Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will introduce sentencing guidelines for offences under the Housing Acts; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The government keeps the penalties for housing related offences under review to ensure that the courts have sufficient powers to deal effectively with those convicted of these offences. Sentencing for housing related or any other offence, however is entirely a matter for the independent judiciary.
Sentencing guidelines are issued by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department has taken to ensure consistency in sentencing criminal landlords for housing-related offences.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The government keeps the penalties for housing related offences under review to ensure that the courts have sufficient powers to deal effectively with those convicted of these offences. Sentencing for housing related or any other offence, however is entirely a matter for the independent judiciary.
Sentencing guidelines are issued by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the National Grid Young Offenders Programme in reducing reoffending rates.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The Ministry of Justice has not assessed the effectiveness of the National Grid Young Offenders Programme in reducing reoffending rates.
In our Employment Strategy, which will be published later this year, we will outline our plans to support prisoners in gaining the skills and experience they need to prepare them for employment in modern jobs on release. As part of this, we will be engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders, including the National Grid Young Offenders Programme.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate her Department has made of the financial contribution to the UK economy of law firms based elsewhere in the EU and operating in the UK; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Oliver Heald
English law has had a huge impact, spreading the rule of law around the world. It is the law of choice in over a quarter of jurisdictions. We will be championing our £25 billion legal services industry as a key part of post-Brexit global Britain.
We are not aware of any reports that include aggregate data on the contribution that international, including EU, firms make to the UK economy. It may also be the case that firms do not separate out their UK income from their wider income, especially where they operate in a number of jurisdictions, or where work is spread across jurisdictions or provided across borders.
English common law is the preferred choice for international commercial contracts, and English law governs about 40 per cent of all global corporate arbitrations.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to help ex-offenders find accommodation on their release from prison.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Ensuring that offenders have access to suitable and stable accommodation is integral to breaking the cycle of reoffending.
As part of our probation reforms all offenders, including those sentenced to less than 12 months, now receive targeted support when they leave prison to help them reintegrate into society. This includes help to find accommodation. We are currently conducting a comprehensive review of the probation system, which will look at how we can improve outcomes for offenders. The review will be completed in April this year.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the reasons for high prison officer turnover; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
A core part of our prison safety and reform plan is the recruitment of an additional 2,500 prison officers. In 10 of our most challenging prisons we have already started a recruitment programme, and I am pleased to say that we have already made 348 job offers for those 400 jobs, on top of 1,400 new officer appointed in the last 12 months.
To address the relatively higher numbers of new officers who leave in the first year, we are improving the support that applicants and new prison officers receive, so that they have the opportunity to explore and understand the role of the prison officer before applying and supporting them through to the completion of their training and probation. At 30 of our most challenging recruitment sites we will be giving prison governors greater freedoms to hire the staff right for them, with the expertise and skills they need.
In respect of established staff, higher staffing levels are set to improve the supervision of prisoners, operational resilience and staff engagement with prisoners; all of which will improve prison safety and encourage experienced staff to stay. The percentage of experienced staff is higher now than it was in 2010.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of how many people in (a) Greater London and (b) the UK are directly employed in legal services; and what estimate she has made of the number of jobs in that sector which might be relocated from the UK after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Oliver Heald
According to the CityUK UK Legal Services Report 2016, around 370,000 people are employed in the legal services sector. This includes 314,100 in private practice (which excludes those working in-house, in foreign firms and on a contract basis, and those not attached to an organisation). English law has had a huge impact, spreading the rule of law around the world. It is the law of choice in over a quarter of jurisdictions, and Brexit gives us even more opportunities to promote this. We will be championing our £25 billion legal services industry as a key part of post-Brexit global Britain.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the completion rate was for education courses taken in prisons in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The available information for prison education is published by the Department for Education (DfE) in their Statistical First Release, available on gov.uk.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate her Department has made of the cost of an appeal being cancelled at (a) First-tier Tribunal and (b) Upper-tier Tribunal due to documents from the Home Office not being submitted before the hearing date in each of the last three years.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chambers) are administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS).
HMCTS does not routinely estimate the cost of the cancellation of individual postponement and adjournments because the Tribunal will, wherever possible, replace a cancelled hearing with cases that are available in reserve.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many appeal hearings were cancelled in (a) 2014, (b) 2015 and (c) the first eight months of 2016 at the (i) First-tier Tribunal and (ii) Upper-tier Tribunal due to documents from the Home Office not being submitted before the hearing date.
Answered by Oliver Heald
The First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chambers) are administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS).
The number of appeal hearings adjourned at the hearing, or postponed prior to the hearing, due to documents from the Home Office not being submitted before the hearing date was:
(i) First-tier Tribunal: (a) 2014 – 833 and (b) 2015 – 739
(ii) Upper Tribunal: (a) 2014 – 17 and (b) 2015 – 8
The number of appeal hearings either adjourned at the hearing, or postponed prior to the hearing due to documents from the Home Office not being submitted before the hearing date in the first six months of 2016, which are the latest figures available, was:
(i) First-tier Tribunal – 269
(ii) Upper Tribunal – 1
Data provided are internal Management Information and not subject to the same quality checks as Official Statistics.