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1341080

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Detention Centres and Prisons: Crime
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made a recent assessment of the trends in the levels of crimes that take place inside prisons and detention centres; and what steps he plans to take to eradicate those crimes.
tabling member constituency	Strangford
tabling member printed	Jim Shannon
uin	23190
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>The ‘Crime in Prison Tracker’ method of recording crime in the prison estate, launched shortly before the pandemic, was temporarily suspended in 2020. Whilst prisons have not been required to upload all data using the dedicated tool, they were asked to keep a record of the number of referrals made to the Police and whether the referrals were accepted or referred back to the prison to be dealt with internally by way of adjudication. Prisons will be asked to upload the data collected during the pandemic retrospectively once the ‘Tracker’ tool is re-launched.</p><p>Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service continues to review and engage with prisons on crime committed. This enables national and local trends, and areas of concern to be identified – allowing work on reduction to take place.</p><p>The Crime in Prison Board, chaired by HMPPS, with attendance from the National Police Chief’s Council and Crown Prosecution service, sits quarterly to progress delivery objectives and resolve cross-agency challenges. This ensures all criminal justice partners are working towards the same goals and that justice is being pursued for our staff and other victims of crime.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk question first answered 06/07/2021 16:37:15 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	4131 label Biography information for Jim Shannon

1341086

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Bronzefield Prison: Homelessness
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure provision of homelessness prevention support work in HMP and YOI Bronzefield from 26 June 2021 is on a basis no less than that provided by the previous Community Rehabilitation Company contract.
tabling member constituency	West Ham
tabling member printed	Ms Lyn Brown
uin	23138
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/07/2021 answer text <p>The Hon Member for West Ham will be aware that the changes we have made to the probation system include significant changes to our approach to meeting the needs of people in custody.</p><p>As a result of these changes and to ensure women held in HMP Bronzefield receive the support they need to reduce the risk of them being released without an address, those staff based in Bronzefield who have transferred to the Probation Service will play the lead role in working with women to assess their needs and ensure that appropriate action is undertaken to meet their resettlement needs, in particular accommodation.</p><p>What is new is that we have also commissioned rehabilitative services for women from specialist providers who are based in the community and have the links that will help women when they are released. Whilst these providers may provide this support either by visits or by phone/ video-links, women will benefit from the local knowledge of the housing options in the area to which they will be released and will also have ongoing support from the same organisation on release. This enables continuity of support from prison to community and a prompt response if circumstances change.</p><p>Whilst these new arrangements will take time to embed, we believe that this approach will provide the support women need in making a successful transition from custody to community. We will be reviewing how the model is operating over the coming weeks and the Department will continue to work with all our commissioned suppliers, prisons and other partners to try to ensure the resources we have are used as effectively as possible to meet priority needs.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk question first answered 01/07/2021 16:39:26 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	1583 label Biography information for Ms Lyn Brown

1341087

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisoners' Release: Females
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure the changes to the contracts for probation services that took place on 26 June 2021 do not result in increasing risks of (a) homelessness, (b) destitution and (c) non-continuation of medical treatment including substance misuse treatment for vulnerable women prison leavers.
tabling member constituency	West Ham
tabling member printed	Ms Lyn Brown
uin	23139
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/07/2021 answer text <p>Ensuring a safe, stable transition to the new unified probation model has been our key priority as contracts with Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) come to an end. We have worked to support that through our overall approach to transition, which has meant transferring staff, caseloads and ways of working to the new Probation Service as is, to support continuity in how offenders are supervised and supported.</p><p> </p><p>From 26 June 2021, new contracts for specialist women’s services are in place across the 12 probation regions in England and Wales. To prevent gaps in delivery of services, we have sought to ensure that planned work delivered by previous suppliers was completed before 26 June, and that, where the same provider is delivering the service pre and post-26 June, the women receiving those services experience continuity of delivery. We have also made referrals well in advance of the first day of new contracts for women who presented a high risk of harm, in order to enable new suppliers to prioritise these cases for early appointments. For women who require accommodation support pre-release and who have 14 days or less to serve when the referral is made, the new suppliers are required to make an initial response within 24 hours of receiving the referral.</p><p> </p><p>Alongside this, HMPPS is continuing to fund Homelessness Prevention Teams (HPTs) to help find accommodation for offenders upon release, which were originally established as part of the response to COVID-19. These teams have been very successful in securing temporary accommodation outcomes, including short-term rented accommodation and building new local partnerships with local authorities and housing partners.  The HPTs continue to operate as part of the unified model.</p><p> </p><p>Probation and Prison Service pre-release staff working in prisons will continue to provide finance benefits and debt support for women before release, including being able to address the issue of identification. The majority of former ‘Through the Gate’ staff who delivered this support to people in prison are now part of the Probation Service to enable this service to be continued. The commissioned services now in place to support women include provision for finance, benefit and debt support where needs remain outstanding after release. In the longer term, probation practitioners will be responsible for assessing needs pre-release enabling more time to make plans to address the needs a person leaving prison has as part of this transition.</p><p> </p><p>Health care teams within prisons continue to have responsibility for ensuring there is a continuity of care either side of release, including that people in prison are registered with a GP. Staff based in the prison can continue to support people in prison to access primary health care. Where there are outstanding needs coming up to release, women’s services commissioned by probation regions are able to support women after release to engage with support services including primary health care and counselling.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk question first answered 01/07/2021 16:40:49 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	1583 label Biography information for Ms Lyn Brown

