Asked by: Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress he has made in reducing the abuse of personal injury whiplash claims for incidents involving motor vehicles.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Government’s whiplash reforms in recent years have included improving the independence and quality of whiplash medical reports through the introduction of the MedCo system in 2015, as well as reducing and fixing the cost of those reports.
In February this year, following consultation, the Government announced further reforms to help bear down on the number and cost of claims. Those reforms that require primary legislation will be introduced through a Civil Liability Bill which was announced in the Queen’s Speech. They are:
banning the practice of seeking or offering to settle such claims without medical evidence.
In addition, secondary legislative rule changes will bring the vast majority of whiplash claims into the small claims track.
Asked by: Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to address violence in HM Prison Chelmsford.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The level of violence in our prisons is unacceptable. We are fully committed to making prisons safer and addressing the significant increase in violence and assaults by increasing staffing levels and the ways of working in our prisons.
The White Paper on Prison Safety and Reform announced a major shake-up of the prison system with 2,500 extra prisons officers and new security measures to tackle drones, phones and drugs. The additional 2,500 prison officers will allow us to introduce a new key worker role, in which all prison officers on wings will support a small caseload of prisoners, improving the quality of staff-prisoner relationships and tackling the drivers of each prisoner’s offending.
The Governor at HM Prison Chelmsford leads on reducing violence and chairs thePrison Safety meeting. Chelmsford are using the Violence Diagnostic Tool to identify violence trends and with the support of the regional safety team they are working to address these.
Five-minute intervention training is being delivered at Chelmsford which equips staff to turn everyday conversations into rehabilitative interventions.
Asked by: Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help prisons to increase levels of (a) drugs testing and (b) searches for mobile phones.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The number of mobile phones and SIM cards in prisons continues to be too high. We have purchased better quality detection equipment in larger quantities and equipped all prisons with additional portable detection devices to use across the prison. We are also working with mobile network operators to deliver ground-breaking technology to stop illicit phones working in prisons.
The illicit supply of drugs undermines the safety and security of prisons. The introduction of mandatory drug testing for psychoactive substances in prisons in September 2016 was also a significant step to support our prisons in tackling the supply and use of these lethal drugs. We are not aware of any other prison service in the world that has introduced these innovative new tests.
As part of our commitments in the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper, published in November 2016, we will invest to strengthen the frontline with 2,500 additional prison officers by 2018. These new prison officers will receive dedicated substance misuse training which explains the substantial impact of drug use, particularly psychoactive substances, implementation of the Psychoactive Substance Act 2016 in prisons and insight into what they can do to prevent further PS supply and use.