Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his oral statement of 12 March 2024 on Update on foreign national offenders, prisons and probation, in what roles the 400 additional caseworkers were previously working.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The additional caseworkers referenced in the oral statement of Secretary of State for Justice on 12 March 2024 are Home Office staff.
The 400 additional caseworkers are external recruits and were not transferred from other roles.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including distance learning undertaken by prisoners as purposeful activity.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
All prisons have systems in place for the day-to-day management of regime delivery. Each prison has a regime management plan that clearly sets out the full range of prisoner activities and services delivered within the prison, morning and afternoon, from Monday to Friday.
All types of education, including distance learning, are factored into a prison’s regime management plan as part of the purposeful activity that prisoners undertake.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2024 to Question 15927 on Prisons: Civil Disorder, whether there is a minimum staffing requirement for Tornado teams.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Operation Tornado is a national mutual aid plan by which prisons support one another in the event of a serious incident or occurrence requiring a reinforcement of staff. Operation Tornado is employed by HMPPS for three main reasons:
There is no minimum staffing requirement for Tornado teams. HMPPS monitors the number of staff available for deployment and offer training spaces to ensure resilience to respond to serious incidents.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle licence plate cloning.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport understands how distressing this criminal activity can be for innocent motorists. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is currently working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and other government departments to improve the identification and enforcement of number plate crime.
The law requires that anyone who supplies number plates for road use in the UK must be registered with the DVLA. It is a legal requirement for suppliers to carry out checks to ensure that number plates are only sold to those who can prove they are entitled to the registration number. Number plate suppliers must also keep records of the plates they have supplied.
The DVLA assist the police and Trading Standards in their enforcement against number plate suppliers who trade illegally. When notified, the DVLA will investigate and pass on intelligence to the police who are responsible for investigating this criminal matter.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions the Gold Command suite was opened for a prison incident in each year since 1 January 2010; and for which (a) prisons and (b) incidents it was opened.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HMPPS has adopted the Gold, Silver, Bronze command system to manage incidents across all establishments. Some incidents will trigger the automatic opening of the Gold Command suite. The Gold Commander is the strategic lead for the management of the incident. Gold determines strategic objectives, sets tactical parameters, and approves the Silver Commander’s tactical plans. Incidents involving Gold Command suite opening have declined significantly since their peak in 2015.
The attached tables provide the information requested.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether all prisoners released under the end of custody supervised license are required to wear an electronic tag.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
All prisoners released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence are subject to a set of standard licence conditions as identified by Probation in their release management plan such as non-contact requirements, exclusion zones or GPS tagging.
These are not requirements in every case as conditions are set for individual prisoners to create the best chance of reducing reoffending and protecting the public.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has received any representations from Heathrow Airport Ltd on proposals to increase the number of air transport movements at that Airport.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has received no recent representations from Heathrow Airport Ltd on proposals to increase the number of air transport movements at Heathrow Airport.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2024 to Question 14123 on Shoplifting: Reoffenders, what the proven re-offending rate was for an index offence of shop lifting (theft from shops) for the (a) January to March 2021 and (b) January to March 2020 cohort.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The proven reoffending rate for offenders with an index offence of shop lifting (theft from shops), who served a custodial sentence for this offence, for the (a) January – March 2021 cohort was 81.8% and (b) January – March 2020 cohort was 78.3%.
The proven reoffending rate for offenders with an index offence of robbery, who served a custodial sentence for this offence, for the (a) January – March 2021 cohort was 23.8% and (b) January – March 2020 cohort was 27.8%.
The overall proven reoffending rate for (a) January – March 2021 was 24.3% and (b) January – March 2020 was 24.7%. Reoffending rates in recent cohorts have been affected to varying degrees by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This Government is committed to reducing reoffending, and reoffending rates have fallen from 31.3% in 2011/12 to 25.2% in 2021/22. We are investing in rehabilitation to stop prison leavers falling back into crime – including tackling drug addiction, increasing the number of offenders in work, and providing basic, short-term accommodation on release. Further, in October last year, the Lord Chancellor announced his intention to legislate for a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences of 12 months or less. The offender would then serve their sentence in the community and courts will retain discretion to impose a sentence of immediate custody where necessary. Our latest quarterly statistics, January – March 2022, suggest that 55.5% of people given a custodial sentence of less than 12 months reoffend within one year. For offenders punished with Suspended Sentence Orders with requirements that are served in the community, the reoffending rate is significantly lower at 24.2%.
On top of this, we are doubling the number of GPS tags available to courts for sentencing, ensuring more burglars and robbers are tagged which ultimately keeps our communities safer.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2024 to Question 14123 on Shoplifting: Reoffenders, what the proven re-offending rate was for an index offence of robbery for the (a) January to March 2021 cohort and (b) January to March 2020 cohort.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The proven reoffending rate for offenders with an index offence of shop lifting (theft from shops), who served a custodial sentence for this offence, for the (a) January – March 2021 cohort was 81.8% and (b) January – March 2020 cohort was 78.3%.
The proven reoffending rate for offenders with an index offence of robbery, who served a custodial sentence for this offence, for the (a) January – March 2021 cohort was 23.8% and (b) January – March 2020 cohort was 27.8%.
The overall proven reoffending rate for (a) January – March 2021 was 24.3% and (b) January – March 2020 was 24.7%. Reoffending rates in recent cohorts have been affected to varying degrees by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This Government is committed to reducing reoffending, and reoffending rates have fallen from 31.3% in 2011/12 to 25.2% in 2021/22. We are investing in rehabilitation to stop prison leavers falling back into crime – including tackling drug addiction, increasing the number of offenders in work, and providing basic, short-term accommodation on release. Further, in October last year, the Lord Chancellor announced his intention to legislate for a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences of 12 months or less. The offender would then serve their sentence in the community and courts will retain discretion to impose a sentence of immediate custody where necessary. Our latest quarterly statistics, January – March 2022, suggest that 55.5% of people given a custodial sentence of less than 12 months reoffend within one year. For offenders punished with Suspended Sentence Orders with requirements that are served in the community, the reoffending rate is significantly lower at 24.2%.
On top of this, we are doubling the number of GPS tags available to courts for sentencing, ensuring more burglars and robbers are tagged which ultimately keeps our communities safer.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people charged with an offence relating to domestic violence were released under the home detention curfew in the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Home detention curfew (HDC) is a robust scheme which has been in operation since 1999. Offenders currently serving a sentence for a domestic abuse linked offence are extremely unlikely to be released on HDC. This government has taken steps to ensure that offenders serving sentences for offences linked to domestic abuse – including non-fatal strangulation and stalking – are presumed unsuitable for HDC, due to the seriousness of these offences and the government’s firm stance on them. This means they will only be considered for release under the scheme where there are highly specific and exceptional circumstances.
Offenders who are eligible and suitable for HDC are subject to a robust risk assessment to manage them safely in the community. This will include checks with partners from other agencies, such as the police, to ensure that the offender being released does not put anyone in the community at risk while on HDC. An offender who is a perpetrator of domestic abuse will not be released on HDC to an address where they pose a threat, or released on HDC at all if the risk is unmanageable.
Data is not collated in a central manner and therefore could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost. However, specific offence codes for domestic violence related cases – such as controlling or coercive behaviour – can be identified on an individual basis.