1341088

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Self-harm and Suicide
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans he has to monitor the reintroduction of key worker schemes in prisons in England and Wales during the recovery from the covid-19 outbreak.
tabling member constituency	West Ham
tabling member printed	Ms Lyn Brown
uin	23140
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>Monitoring of delivery of key work during Covid-19 recovery is undertaken by Prison Governors, Prison Group Directors and Prison Executive Directors and through internal audit functions. Independent scrutiny visits are also carried out by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, which then publishes its findings.</p><p>We are committed to ensuring that key work is reinstated fully across the male closed estate when safe to do so, and as part of recovery work.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk question first answered 06/07/2021 14:15:20 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	1583 label Biography information for Ms Lyn Brown

1341123

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Marriage: Humanism
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of granting interim, time-limited legal recognition to humanist marriages on the same basis as has been given for outdoor civil marriages.
tabling member constituency	Manchester, Withington
tabling member printed	Jeff Smith
uin	23239
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>A Law Commission report due later this year is expected to present options for wholesale reform to the law governing marriage ceremonies, which the Government will consider carefully. Options being explored by the Law Commission include offering couples greater flexibility to form their own ceremonies, allowing the ceremony to take place in a much broader range of locations, and powers to hold weddings remotely in a national emergency. The Government will decide on provision for non-religious belief marriage on the basis of the Law Commission's recommendations.</p><p>Delivery of registration services falls to local authorities who continue to manage the demand for civil marriage within their respective geographical areas during recovery from the pandemic.</p><p>The Government has published guidance on gov.uk to assist couples in planning for their marriage or civil partnership formation in England, and for venues that host ceremonies and receptions to enable them to prepare for these events. The guidance sets out how this can be done in a manner that is safe and complies with legal requirements and social distancing guidelines. The Welsh Government has published similar guidance in respect of Wales.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk grouped question UIN 23240 23241 question first answered 06/07/2021 15:30:47 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	4456 label Biography information for Jeff Smith

1341124

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Marriage
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of granting legal recognition of (a) outdoor civil marriages and (b) humanist marriages to help tackle the backlog in demand for officiants who can conduct legally recognised marriages.
tabling member constituency	Manchester, Withington
tabling member printed	Jeff Smith
uin	23240
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>A Law Commission report due later this year is expected to present options for wholesale reform to the law governing marriage ceremonies, which the Government will consider carefully. Options being explored by the Law Commission include offering couples greater flexibility to form their own ceremonies, allowing the ceremony to take place in a much broader range of locations, and powers to hold weddings remotely in a national emergency. The Government will decide on provision for non-religious belief marriage on the basis of the Law Commission's recommendations.</p><p>Delivery of registration services falls to local authorities who continue to manage the demand for civil marriage within their respective geographical areas during recovery from the pandemic.</p><p>The Government has published guidance on gov.uk to assist couples in planning for their marriage or civil partnership formation in England, and for venues that host ceremonies and receptions to enable them to prepare for these events. The guidance sets out how this can be done in a manner that is safe and complies with legal requirements and social distancing guidelines. The Welsh Government has published similar guidance in respect of Wales.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk grouped question UIN 23239 23241 question first answered 06/07/2021 15:30:47 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	4456 label Biography information for Jeff Smith

1341126

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Marriage: Humanism
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the additional covid-19 risks faced by humanist couples as a result of being required to hold both a humanist wedding in line with their beliefs and a marriage ceremony conferring legal recognition.
tabling member constituency	Manchester, Withington
tabling member printed	Jeff Smith
uin	23241
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>A Law Commission report due later this year is expected to present options for wholesale reform to the law governing marriage ceremonies, which the Government will consider carefully. Options being explored by the Law Commission include offering couples greater flexibility to form their own ceremonies, allowing the ceremony to take place in a much broader range of locations, and powers to hold weddings remotely in a national emergency. The Government will decide on provision for non-religious belief marriage on the basis of the Law Commission's recommendations.</p><p>Delivery of registration services falls to local authorities who continue to manage the demand for civil marriage within their respective geographical areas during recovery from the pandemic.</p><p>The Government has published guidance on gov.uk to assist couples in planning for their marriage or civil partnership formation in England, and for venues that host ceremonies and receptions to enable them to prepare for these events. The guidance sets out how this can be done in a manner that is safe and complies with legal requirements and social distancing guidelines. The Welsh Government has published similar guidance in respect of Wales.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk grouped question UIN 23239 23240 question first answered 06/07/2021 15:30:47 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	4456 label Biography information for Jeff Smith

