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1537361

	registered interest
	date	31/10/2022
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Non-molestation Orders
	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 with Cabinet colleagues of the potential merits of increasing the period of time for which non-molestation orders can be issued.
	tabling member constituency	Newcastle-under-Lyme
	tabling member printed	Aaron Bell
	uin	74983
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/11/2022 answer text <p>Non-molestation orders are civil orders made by the family court to protect victims and their children from the harms of domestic abuse and there is no time limit on the duration of an order.</p><p>Non-molestation orders can be made for a specified time or until a further order is made. As non-molestation orders have no statutory minimum or maximum time limit, the duration of each order is at the discretion of the court. The duration of each order will be determined by a number of factors, including, the risks of further domestic abuse, whether the order was made on notice or without notice to the respondent, and whether there has been a follow-up hearing (known as a return hearing).</p><p>In practice, these orders are often made for a period of 6-12 months, during which time the order can be varied (including to extend it) or discharged.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 07/11/2022 12:49:26 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
	tabling member	4837 label Biography information for Aaron Bell

1484362

	registered interest
	date	28/06/2022
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Legal Aid Scheme: Fees and Charges
	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 adequacy of the proposed 15 per cent increase in legal aid fees in the context of how remuneration from those fees for junior barristers compares with minimum wage.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	26887
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/07/2022 answer text <p>We are introducing a 15% uplift across most fee schemes in line with the recommendations made in the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review. This, alongside longer-term reforms, will increase spend by £135m a year – alongside our investment in court recovery this would take expected criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion per year. We have given careful consideration to the idea of increasing fees on current cases but there are a number of reasons why our current approach is the fastest process possible.</p><p>The median figure after expenses for specialist criminal barristers in the first three years is around £19,000 with the figure increasing significantly after the first year. Thus, the median income after expenses for barristers with 2 years of practice is around £32,000. Between 3 to 7 years of practice, their median income after expenses is around £50,000. The figures above are based on the evidence published by Independent Review into Criminal Legal Aid. It should be noted that this, in its turn, was based on a common dataset shared by the MoJ and Bar Council, constructed following a data share agreement between the MoJ (Legal Aid Agency), Bar Council and Crown Prosecution Service. It has not been possible to compare our estimates on barristers’ annual income after expenses with the minimum wage per hour as we do not hold information on the number of weeks and hours per week that barristers work.</p><p>The 15% pay increase would mean a typical criminal barrister earning around £7,000 extra per year. We are moving as quickly as possible to introduce fee rises by the end of September. Solicitors and barristers will start to receive increased fees this year and our modelling suggests that over two thirds of the additional funding will have entered the system within the first year.</p><p>Criminal barristers play a crucial role in upholding the rule of law and are a fundamental part of our criminal justice system. Our plans to increase legal aid fees will put criminal legal aid on a sustainable footing and ensure there is a sustainable supply of practitioners.</p><p>The Government is committed to supporting recovery across the court system. Over the next three financial years, we are investing an extra £477 million for the Criminal Justice System to help improve waiting times for victims of crime and reduce the Crown Court backlog to an estimated 53,000 cases by March 2025.</p><p>The outstanding caseload in the Crown Court has reduced from around 60,600 cases in June 2021 to around 58,300 cases at the end of April 2022.</p><p>We have removed the limit of sitting days in the Crown Court for the second year in a row, extended 30 Nightingale courtrooms and raised the mandatory judicial retirement age from 70 to 75. We have also opened two new ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough, allowing up to an extra 250 cases a year to be heard across England and Wales.</p><p>We are also expanding our plans for judicial recruitment to secure enough judicial capacity to sit at the required levels in 2022/2023 and beyond.</p><p>By the end of March 2023, we expect to get through 20% more Crown Court cases than we did pre-Covid (117,000 in 2022/23 compared to 97,000 in 2019/20).</p> answering member constituency Derbyshire Dales answering member printed Miss Sarah Dines grouped question UIN 26888 26889 question first answered 14/07/2022 16:51:18 answering member 4816 label Biography information for Miss Sarah Dines
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1484363

