDS40 release date was 53 days for releases in tranche one. Tranche two’s performance was much improved with all visits to install tags completed by Monday 4 November.

In respect of faults being reported from individuals subject to release on SDS40, we do not have data readily available to answer this question.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any people released under the standard determinate sentence (SDS40) release scheme have reported faults with their tags since September 2024.

Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

The longest period between receipt of an electronic monitoring requirement order by the Electronic Monitoring provider and installation for an offender with a revised SDS40 release date was 53 days for releases in tranche one. Tranche two’s performance was much improved with all visits to install tags completed by Monday 4 November.

In respect of faults being reported from individuals subject to release on SDS40, we do not have data readily available to answer this question.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 23 December 2024 to Question 20393 on Prisoners’ Release: Electronic Tagging, how many SDS40 releases did not have a prison tag in (a) Tranche one and (b) Tranche two.

Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

The Ministry of Justice published transparent data on Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 SDS40 releases on 7 November 2024. Whilst some of these releases would have had a tag as a licence condition, the data the Department holds on electronic monitoring does not delineate between SDS40 and SDS50 releases.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many people are prosecuted under s21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 each year.

Answered by Lucy Rigby - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The Crown Prosecution Service holds data on the number of prosecutions where a charge has been authorised and reached a first hearing in the magistrates’ courts for specific offences.

The below table provides details of the number of offences charged under section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 in the last ten years.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate her Department has made of the cost to the public purse of providing an additional 4,000 court sitting days in the 2024-25 financial year.

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

I am assuming the Rt. Honourable Gentleman is referring to the Crown Court with his question. The current Lord Chancellor increased the allocation of Crown Court sitting days for the current financial year by 2,500 additional days. This takes the total allocation for FY24/25 to 108,500, the highest number in nearly a decade.

The Government has since announced a record level of investment in our courts for the next financial year. It will fund up to 110,000 sitting days in FY25/26 within a total budget of £2.5 billion - 4,000 more days than the previous Government funded.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 February 2025 to Question 28962, whether his Department has conducted a value for money assessment of the proposed agreement with Mauritius on the Chagos Islands.

Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

On 3 October 2024, the UK and Mauritius reached a political agreement to secure the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, which is an essential part of our global defence network.

HMT has been working with the FCDO and the MOD on the agreement who, as the lead departments, are responsible for assessing its value for money under the Managing Public Money framework.

Protecting the British people is this government's number one priority. We will not scrimp on security.

Found: established legal meaning of Article 33(2) of the Refugee Convention. 27 February 2025 [1] Robert Jenrick