1341167

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Courts: Opening Hours
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the sitting time of courts to reflect the working day of eight hours.
tabling member constituency	Hendon
tabling member printed	Dr Matthew Offord
uin	23157
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>Across the Crown Court in England and Wales, social distancing has restricted physical capacity, meaning judges have not been able to sit at maximum levels, and the outstanding national caseload has grown. However, our action led to us being among the first of comparable international jurisdictions to re-start jury trials, and in recent weeks the outstanding caseload in the Crown Court has begun to reduce. To achieve this, we have pushed our estate to the limits within the confines of social distancing and scrutinised every possible option to maximise court productivity. We simultaneously enabled remote hearings, made the estate safe, acquired new spaces, and legislated to ensure justice could continue.</p><p> </p><p>To further increase capacity within our existing estate, we are also exploring the number of hours courts can sit as a time-restricted measure to recover from the pandemic. Last year we piloted COVID Operating Hours at seven Crown Court sites and undertook a full assessment.</p><p> </p><p>It remains under consideration whether some form of this model could be a useful measure in hearing more cases within Crown courts where judges want to do so.</p> answering member constituency Croydon South answering member printed Chris Philp question first answered 06/07/2021 15:40:15 answering member 4503 label Biography information for Chris Philp
tabling member	4006 label Biography information for Dr Matthew Offord

1341216

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Probation: Standards
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the probation service in England and Wales.
tabling member constituency	Newport West
tabling member printed	Ruth Jones
uin	23332
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>We have demonstrated our commitment to deliver an effective probation service despite significant challenges over the past years. Throughout the pandemic, the Probation Service has prioritised public protection and risk management, as well as delivery of advice to courts, whilst ensuring staff, people on probation and victims remain safe.</p><p>Exceptional Delivery Models, which set out how we operate during the pandemic and ensured services could be continued, were implemented across England and Wales. Guided by public health advice, we took immediate, decisive action to implement a suite of measures, moving to a mixture of face to face and remote methods of supervision. Our staff have worked tirelessly to fulfil their public protection duties by adapting their ways of working to continue to deliver key services. In-person, socially distanced, offender reporting continued to be the default for those people on probation who posed a higher risk, for example Terrorism Act offenders. HM Inspectorate of Probation thematic reviews of our recovery and these Exceptional Delivery Model arrangements both praised our response to the pandemic.</p><p>In the longer term, we recognised the need to transform aspects of our probation service. On 26<sup>th</sup> June, we took a key step forward with the launch of a new unified probation service for England and Wales. The additional investment of an extra £155 million both last year and this year has been key to making these changes happen.</p><p>Having completed the transition to the new organisation, my priority is now to deliver improvements in the services probation delivers. There are now twelve probation regions across England and Wales, each overseen by a Regional Probation Director who will closely monitor the effectiveness of their service, enabling more local accountability, partnership working and services that more closely meet individuals’ diverse needs. We have recruited a record 1,000 new trainees last year and a further 1,500 officers this financial year to supervise offenders. This will reduce the average case load size for probation officers so that the public can be better protected. As we move forward with the new probation service and away from the difficulties caused by the pandemic, we are committed to evidence-informed practice. In addition to a robust performance framework for the unified probation service, we will be evaluating these reforms to probation to ensure we are delivering the best possible service.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk question first answered 06/07/2021 15:18:55 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	4716 label Biography information for Ruth Jones

1341218

registered interest
date	28/06/2021
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Probation: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for the probation service in England and Wales.
tabling member constituency	Newport West
tabling member printed	Ruth Jones
uin	23333
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2021 answer text <p>We understand that investment in the probation service is vital to reduce caseloads for our staff, ensure more consistent management and delivery of sentence plans and deliver effective behaviour change interventions and services to reduce reoffending and protect the public. This is why in 2021/22, we are investing an additional £155 million to strengthen the workforce, which includes supporting our target of recruiting 1,500 probation officers this year. Furthermore, we have also awarded contracts worth nearly £200 million to charities and companies delivering specialist rehabilitative and reintegrative services such as accommodation, training for employment and support for women. This significant investment will bolster the robust management of offenders in the community, helping to cut crime, reduce reoffending and protect the public.</p> answering member constituency Cheltenham answering member printed Alex Chalk question first answered 06/07/2021 15:20:23 answering member 4481 label Biography information for Alex Chalk
tabling member	4716 label Biography information for Ruth Jones