Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what official regulatory requirements must be met and demonstrated before an organisation can operate secure transportation services for children and young people.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The most recent Prisoner Escort and Custody Services (PECS) procurement process, which covers securely moving both adults and children, commenced in August 2020 and runs for ten years. This contract covers a range of services including secure transportation between prisons, police stations and other named places of detention and courts as well as transportation of prisoners between prison establishments and includes transition moves from the youth to adult estate.
The Criminal Justice Act 1991 (as amended) and section 12 and Schedule 2 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 as amended by the 2007 offender management act, covers staffing requirements for moving children. All suppliers must demonstrate their technical and professional ability to deliver services, including compliance with the Equality Act 2010, as well as a sound economic and financial standing during any procurement process.
Requirements for the supplier to implement behavioural management policies are included within the PECS contract outlines and cover Human rights, where use of restraint may be applicable and a requirement that any use is reported. There is an expectation that mechanical restraints would not be routinely used for children unless a risk assessment confirms they are necessary.
The PECS suppliers are required to adhere to Prison Service Instructions covering the use of restraint, and their Standard Operating Procedures, training and supervision will be structured around these policy documents. Further to this the PECS contract requires suppliers to have a programme of development and refresher training for their staff which includes training for dealing with young people. Suppliers are also required to review any use of force and ensure that any appropriate lessons are learned, shared and implemented.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool, West Derby)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to HM Chief Inspector of Prisons' Report on an unannounced inspection of short-term holding facilities at Western Jet Foil, Manston and Kent Intake Unit, what steps she has taken in response to the concern that care planning for vulnerable detainees, children and those with disabilities was poor and did not demonstrate individual planning, risk assessment or meaningful welfare checks.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office’s responses to the Priority and Key Concerns set out in the HMIP report are covered in the Service Improvement Plan which is published on the HMIP website at Short-term holding facilities at Western Jet Foil, Manston and Kent Intake Unit (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk)
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that unaccompanied child asylum seekers arriving in the UK are not placed in adult prisons.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
Determining the age of a young person is a difficult task and therefore, the age assessment process for immigration purposes contains safeguards.
Where a new arrival does not have genuine documentary evidence of their age and their claimed age is doubted, an initial age decision is conducted as a first step to prevent individuals who are clearly an adult or minor from being subjected unnecessarily to a more substantive age assessment and ensure that new arrivals are routed into the correct accommodation and processes for assessing their asylum or immigration claim. The lawfulness of the initial decision on age process was endorsed by the Supreme Court in the case of R (on the application of BF (Eritrea)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 38.
Where doubt remains and an individual cannot be assessed to be significantly over 18, they will be treated as a minor for immigration purposes until further assessment of their age by a local authority.
The Home Office initial decision on age is not binding on the courts, and where the Court has doubt whether the individual is a minor or not, the courts will take a decision on the age of an individual before them based on the available evidence. This decision would then determine the type of detention estate someone is sent to if given a custodial sentence or remanded in custody. If an individual is sent to an adult prison and is later found to be a child, they can be moved to the youth custody estate if there continues to be a need to detain them.
The recent legislative reforms introduced by this government will improve the accuracy of the scientific age assessment outcomes, minimising the risk that a person will be incorrectly treated as either an adult or a minor and ensure that age-appropriate services and care are reserved for genuine minors.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what guidance his Department issues on the categorisation and management of prisoners who have been (a) charged with and (b) convicted of (i) terror-related and (ii) national security-related offences.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Terrorism and national security-related offences vary considerably.
Risk assessments are carried out to determine the appropriate categorisation of each prisoner. Where an individual is serving a determinate custodial sentence for a terrorist or terrorist connected offence, their categorisation risk assessment must be informed by the Regional Counter Terrorism Team. Any individuals serving a sentence for an offence of this nature are deemed as unsuitable for the open estate unless there are exceptional circumstances.
There is a range of guidance on managing prisoners charged with or convicted of terror related offences in custody. There is a multi-agency, end-to-end case management process, which includes regular risk assessments. Much of the specific guidance is operationally sensitive and disclosing it would undermine national security efforts and the maintenance of good order in prisons.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions prisoners who were granted temporary release on compassionate grounds failed to return to prison on the date they were required to do so in each of the last five years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The table below shows the number of prisoners that failed to return to English and Welsh prisons from temporary release on compassionate grounds in each of the last five years.
Number of prisoners that failed to return from temporary release1,2,3 on compassionate release4 in England and Wales, 2018-19 to 2022-23 | |
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Year | Number of failures to return5 |
2018-19 | 2 |
2019-20 | 5 |
2020-21 | 4 |
2021-22 | 4 |
2022-23 | 3 |
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(1) Figures can include incidents within the youth estate, but exclude incidents at Medway STC | |
(2) A temporary release failure after a release on temporary licence (ROTL) occurs when a prisoner fails to adhere to any condition written into the licence that permits their temporary release. Such conditions include the date and time by which the prisoner is required to return to the prison and may also place restrictions on where the prisoner may go and whom they may visit during the period of release, etc. | |
(3) Failure to return after release on temporary licence is the subset of the above where an offender has not returned to the establishment by midnight on the date of return given in the licence. | |
(4) Figures for compassionate release include where the type of temporary release was either 'funeral/visiting dying relative', 'medical treatment' (special purpose medical only) or 'other compassionate release' | |
(5) The figures include all failures to return, not only those where failure to return is the most serious type of failure | |
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Data Sources and Quality | |
These figures have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing returns but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level. | |
The Prison Rules in England and Wales provide that a prisoner may be allowed to leave prison for short periods on temporary licence (ROTL). ROTL under special purpose licence (SPL) is permitted for compelling compassionate reasons not directly linked to resettlement; for example, to allow the prisoner to attend medical appointments.
