Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many appeals against SEND decisions by people in each Greater London Borough were heard at tribunals in each of the last five years; and how many and what proportion of those cases were won by parents.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not available for each individual Greater London Borough and could only be obtained with further data engineering work which would be disproportionate cost.
Information about Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) appeals is published on GOV.UK: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.
However, it is not available in the specific format requested.
Success rates at appeal in the SEND Tribunal include if a parent or young person is successful at appeal for a part or in full. Hearing information is held on each individual appeal record. Each appeal would need to be accessed, the decision recording the outcome obtained for all records held within each of the 33 London Boroughs for the past 5 years.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what her planned timetable is for the production of the action plan for HMP Wandsworth.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons’ findings at HMP Wandsworth are deeply concerning. The Lord Chancellor and the Minister of State for Prisons are determined to drive improvement at the prison and we published our response to the Urgent Notification on 6 August 2024.
We also published HMP Wandsworth’s full action plan on 29 August 2024. This action plan addresses the key concerns made by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) during the inspection.
Lord Timpson, Minister of State for Prisons, visited HMP Wandsworth on 2 September, accompanied by Lord Ponsonby and will continue to take an active interest in progress at the prison until we are persuaded that sustainable improvement has been delivered.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of pest control at HMP Wandsworth in the last 12 months.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
HMP Wandsworth pays £16,238 per annum for a contracted weekly pest control service. The cost of additional pest control work during the last 12 months totals £99,900.92. This work is being carried out as part of our wider efforts to improve living conditions at the prison, which also includes additional specialist staff, to ensure immediate action is being taken.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 14 March 2024 to Question 17970 on Wandsworth Prison: Health Services, when she expects the new healthcare unit to open.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The new healthcare unit is expected to open in mid-September 2024.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prisoners released between October 2023 and June 2024 under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme were subsequently recalled to prison.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We are constantly monitoring the use of End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) and its impact.
ECSL was implemented in October 2023. Since its operation, the number of ECSL releases between 17 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 was 10,083.
The information requested could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost, because it would require the linkage and reconciliation of multiple administrative datasets.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners released between October 2023 and June 2024 under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme had been imprisoned for an offence relating to domestic violence.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) began in October 2023. The number of ECSL releases that took place between 17 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 was 10,083.
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been allocated to each (a) court and (b) tribunal in HM Courts and Tribunals Service budget for the financial year 2024-25.
Answered by Mike Freer
Sitting days in courts and tribunals are subject to formal agreement between the Lord Chancellor, Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals via an annual process. This process has not yet concluded for the financial year 2024/25 and therefore sitting day allocations, and the associated budget information, is not yet available.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many sitting days each (a) court and (b) tribunal has been allocated in the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Mike Freer
Sitting days in courts and tribunals are subject to formal agreement between the Lord Chancellor, Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals via an annual process. This process has not yet concluded for the financial year 2024/25 and therefore sitting day allocations, and the associated budget information, is not yet available.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential risk to public safety of Operation Early Dawn.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Operation Early Dawn is an existing contingency measure to ensure sufficient governance exists between HMPPS, the Prison Escort Custody Service (PECS) and HMCTS to maintain the effective management of prisoner transfers between courts and custody.
It involves an operational assessment being made each morning by HMPPS on which prisoners can be transferred from police cells and taken to courts to ensure there is a safe and secure location if remanded to custody.
At least a partial collection is made from every Police Station which allows Police (and HMCTS for subsequent collections) to identify priority collections, including those who pose a higher risk.
Public protection is carefully considered when taking decisions under Operation Early Dawn.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether beds of prisoners who have been released on temporary licence are counted as available for the purposes of determining capacity.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Where a prisoner is authorised to temporarily leave prison, including hospital visits and release on temporary licence (ROTL), their bed remains allocated to them. This reflects the fact that such absences are strictly time limited and the prisoner must return within the short term. Their bed is not therefore considered vacant for the purpose of determining available capacity.