Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what guidance he has issued on engagement between his Department and the legal representatives of prisoners undertaking prolonged hunger strikes.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Under the Prison Rules and Prison Service Instruction 49/2011 Prisoner Communication Services, prisoners are entitled to confidential access to their legal advisers, including by telephone, in person legal visits, and written correspondence, all of which must take place without being monitored except in exceptional, legally defined circumstances. Prisons must facilitate reasonable opportunities for legal contact, such as providing access to visit rooms, scheduling telephone calls, and ensuring that mail to and from legal representatives is handled promptly and without routine opening or interference.
On 24 December, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote in response to a letter from legal representatives of those who were refusing food. He offered to facilitate a meeting between senior representatives of the healthcare provider and the prisoners’ solicitors. This offer was accepted on 8 January, and the meeting took place on 9 January.
Asked by: Rachel Blake (Labour (Co-op) - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to respond to the Law Commission’s consultation on New Funerary Methods.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
It is anticipated that the Law Commission will publish a final report and draft Bill in relation to the New Funerary Methods project in Spring 2026.
We await the Commission’s findings and recommendations with interest and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average length of time spent on remand in custody was in the most recent 12-month period for which data is available.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Information relating to the time spent on custodial remand is not centrally held by the Ministry of Justice. To obtain the data to answer this question would involve a manual interrogation of court records which would result in a disproportionate cost to the Department.
Asked by: Alison Griffiths (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applications for judicial review relating to NHS service reconfiguration decisions in England were lodged in each year since 2015; and in how many of those cases permission to proceed was granted.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on the number of judicial review applications relating to NHS service reconfiguration decisions in England — and the number in which permission to proceed was granted— is included within the official Judicial Review statistics published on the Civil Justice Statistics webpage: Civil justice statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.
These statistics are presented in broad categories and do not separately identify cases concerning NHS service reconfiguration.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what offences will have the right to elect restricted by the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Bill removes a defendants’ right to elect Crown Court trial for all triable either-way offences. The venue will be determined by the magistrates’ courts, which will send cases they consider outside of their jurisdiction to the Crown Court.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) prison and (b) probation workers have made complaints through the new independent reporting channel in HMPPS.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
On 10 November 2025, as part of the work to implement the reforms recommended in the Rademaker Review, His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) instituted an interim grievance process through which members of staff can raise complaints about bullying, harassment, discrimination or victimisation outside of their management line. This complements the existing grievance policy. For the period up to 26 February 2026, 5 complaints were received from staff working in Headquarters, 79 from probation staff and 188 from prison staff.
On 26 January 2026, a new Independent Review, Resolution and Investigations Service (IRRIS) was launched in HMPPS, subsuming the work of the former Tackling Unacceptable Behaviours Unit (TUBU). IRRIS will provide a fully independent route for bullying, harassment, discrimination and victimisation complaints within HMPPS, operating entirely outside line management structures. It will build upon TUBU’s strong work over the last five years, continuing to provide all the existing TUBU services while significantly enhancing its role.
Asked by: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an assessment of the risks that private prosecutions in the United Kingdom may be used by well‑resourced organisations to (a) target and (b) intimidate individuals associated with pro‑Palestinian advocacy.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Any individual or organisation in England and Wales has the right to bring a private prosecution where a criminal offence has been committed.
The Government expects all organisations that bring private prosecutions to do so where there is sufficient evidence that the defendant has committed an offence, and where the prosecution is in the public interest.
The Ministry of Justice held a consultation on the regulation of private prosecutors – to ensure consistency, accountability, and transparency in private prosecutions – last year and the Government will set out its next steps shortly.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average wait is for a tribunal date to be set to appeal decisions made by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Waiting times are calculated from receipt of the appeal to the final disposal decision. The final outcome of any appeal is not necessarily achieved at its first listed hearing so we are unable to extract data about waiting times for tribunal hearing dates.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what offences will be reclassified by the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Courts and Tribunals Bill does not reclassify offences - it changes allocation and mode of trial arrangements within the existing classification framework.
Asked by: Tristan Osborne (Labour - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many defendants elected trial by jury in either-way cases in each of the last a) three years and b) five years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice published data on those electing for jury trials in either-way cases covering periods from 2014 up to the first quarter of 2023. This information is published in the Criminal Courts Statistics release in Table_AC10: Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2023 - GOV.UK
At present, around 15% of either-way receipts into the Crown Court have an unknown reason for sending recorded in HMCTS reporting systems. Work is underway to reduce this rate of unknowns so that robust data can be published in future releases.