Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 23 July 2024 to Question 612 on Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, when section 31 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 will come into force.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Appropriate protections for victims of harassment or stalking are vital. We are carefully considering implementation of section 31 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 to ensure data and safeguarding protections are built into the process. As part of this consideration, we have included a provision in the Data (Use and Access) Bill to ensure that section 31 extends UK-wide, given the nature of the UK’s data protection framework.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many children for whom no living parent was identified were allocated a legal guardian in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of special guardianship orders, however, information held centrally does not include whether the application was granted due to the child having no living parent. This information may be held on court records, but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what her planned timetable is for bringing section 31 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 into force.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Appropriate protections for victims of harassment or stalking are vital. We are carefully considering the measures within the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 and will provide an update on plans for implementation in due course.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 9 May 2023 to Question 183405 on Prosecutions, how many people were prosecuted under the single justice procedure in each month of 2023 broken down by offence; and what the plea rates were for offences charged under the single justice procedure in each month of 2023.
Answered by Mike Freer
Data showing the number of defendants dealt with via single justice procedures (SJP) notices at the magistrates’ courts by plea and offence in England and Wales from January to September 2023 (latest available) can be found in the attached table. Data for October-December will not be available until the March publication.
The data supplied is a subset of published information relating to the timeliness of defendants dealt with by SJP notice which is available in Table T1 of the Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly, latest to September 2023.
The SJP is a more proportionate way of dealing with straightforward, uncontested, summary-only non-imprisonable offences. It allows those who plead guilty to low-level, non-imprisonable crimes to resolve their case without going to court, either online or in writing. Defendants always have the option of going to court, even when they plead guilty. Magistrates can choose to hear such cases in open court where they feel the case is more complex and would benefit from an open court hearing.
Many cases disposed of through the SJP process are prosecuted by third-party agencies, for example TV Licensing, DVLA, local authorities and transport authorities, which reflects the nature of the offences which fall within the SJP criteria. Prosecutors using this method of initiating proceedings have developed procedures for identifying those who may need additional support. Support channels are also available to users who require clarification ranging from web chat or telephone assistance to face-to-face assistance.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether is Department plan to take steps to enable registrars to make a declaration of parentage on a birth certificate where one parent is deceased.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Government understands that it must be difficult for a surviving parent or family in these circumstances however there are no plans to take steps to enable registrars to make a declaration of parentage on a birth certificate where one parent is deceased.
In the unfortunate circumstance of the death of a parent before the birth of a child, a person can apply for a declaration of parentage to the High Court or the family court. The court will decide whether to make a declaration that a person named in the application was the parent of the child. If such a declaration is made, the court will inform the Registrar General, who is then responsible for authorising the re-registration of the birth to include the name of the deceased parent.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether (a) the Judicial Pensions (Fee-Paid Judges) Regulations 2017 and (b) the Judicial Pensions (Fee-Paid Judges) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 are in scope of Clause 1 of the Retained EU Law Bill through being made or operated immediately before the implementation period completion day, for a purpose mentioned in section 2(2)(a) of the European Communities Act (implementation of EU obligations etc).
Answered by Mike Freer
The Secretary of State for Justice is presently considering implications of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill for the Judicial Pensions (Fee-Paid Judges) Regulations 2017 and the Judicial Pensions (Fee-Paid Judges) (Amendment) Regulations 2023, and the options available to him. In that context, the Secretary of State is mindful of the historic pension entitlements of fee-paid judges.
For service after 31 March 2022, fee-paid judges have accrued pension entitlements in the new JPS22 Pension Scheme which is unaffected by the Bill.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her Department has plans to (a) reform, (b) revoke or (c) retain the Special Measures for Child Witnesses (Sexual Offences) Regulations 2013.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Secretary of State will review this and other pieces of Retained EU Law for which the Ministry of Justice is responsible and decide whether they should remain on the statute book, and if so whether they should in due course be amended using one of the powers in the Retained EU Law Bill, or whether they should be left to sunset. However, protecting child victims is a priority for this government and we will ensure that we consider the current framework of rights and protections very carefully.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of his Department's compliance with the Protocol between the Lord Chancellor (on behalf of the Government) and the Law Commission, HC 499, published on 29 March 2010, in the context of the average time taken by the Government to respond to Law Commission reports in the last five years.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
The Protocol sets out the working agreement between Government and the Law Commission in respect of the Government responding to full and final published reports. An interim and final response should be provided as set out in the Protocol, but additional response time can be agreed with the Commission, if necessary.
However, the type of work commissioned by government can vary in length and will not always lead to a full report being produced, so it is not possible for the Ministry of Justice to state the average time it has taken for the Government to respond to each Law Commission report in the last five years.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of (a) single-sex members clubs and (b) other barriers to achieving a gender-balanced judiciary.
Answered by Alex Chalk
No known assessment has been undertaken by the department on the potential effect of single sex membership clubs. It is not a requirement to record club membership for judicial officeholders. Judicial appointments are made solely on merit and information is not collected from candidates for judicial office about membership of clubs or networks.
The Lord Chancellor works closely with the Lord Chief Justice, Chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) and other members of the Judicial Diversity Forum (JDF), including the three relevant legal professional bodies, to assess barriers to achieving greater gender diversity in the judiciary. In September 2020, JDF members published a summary of wide range of actions they are undertaking at different career stages, collectively or individually, to help increase diversity in the judiciary, including for women. The JDF will publish a one year update to the action plan this Autumn.
The proportion of female court judges has increased by 10 percentage points since 2014, to 34% as at 1 April 2021, and for tribunal judges it has increased by 7 percentage points to 50%, over the same period.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities who do not have access to the internet at home in court hearings during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
In response to the current pandemic, video hearings provide an additional channel for conducting a hearing. However, they may not be suitable for everyone. The decision to hold a hearing by video is for the judge, panel or magistrate, taking into account the needs of the parties, including any disability or difficulties with access.
Participants are asked to tell the court or tribunal if they need support or cannot participate effectively in the video hearing. The judiciary will consider reasonable adjustments or alternative arrangements to ensure disabled users can participate. For a participant without access to the internet they can access a video hearing by telephone, or the judiciary may decide it’s more appropriate to hold a face to face hearing.
The judiciary and HMCTS staff have access to reasonable adjustment guidance and training. All guidance raises awareness of the issues people may face, and the reasonable adjustments which may help them to fully participate in hearings.