Public protection is our priority. All offenders must meet strict criteria and pass a full risk assessment, involving all relevant agencies, before being considered for release on temporary licence (ROTL).
By providing opportunities to work, learn and build family ties, temporary release from prison helps ensure offenders don't return to crime when they leave prison. Evidence shows the vast majority abide by their temporary release conditions, with the compliance rate standing at well over 99%. In 2022-23, for example, there were 7,165 temporary releases for compassionate reasons and only 3 failures to return. Non-compliance is, and will continue to be, dealt with robustly.
Justice matters in Northern Ireland are devolved.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many individuals on remand for terror-related charges are held in Category B prisons as of 8 September 2023.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Information on the number of persons in custody for terrorism-connected offences are routinely published on gov.uk and include a total figure for those who have been convicted and those being held on remand. The latest figures show that as at 31 March 2023, there were 232 persons in custody for terrorism-connected offences in Great Britain. This and future bulletins can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/operation-of-police-powers-under-the-terrorism-act-2000-quarterly-update-to-march-2023.
Given the sensitive nature of the information, we do not publish any further breakdowns, or disclose operational detail (e.g., the categorisation and location of terrorist offenders) which may lead to the identification of individuals or undermine our national security efforts.
All prisoners are categorised under the Security Categorisation Policy Framework. Those whose offences meet the threshold for consideration for Category A are then referred to the national Category A team in HMPPS and assessed against that policy. Generally, remand prisoners are held in Category B reception prisons which are designed to serve their local courts. In each case, risk assessments are carried out to determine the appropriateness of the specific placement of each prisoner. The risk assessment looks at a range of factors, not just what offence on which someone has been charged.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of reducing the pension age of prison officers to 60.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The pension age in all public sector pension schemes is set under legislation by HM Treasury and the merits of any review in aspects of the pension scheme, including pension age, would be for them to consider. I am committed to listening to and working with officers, staff and trade unions and I continue to meet with the Prison Officer’s Association and other unions to discuss a range of issues, including pensions. We highly value our hardworking prison officers and take very seriously the safety of all staff working within prisons, whatever their age. The Ministry of Justice continues to review and roll out new safety equipment and provide new skills to prison officers to deal with challenging situations and reduce the risk of assault.
Asked by: Lord Blencathra (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reported findings of the study commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, due to be published later this year, that male sexual offenders were twice as likely to claim to be transgender in order to access women’s prison units compared with men jailed for other types of offences.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service take the allocation of transgender women in custody very seriously. The study in question concerns the lived experience of transgender women in two men's prisons. None of the participants stated that their motivation was to access the women’s estate, and the preliminary findings of the research did not suggest that any of the participants were motivated by this.
Most transgender women in custody do not request a move to the women’s estate, and of those that do, most are not granted a move. As a result, well over 90% of transgender women in custody are held in the men’s estate.
In February of this year, we strengthened our policy so no transgender woman who has been convicted of a sexual or violent offence, and/or who retains birth genitalia, can be held in the general women’s estate. Exemptions to this rule can only be considered for the most truly exceptional of cases, and each case must be risk assessed by a multidisciplinary panel of experts and signed off by a minister before the individual can be held in the women’s estate.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what (a) algorithmic and (b) other automated decision making systems his Department uses; and for what purposes.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice is still at the early stages of assessing where the uses of algorithmic models and automated decision-making tools might help drive greater efficiency and deliver maximum value for the taxpayer, as part of the Government’s digital transformation journey.
Work done to date has primarily been around the use of Actuarial Risk Assessment Instruments (ARAIs) in HM Prisons & Probation Service to assess the risks posed by, and needs of, an offender by combining actuarial methods of prediction with structured professional judgement.
The Ministry of Justice recognises that the use of AI in the justice system raises important ethical considerations, such as bias in the data used to train algorithms and the potential for automated decision-making to perpetuate existing inequalities. Therefore, any implementation of AI in the UK Ministry of Justice must be done carefully and transparently, with appropriate safeguards in place.
Any use of automated decision making will be done in compliance with provisions in GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, including the right of individuals to request a new decision is made that is not based solely on automated processing.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what work is being done in prisons to identify victims of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome; and what steps they are taking to introduce appropriate management and treatment regimes for those prisoners identified.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All people in prison receive an early health assessment through a reception screening process. Every person receives a first and second stage health assessment, which incorporates a mental health screening in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. This screening includes questions and actions relating to their risk of self-harm and/or suicide, learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders.
For women who are pregnant and in prison, a full health assessment is undertaken. Any risks, such as alcohol dependency which could lead to foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), should be monitored and managed by the healthcare team, including midwife support. Currently there is no specific treatment for FASD, but where a baby is at risk of FASD, this will form part of the birth plan with the hospital.