Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 5 September 2024 to Question 3767 on Sexual Offences, whether HO code 03608 relates solely to the offence of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice holds data on legislation and associated offences.
The attached table provides further detail for HO code 03608 outlining the offence description.
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 5 September 2024 to Question 3767 on Sexual Offences, what (a) legislation and (b) offence the (i) 10701, (ii) 10702, (iii) 10703, (iv) 10704, (v) 02401, (vi) 07201, (vii) 07202 and (viii) 16501 code relates to.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The attached table provides the detail as requested.
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Official Statistics entitled Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: December 2023, published on 16 May 2024, which offence descriptions in the dataset entitled Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2023 correspond to (a) Section 51A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Soliciting), (b) Section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959 (Loitering or soliciting for purposes of prostitution), (c) Section 52 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Causing or inciting prostitution for gain), (d) Section 53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Controlling prostitution for gain), (e) Section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Paying for sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force etc.), (f) Section 33A of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 (Keeping a brothel used for prostitution), (g) Section 46 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Placing of advertisement relating to prostitution) and (h) Section 2 and 3(3) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Human trafficking – sexual exploitation).
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes data for offences under the requested legislation in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: December 2023 using following HO codes:
(a) Section 51A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Soliciting):
(b) Section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959 (Loitering or soliciting for purposes of prostitution):
(c) Section 52 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Causing or inciting prostitution for gain):
(d) Section 53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Controlling prostitution for gain):
(e) Section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Paying for sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force etc.):
(f) Section 33A of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 (Keeping a brothel used for prostitution):
(g) Section 46 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Placing of advertisement relating to prostitution.):
(h) Section 2 and 3(3) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Human trafficking – sexual exploitation):
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time taken is from submission of application to granting of probate in the last 12 months.
Answered by Mike Freer
HMCTS is focused on increasing outputs to reduce overall timeliness on all types of applications, and the average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate, from submission, is 12.6 weeks in the last 12 months (October 2022 to September 2023) and following receipt of the documents required, is 10.8 weeks. The probate service received record levels of applications during 2022 and this has continued to grow, with higher levels of receipts during January to September 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.
HMCTS has increased staffing levels, streamlined internal processes and continued to invest in further improving the digital service.
As a result, the number of grants issued for recent months has been at record levels, with around 16,000 more grants issued than applications received during the last four months (September to December 2023), using more recent management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly).
Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on GOV.UK via Family Court Statistics Quarterly, and currently cover the period up to September 2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/family-court-statistics-quarterly.
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for the granting of probate.
Answered by Mike Freer
HMCTS is focused on increasing outputs to reduce overall timeliness on all types of applications, and the average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate, from submission, is 12.6 weeks in the last 12 months (October 2022 to September 2023) and following receipt of the documents required, is 10.8 weeks. The probate service received record levels of applications during 2022 and this has continued to grow, with higher levels of receipts during January to September 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.
HMCTS has increased staffing levels, streamlined internal processes and continued to invest in further improving the digital service.
As a result, the number of grants issued for recent months has been at record levels, with around 16,000 more grants issued than applications received during the last four months (September to December 2023), using more recent management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly).
Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on GOV.UK via Family Court Statistics Quarterly, and currently cover the period up to September 2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/family-court-statistics-quarterly.
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the (a) average and (b) target response time is from submitting an online complaint to HM Courts and Tribunal Service.
Answered by Mike Freer
In the period July 2023 – December 2023 the average response time for complaints submitted online was 20.3 working days.
HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) acknowledges the complaint on receipt and our aim is to respond within 10 working days.
All parts of the organisation have processes in place to flag and monitor the progress of complaint responses, but timeliness can sometimes be impacted by the level of enquiry or investigation required to enable substantive response, or by the need for administrative teams to focus temporarily on higher service delivery priorities e.g. order production.
Where staff capacity or capability is identified as a primary cause of delay, steps will always be taken to address, whether targeted training or recruitment to bring staffing up to funded headcount.
HMCTS has established a dedicated project to focus on the causes of dissatisfaction/complaints, to identify root cause and improve user experience and therefore reduce the number of, and time taken to respond to complaints.
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time is for hon. Members to receive a response from His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service on casework queries.
Answered by Mike Freer
In the period January – June 2023, HMCTS issued 74% of responses to honourable Members’ casework queries within 15 working days. 91.5% were responded to within 20 working days.
Published data is available on Gov.uk - Data on responses to correspondence from MPs and peers - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of legally recognising humanist marriages.
Answered by Mike Freer
In July 2019 we invited the Law Commission to undertake a wholesale review on weddings law in England and Wales. As part of that review, the Government invited the Law Commission to make recommendations about how marriage by humanist and other non-religious belief organisations could be incorporated into a revised or new scheme for all marriages that is simple, fair and consistent.
The Law Commission report was published in July 2022 and contains 57 recommendations for extensive legislative reform. The Government is carefully considering these recommendations, and a response will be published in due course.
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners who have been convicted of rape are housed in the female estate; and how many and what proportion of those prisoners are in possession of a gender recognition certificate.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The number of prisoners in the women’s estate convicted of rape can be found in the mid-year prison population detailed characteristics published in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly, in Table 1.5i found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1094517/Population_30June2022_Annual.ods.
To note that under English law, accessories to a crime are charged as principal offenders, and therefore biological women can be convicted of rape. Data disclosure rules mean we cannot disclose whether any of these prisoners have gender recognition certificates, as the answer is 5 or fewer (including 0).
HMPPS have a range of processes in place to manage the risk posed by prisoners convicted of sexual offences, including through structured risk assessments, security measures in prisons such as cell sharing risk assessments, sentence planning and offending behaviour programmes and interventions.
Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to monitor prisoners housed in the female estate who have been convicted of (a) rape and (b) other sexual offences against women.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The number of prisoners in the women’s estate convicted of rape can be found in the mid-year prison population detailed characteristics published in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly, in Table 1.5i found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1094517/Population_30June2022_Annual.ods.
To note that under English law, accessories to a crime are charged as principal offenders, and therefore biological women can be convicted of rape. Data disclosure rules mean we cannot disclose whether any of these prisoners have gender recognition certificates, as the answer is 5 or fewer (including 0).
HMPPS have a range of processes in place to manage the risk posed by prisoners convicted of sexual offences, including through structured risk assessments, security measures in prisons such as cell sharing risk assessments, sentence planning and offending behaviour programmes and interventions.