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389281

registered interest
date	13/07/2015
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Criminal Proceedings: Fees and Charges
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent representations he has received on the effect of the criminal courts charge.
tabling member constituency	Shipley
tabling member printed	Philip Davies
uin	6615
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/07/2015 answer text <p>This government believes that convicted adult offenders should pay towards the costs of running the criminal courts. Recovering some of these costs from convicted offenders will reduce the burden on taxpayers.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>My department has received representations from the magistracy and defence practitioners about the criminal courts charge.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Only convicted offenders pay the criminal courts charge. This means that those who are found not guilty by the courts will not be required to pay the charge. We are confident that this mitigates against any adverse effects that may distort offenders’ decisions.</p><p> </p><p>The provisions are purely about recovering court costs and are completely separate from the offender’s sentence. It would therefore go against the principles of the legislation to allow judicial discretion regarding whether or not to impose the charge or the amount to impose.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The government recognises the need to make sure offenders are given a fair opportunity to pay the charge. The court is able to set payment terms in affordable instalments. Offenders can also contact a fines officer at any point to request variations in payment terms if their circumstances change. An offender can also apply to have the charge cancelled after two years where they take all reasonable steps to pay it and do not reoffend. It is for the court to decide whether all reasonable steps have been taken to pay the charge, having regard to the offender’s personal circumstances, such as unemployment or poor health.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The provisions include a requirement to review the policy after three years.</p> answering member constituency North West Cambridgeshire answering member printed Mr Shailesh Vara question first answered 30/07/2015 11:51:56 answering member 1496 label Biography information for Shailesh Vara
tabling member	1565 label Biography information for Sir Philip Davies

389283

registered interest
date	13/07/2015
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Open Prisons
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners currently in open prisons have previously (a) absconded or failed to return to prison and (b) breached the conditions of their temporary licence.
tabling member constituency	Shipley
tabling member printed	Philip Davies
uin	6617
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/07/2015 answer text <p>We have completely overhauled the processes for allowing prisoners out on temporary licence, leading to a 39% drop in the number of temporary release failures. This is the lowest failure rate since 2002, and the absconding rate has reached record lows under this and the Coalition government.</p><p> </p><p>The reduction in the numbers of absconds and ROTL failures demonstrate that the action that has been taken to improve assessment procedures in this area has been effective. We continue to look for improvements.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Since May 2014, prisoners with a history of escape, absconding or serious temporary release failure during the current sentence are already prevented from transfer to open conditions, other than in the most exceptional circumstances. There has been only one case satisfying those conditions since the policy was implemented. When the policy was implemented, it was not applied retrospectively. Prisoners already in open conditions were assessed by NOMS and any who were assessed as presenting an unacceptable risk in such conditions in light of their previous non-compliance were returned to closed prisons, with the remainder allowed to remain in open conditions because of their compliance with the regime and favourable risk assessment.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>On 31 March 2015, there were 4,023 prisoners recorded as being in open prisons. Of these, 17 were recorded as having absconded between 1 April 2004 and 30 May 2014 when the policy change was came into force. There were no other cases of prisoners in this group absconding between 31 May 2014 and 31 March 2015.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Reliable electronic records for absconds and temporary release failures prior to 2004 are not available, therefore only incidents since 2004 could be considered. The data set used here includes prisons classified as having their predominant function to be open. These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.</p> answering member constituency North West Cambridgeshire answering member printed Mr Shailesh Vara question first answered 30/07/2015 12:13:28 answering member 1496 label Biography information for Shailesh Vara
tabling member	1565 label Biography information for Sir Philip Davies

389476

registered interest
date	13/07/2015
answering body	HM Treasury
answering dept id	14
answering dept short name	Treasury
answering dept sort name	Treasury
hansard heading	Monetary Policy
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effect of the quantitative easing programme on (a) bank lending generally and (b) M4 lending.
tabling member constituency	Ross, Skye and Lochaber
tabling member printed	Ian Blackford
uin	6776
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/07/2015 answer text <p><strong>The UK’s monetary policy framework, set out in the Bank of England Act 1998, gives operational responsibility for monetary policy to the independent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).</strong></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><strong>The MPC’s macroeconomic policy tools, including quantitative easing, are designed to affect the economy as a whole, in order to meet the 2 per cent inflation target over the medium term.</strong></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><strong>The Bank of England’s paper, “The United Kingdom’s quantitative easing policy: design, operation and impact”, published in 2011, notes that, “Asset purchases may also have a stimulatory impact…by influencing bank lending, though this channel would not be expected to be material during times of financial crisis.”</strong></p><p> </p> answering member constituency West Worcestershire answering member printed Harriett Baldwin question first answered 30/07/2015 10:23:02 answering member 4107 label Biography information for Dame Harriett Baldwin
tabling member	4390 label Biography information for Ian Blackford