	registered interest
	date	28/06/2022
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Barristers and Courts
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he plans to take to (a) improve the retention of criminal barristers and (b) reduce court backlogs.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	26888
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/07/2022 answer text <p>We are introducing a 15% uplift across most fee schemes in line with the recommendations made in the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review. This, alongside longer-term reforms, will increase spend by £135m a year – alongside our investment in court recovery this would take expected criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion per year. We have given careful consideration to the idea of increasing fees on current cases but there are a number of reasons why our current approach is the fastest process possible.</p><p>The median figure after expenses for specialist criminal barristers in the first three years is around £19,000 with the figure increasing significantly after the first year. Thus, the median income after expenses for barristers with 2 years of practice is around £32,000. Between 3 to 7 years of practice, their median income after expenses is around £50,000. The figures above are based on the evidence published by Independent Review into Criminal Legal Aid. It should be noted that this, in its turn, was based on a common dataset shared by the MoJ and Bar Council, constructed following a data share agreement between the MoJ (Legal Aid Agency), Bar Council and Crown Prosecution Service. It has not been possible to compare our estimates on barristers’ annual income after expenses with the minimum wage per hour as we do not hold information on the number of weeks and hours per week that barristers work.</p><p>The 15% pay increase would mean a typical criminal barrister earning around £7,000 extra per year. We are moving as quickly as possible to introduce fee rises by the end of September. Solicitors and barristers will start to receive increased fees this year and our modelling suggests that over two thirds of the additional funding will have entered the system within the first year.</p><p>Criminal barristers play a crucial role in upholding the rule of law and are a fundamental part of our criminal justice system. Our plans to increase legal aid fees will put criminal legal aid on a sustainable footing and ensure there is a sustainable supply of practitioners.</p><p>The Government is committed to supporting recovery across the court system. Over the next three financial years, we are investing an extra £477 million for the Criminal Justice System to help improve waiting times for victims of crime and reduce the Crown Court backlog to an estimated 53,000 cases by March 2025.</p><p>The outstanding caseload in the Crown Court has reduced from around 60,600 cases in June 2021 to around 58,300 cases at the end of April 2022.</p><p>We have removed the limit of sitting days in the Crown Court for the second year in a row, extended 30 Nightingale courtrooms and raised the mandatory judicial retirement age from 70 to 75. We have also opened two new ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough, allowing up to an extra 250 cases a year to be heard across England and Wales.</p><p>We are also expanding our plans for judicial recruitment to secure enough judicial capacity to sit at the required levels in 2022/2023 and beyond.</p><p>By the end of March 2023, we expect to get through 20% more Crown Court cases than we did pre-Covid (117,000 in 2022/23 compared to 97,000 in 2019/20).</p> answering member constituency Derbyshire Dales answering member printed Miss Sarah Dines grouped question UIN 26887 26889 question first answered 14/07/2022 16:51:18 answering member 4816 label Biography information for Miss Sarah Dines
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1484364

	registered interest
	date	28/06/2022
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Legal Aid Scheme: Fees and Charges
	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 proposed 15 per cent increase in legal aid fees to the approximately 58,000 cases that are currently backlogged in the Crown courts.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	26889
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/07/2022 answer text <p>We are introducing a 15% uplift across most fee schemes in line with the recommendations made in the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review. This, alongside longer-term reforms, will increase spend by £135m a year – alongside our investment in court recovery this would take expected criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion per year. We have given careful consideration to the idea of increasing fees on current cases but there are a number of reasons why our current approach is the fastest process possible.</p><p>The median figure after expenses for specialist criminal barristers in the first three years is around £19,000 with the figure increasing significantly after the first year. Thus, the median income after expenses for barristers with 2 years of practice is around £32,000. Between 3 to 7 years of practice, their median income after expenses is around £50,000. The figures above are based on the evidence published by Independent Review into Criminal Legal Aid. It should be noted that this, in its turn, was based on a common dataset shared by the MoJ and Bar Council, constructed following a data share agreement between the MoJ (Legal Aid Agency), Bar Council and Crown Prosecution Service. It has not been possible to compare our estimates on barristers’ annual income after expenses with the minimum wage per hour as we do not hold information on the number of weeks and hours per week that barristers work.</p><p>The 15% pay increase would mean a typical criminal barrister earning around £7,000 extra per year. We are moving as quickly as possible to introduce fee rises by the end of September. Solicitors and barristers will start to receive increased fees this year and our modelling suggests that over two thirds of the additional funding will have entered the system within the first year.</p><p>Criminal barristers play a crucial role in upholding the rule of law and are a fundamental part of our criminal justice system. Our plans to increase legal aid fees will put criminal legal aid on a sustainable footing and ensure there is a sustainable supply of practitioners.</p><p>The Government is committed to supporting recovery across the court system. Over the next three financial years, we are investing an extra £477 million for the Criminal Justice System to help improve waiting times for victims of crime and reduce the Crown Court backlog to an estimated 53,000 cases by March 2025.</p><p>The outstanding caseload in the Crown Court has reduced from around 60,600 cases in June 2021 to around 58,300 cases at the end of April 2022.</p><p>We have removed the limit of sitting days in the Crown Court for the second year in a row, extended 30 Nightingale courtrooms and raised the mandatory judicial retirement age from 70 to 75. We have also opened two new ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough, allowing up to an extra 250 cases a year to be heard across England and Wales.</p><p>We are also expanding our plans for judicial recruitment to secure enough judicial capacity to sit at the required levels in 2022/2023 and beyond.</p><p>By the end of March 2023, we expect to get through 20% more Crown Court cases than we did pre-Covid (117,000 in 2022/23 compared to 97,000 in 2019/20).</p> answering member constituency Derbyshire Dales answering member printed Miss Sarah Dines grouped question UIN 26887 26888 question first answered 14/07/2022 16:51:19 answering member 4816 label Biography information for Miss Sarah Dines
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1664618

