Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of reforming child arrangement orders to help accommodate parents that are Armed Forces personnel on mandatory overseas deployment.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has not made an assessment of the potential merits of reforming child arrangement orders to help accommodate parents that are Armed Forces personnel on mandatory overseas deployment.
Child Arrangements Orders are determined on the individual facts of each case. The Children Act 1989, which governs applications for child arrangements orders, makes the child’s welfare paramount and presumes the child’s welfare is furthered by the involvement of both parents, where it is safe to do so, unless the contrary is shown.
In determining the child arrangements orders, the court will apply the factors set out in the ‘welfare checklist’ in the Children Act 1989. These include the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child concerned, the impact on the child of any change in circumstances, and how capable each parent is of meeting the child’s needs.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what outstanding money was owed by defendants in (a) court fines, (b) prosecution costs, and (c) victim related costs at Telford Magistrates for each year data is available.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Although HMCTS holds data on the total amount of impositions outstanding at an enforcement accounting division level, we do not report on it at an individual court level. To access the court level detail, each account in that division’s database would need to be interrogated to find the cases heard at Telford Magistrates and then the outstanding balances extracted, collated and totalled and this would therefore result in disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many court clerks have worked at Telford Magistrates Court for each year that data is available.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Year | No of Legal Advisors |
2023/2024 | 4 Legal Advisors based at Telford (which includes a Trainee Legal Advisor) |
2022/2023 | 4 Legal Advisors based at Telford (which includes a Trainee Legal Advisor) |
2021/2022 | 4 Legal Advisors based at Telford (including a Trainee Legal Advisor) |
2020/2021 | 4 Legal Advisors based at Telford |
2019/2020 | 4 Legal Advisors based at Telford |
2018/2019 | 4 Legal Advisors based at Telford |
HMCTS employs Legal Advisors, rather than clerks, to support magistrates in court and therefore this response is based on the number of Legal Advisors routinely based at Telford Magistrates Court from 2018 to 2024. On the occasions that the Crown Court is listed to sit at the court, a Crown Court clerk will also work there.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data her Department holds on the number of (a) criminal legal aid firms and (b) duty solicitors contracted to provide legal aid in (i) Shropshire and (ii) Telford constituency for each year data is available.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning legal aid services in England and Wales.
The commissioning and monitoring of criminal legal aid services are undertaken at a national level.
Information about the number of legal aid providers contracted to provide services are published as part of the LAA’s statistics [see tables 9.1-9.8]. These statistics are used by the LAA as management information to monitor the supply of legal aid services over time, in different areas of law and different regions of England Wales.
The duty schemes serving the Shropshire and Telford constituency are the Shrewsbury and Telford schemes. There are currently 13 duty solicitors (members) in the Shrewsbury scheme, 8 duty solicitors in the Telford scheme and a total of 7 criminal legal providers across Shropshire.
The LAA is satisfied that there is adequate provision of criminal legal aid services in Telford and Shropshire, including under the relevant duty solicitor schemes operating in the area.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many justices of the peace served at Telford Magistrates Court in each of the last six years.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
Magistrates that sit at Telford Magistrates’ Court are appointed to the Shropshire Bench. The Shropshire Bench covers Telford and Kidderminster Magistrates Court and the magistrates may be required to sit at any of these courts. The table below shows the number of magistrates on the Shropshire Bench (existing members and new appointments) for the years requested:
2024 | 76 |
2023 | 75 |
2022 | 82 |
2021 | 87 |
2020 | 82 |
2019 | 91 |
The Staffordshire and West Mercia Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace’s recruitment plans are published here: Advisory Committee Recruitment Plan - Magistrates Recruitment.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Crown Court judges there were resident at Shrewsbury Crown Court in each of the last six years.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
The Crown Court sitting at Shrewsbury is accommodated across two sites, in Shrewsbury Justice Centre and Telford Justice Centre. In total, there are three courtrooms dedicated to Crown Court use.
For each of the last six years (i.e. since 2019/20), two Circuit Judges have been based permanently at the venue. Additional judges are and have been deployed to ensure sufficient capacity exists to meet sitting day and listing requirements.
On 29 October, it was announced that a new Circuit Judge will be deployed to sit at Shrewsbury from 13 January, succeeding a salaried judge who retired in July and bringing the permanent complement back to two salaried judges.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she plans to use remote court hearings to ease the burden on the courts system.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
The decision to hold a hearing remotely, or enable participants to attend remotely, rests with the judiciary. HM Courts and Tribunal Service continues to support and enable remote hearings by optimising the courts and tribunals estate and building technological capability. This empowers the judiciary to conduct remote and hybrid hearings at their discretion, allowing for increased accessibility and flexibility in the day-to-day business of courts and tribunals.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average length of paternity leave taken by staff in (a) her Department, (b) HM Courts and Tribunals Service and (c) HM Prison and Probation Service was in each of the last three years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The average length of paternity leave taken across the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for each of the last three years is 14 calendar days. The breakdown as per the request is as follows:
Average number of days of paternity leave taken by staff in MoJ, HMCTS and HMPPS
| MoJ | HMCTS | HMPPS |
01/07/2021 to 30/06/2022 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
01/07/2022 to 30/06/2023 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
01/07/2023 to 30/06/2024 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
Note: This includes those with an Absence Category of ‘Paternity Birth’ on the department’s HR database.
Note: Records assigned to the relevant year by the Absence Start Date.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
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 for moving magistrates court remand hearings from Shropshire Magistrates Court in Telford; and if she will hold discussions with His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service on reinstating remand hearings at that court.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
The decision to centralise remand hearings in the West Mercia area was a judicial decision taken by the local Judicial Business Group in 2017 following full public consultation.
The decision was based on remand court volumes prevailing at the time, and enabled other courts in the area to improve efficiency and trial timeliness to the benefit of victims and witnesses.
The position has recently been reviewed and based on current workload volumes, the Judicial Business Group has agreed to return Shropshire remand cases back to Telford Magistrates Court.
Implementation of this decision is underway.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the (a) longest, (b) shortest and (c) average time taken was between the Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing and the first trial date at Shrewsbury Crown Court for people who had pleaded not guilty to charges of (i) sexual offences, (ii) violent domestic abuse, (iii) other types of domestic abuse and (iv) other violent offences at Shrewsbury Crown Court in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.