Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of defence lawyers (a) commissioning and (b) presenting psychology reports in relation to their clients at parole hearings.

Neither the Secretary of State nor the Parole Board records centrally the number of parole reviews in which the prisoner's legal representative (a) commissions or (b) presents a report from a psychologist on behalf of the prisoner. To produce such a record would incur disproportionate cost.