	registered interest
	date	13/10/2023
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Legal Aid Scheme
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent progress his Department has made on its meeting the commitments made in the Government’s full response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review and consultation on policy proposals, published in December 2022.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	202471
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/10/2023 answer text <p>In November 2022 we published our full response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR), setting out various proposals to ensure the long-term sustainability of the criminal legal aid sector.</p><p> </p><p>This followed the interim response to the CLAIR which introduced a 15% uplift across most fee schemes in line with the recommendations made in the Review. This funding began to come into effect from the end of September 2022, and we subsequently agreed to extend it to the majority of cases already progressing in the Crown Court. Following these reforms, an increase in expenditure of up to £141 million a year will take expected annual criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion.</p><p> </p><p>We have established the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board (CLAAB) in October 2022, now chaired by former judge Deborah Taylor, to bring together criminal justice system partners to take a wider view and encourage a more joined-up approach to criminal legal aid within the criminal justice system. We are continuing to work with the CLAAB on our proposals, including long term reform of the Litigators’ Graduated Fee Scheme and Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme, to reform criminal legal aid fees.</p><p> </p><p>In addition to the 15% uplift that was applied to both the magistrates’ court and police station fee schemes from 30 September 2022, we will be investing a further £16m into the police station fee scheme and £5.1m towards youth court fees which currently sits under the magistrates’ court fee scheme. In total, this will be an additional £21.1m going to solicitors over the next financial year (2024/25). We will be consulting further on how this money will be distributed within the fee schemes.</p> answering member constituency Finchley and Golders Green answering member printed Mike Freer question first answered 23/10/2023 16:25:04 answering member 4004 label Biography information for Mike Freer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1664619

	registered interest
	date	13/10/2023
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Solicitors: Erith and Thamesmead
	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 estimate of the number of criminal duty solicitors working in Erith and Thamesmead constituency.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	202472
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/10/2023 answer text <p>The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning duty solicitor services and the day-to-day administration of the court and police station duty schemes. This includes keeping <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aKvrjVm-rwrVWfEgjsABoePccCJyRMyX" target="_blank">membership records</a>, allocating slots and producing and maintaining <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/duty-solicitors-rotas-information-and-guidance#duty-solicitor-rotas-1-april-2023-to-30-september-2023" target="_blank">duty solicitor rotas.</a> The LAA monitors membership across individual duty schemes. Information about duty solicitor volumes broken down by individual scheme is published as part of the LAA’s <a href="https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiOWYxNmUwOTMtZTJmOC00MWM2LWEyOWUtNmY5ZjY1MDZkNDExIiwidCI6ImM2ODc0NzI4LTcxZTYtNDFmZS1hOWUxLTJlOGMzNjc3NmFkOCIsImMiOjh9" target="_blank">quarterly statistics</a>.</p><p> </p><p>Legal Aid services are not procured at constituency level, however, the duty schemes falling with the Erith and Thamesmead constituency include the Bexley and Greenwich/Woolwich schemes.</p><p> </p><p>At a national level, the LAA monitors capacity across criminal legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis and, where demand is greater than the available supply, takes action to secure additional provision to ensure the continuity of legal aid-funded services.</p><p> </p><p>The LAA is satisfied that there continues to be sufficient duty solicitor coverage on the duty schemes operating in Erith and Thamesmead. Provision under the duty schemes is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota or other fluctuations in numbers depending on prevailing market conditions, and other internal factors such as firms merging or other consolidation activity.</p> answering member constituency Finchley and Golders Green answering member printed Mike Freer question first answered 23/10/2023 16:21:20 answering member 4004 label Biography information for Mike Freer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1664642

