Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the commencement of detention operations undertaken by his Department following the passage of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 on levels of contact with people whose asylum claims have been deemed inadmissible.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office routinely monitors levels of compliance for individuals who are required to report as a condition of their bail. We have a range of interventions available to us to maintain contact, including face to face reporting, contact by telephone, digital reporting and notifications from the accommodation providers where they reside.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what discussions he has had with the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary on its decision to make second and subsequent bail applications remote by default.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
It is standard practice not to comment on discussions between Ministers and the judiciary.
The Lord Chancellor is supportive of any efforts to help ensure sufficient capacity in the courts to hear bail applications and to remove principal structural barriers to applications being submitted, and he welcomes the revised guidance launched by Judicial Office which sets out that all second and subsequent bail applications to the Crown Court should be heard remotely unless ordered otherwise by a judge.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers were subject to electronic tagging as part of his Department's pilot programme between 15 June 2022 and 31 December 2023.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The information requested is not available from published statistics.
However, as set out in the Pilot Equality Impact Assessment (available at Equality impact assessment: GPS electronic monitoring expansion pilot - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)), 600 individuals were to be subject to Electronic Monitoring as part of immigration bail conditions.
Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claimants, excluding foreign national offenders, have been subject to electronic monitoring as a condition of immigration bail since 1 January 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The information requested is not available from published statistics.
The Home Office does not electronically monitor asylum claimants as a matter of course. However, Schedule 10 of the Immigration Act 2016 provides a discretion for the SSHD or the First Tier Tribunal to impose such a condition which may mean that a small number of individuals who have claimed asylum may be subject to electronic monitoring as a condition of bail. In such instances, an individualised assessment of the claimant’s suitability for electronic monitoring would be undertaken either by the Home Office, the relevant Immigration Judge, or both.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to ensure that perpetrators of violent crimes who live close to their victims are not bailed to their home address.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The decision to remand an individual in custody or to grant bail is solely a matter for the independent judiciary acting in accordance with the law. The Ministry of Justice therefore cannot intervene in any decision made by the court. The procedures for considering bail and custodial remand are set out in the Bail Act 1976. The Bail Act 1976 sets out the statutory rules which govern the making of judicial decisions on whether to grant bail or remand in custody. The Act creates the presumption in favour of bail for all defendants involved in criminal proceedings.
The courts have the power to impose a broad range of robust bail conditions as part of a bail package. This includes electronically monitored exclusion zones and curfews. Courts will ensure that they have all information concerning the possible imposition of conditions such as suitable accommodation and proximity to victims, before they make a decision on final bail conditions. The rollout of the Bail Information Service, which has received £53 million of funding until 2028, means that dedicated Bail Information Officers will provide courts with bail information reports which contain relevant and factual information to enable the court to reach an informed yet independent decision on whether bail should be granted to a defendant. This will include any recommendations on the suitability of their accommodation or whether alternatives need to be considered.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what guidance is available to courts on the impact of bailing people to live at their home address.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Adult Court Bench Book provides guidance for magistrates who sit in the adult court dealing mainly with defendants aged 18 or over. The Bench Book covers bail and remand and indicates the considerations that must be taken on whether to bail or remand a defendant. If a bail application is made, the magistrates must satisfy themselves that they have been provided with all the relevant information to decide whether to bail or not, including that of accommodation.
The rollout of the Bail Information Service, which has received £53 million of funding until 2028, means that dedicated Bail Information Officers will provide courts with bail information reports which contain relevant and factual information to enable the court to reach an informed yet independent decision on whether bail should be granted to a defendant. This will include any recommendations on the suitability of their accommodation or whether alternatives need to be considered.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will require the police to assess the safety of people on bail returning to their home address.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Pre-charge bail is an important tool available to the police to manage suspects who have been arrested on suspicion of an offence.
Under reforms of pre-charge bail passed in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, police must seek victims’ views, where practicable, regarding whether bail conditions should be imposed and what any conditions should be.
The Government published new statutory guidance on pre-charge bail in June 2023, which can be found at the following address: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pre-charge-bail-statutory-guidance/pre-charge-bail-statutory-guidance-accessible
The guidance makes clear that if a suspect has been arrested in connection with an offence involving vulnerable people or domestic abuse, serious consideration must be given to the imposition of bail with conditions to safeguard the victim.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the cases of Just Stop Oil protestors who were imprisoned on remand for slow-marching.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The decision to remand an individual in custody or to grant bail is solely a matter for the independent judiciary acting in accordance with the law. The Ministry of Justice therefore cannot intervene in any decision made by the court and cannot assess whether remands to custody or bail are more appropriate in these cases.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how his Department monitors compliance with bail conditions in domestic abuse cases; and what measures are in place to intervene when violations occur.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Setting and monitoring pre-charge bail conditions is a matter for policing and the Home Office does not collect data on how this is achieved. This data may be held at force level.
Where a suspect breaches their conditions, the police may arrest this individual, hold them in custody and charge them with a separate offence or progress their original case. The 2020 bail reforms introduced a 3 hour pause on the custody clock to ensure that arrests for breach of bail do not have a negative impact on the overall case.
The Home Office have recently funded the development of a new module of the ‘Domestic Abuse Matters’ training for police, developed by the College of Policing and the sector. The new module of police training is targeted specifically at officers investigating domestic abuse offences to enable further improvement in police responses to domestic abuse incidents.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) male prisoners, (b) women prisoners and (c) young offenders were transferred to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Under sections 47/49 and 48/49 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Secretary of State may authorise by warrant the transfer of prisoners to a secure hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met by the aforementioned Act.
The requested data are set out in the tables below for the years 2013 to 2022 and are taken from an electronic casework system. Providing data for the years from 2010 to 2013 would require substantial manual checks of paper files which could be undertaken only at disproportionate cost. The data for 2023 are due to be published on 26 April.
| TRANSFER YEAR |
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SEX | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Female | 109 | 104 | 117 | 111 | 111 | 118 | 130 | 109 | 103 | 142 |
Male | 887 | 956 | 898 | 875 | 854 | 895 | 924 | 921 | 995 | 930 |
Total | 996 | 1060 | 1015 | 986 | 965 | 1013 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
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| TRANSFER YEAR |
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AGE BAND | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
18 and over | 976 | 1039 | 995 | 972 | 946 | 996 | 1028 | 1012 | 1088 | 1062 |
Under 18 | 20 | 25 | 21 | 14 | 19 | 18 | 26 | 18 | 10 | 10 |
Total | 996 | 1064 | 1016 | 986 | 965 | 1014 | 1054 | 1030 | 1098 | 1072 |
Notes
Data Source: Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)
We are committed to delivering improvements to mental health care and treatment for vulnerable offenders through non-legislative means. This includes improving oversight of the 28-day time limit for transfers to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 and increasing judicial awareness of alternatives to custody through the expansion of the Bail Information Service.