	registered interest
	date	13/10/2023
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Probate
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will make an assessment of the adequacy of rates of processing probate applications by HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	202495
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/10/2023 answer text <p>The probate service received record levels of applications during 2022 and this has continued to grow with higher levels of receipts during January to June 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Whilst HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand the training and upskilling of those new and existing staff has led to applications taking longer in the short term.</p><p> </p><p>HMCTS are focused on increasing outputs to reduce overall timeliness on all types of applications and the average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate, following receipt of the documents required, is 13 weeks during April to June 2023.</p><p> </p><p>Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently cover the period up to June 2023.</p> answering member constituency Finchley and Golders Green answering member printed Mike Freer question first answered 23/10/2023 16:16:27 answering member 4004 label Biography information for Mike Freer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1664643

	registered interest
	date	13/10/2023
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Probate: Applications
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the robustness of (a) technical and (b) software systems used by HM Court and Tribunal Service to process probate applications.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	202496
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/10/2023 answer text <p>The Probate Service is supported by robust technology and software, which is maintained and improved by a dedicated team of software developers.</p><p>We seek regular feedback from users of the service, which influences the priorities of the software development team. All our technical systems meet Government standards, including alignment with architectural and cyber security principles.</p><p>HMCTS is required to complete an annual Data Protection Impact Assessment, which is a process to help identify and minimize the data protection risks of the service.</p> answering member constituency Finchley and Golders Green answering member printed Mike Freer question first answered 19/10/2023 08:21:19 answering member 4004 label Biography information for Mike Freer
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1687102

	registered interest
	date	02/02/2024
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Offenders: Mental Illness
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to amend the right of offenders sentenced to an Indefinite Hospital Order to apply for a review every 12 months; and whether he has made an assessment of the impact of those reviews on (a) victims and (b) families.
	tabling member constituency	Erith and Thamesmead
	tabling member printed	Abena Oppong-Asare
	uin	12879
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/02/2024 answer text <p>Hospital Orders and the provisions around them are set out in the Mental Health Act 1983 and ensure regular access for patients to a review of their detention by an independent court which will determine whether the criteria for detention continue to be met.</p><p>This Government is committed to ensuring that victims’ voices are heard. We are working with the judiciary to introduce an entitlement in the Victims’ Code for Victim Personal Statements in the Mental Health Tribunal, where an offender’s detention is being reviewed. This will give victims the opportunity to explain the impact of the crime on them, and we continue to assess the provision of support for victims engaging with criminal justice processes like the Mental Health Tribunal.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Orpington answering member printed Gareth Bacon question first answered 07/02/2024 13:32:43 answering member 4798 label Biography information for Gareth Bacon
	tabling member	4820 label Biography information for Abena Oppong-Asare

1487999

	registered interest
	date	11/07/2022
	answering body	Ministry of Justice
	answering dept id	54
	answering dept short name	Justice
	answering dept sort name	Justice
	hansard heading	Legal Aid Scheme
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Legal aid statistics England and Wales bulletin January to March 2022 published on 30 June 2022, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on the legal system of trends in the level of completed workload in legal help and controlled legal representation between April 2010 and March 2022.
	tabling member constituency	Manchester, Gorton
	tabling member printed	Afzal Khan
	uin	33915
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/07/2022 answer text <p>The department continues to engage with representative bodies and providers within the sector to increase our understanding of the challenges civil legal aid providers currently face.</p><p>We are currently considering our next steps on reviewing the civil legal aid market more widely and we will announce more on this shortly.</p><p>In the interim, we are injecting more than £10 million a year into housing legal aid through our reforms to the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme and £8 million a year into immigration legal aid through the Nationality and Borders Act. Both reforms will lead to increased volumes of work for providers.</p> answering member constituency Derbyshire Dales answering member printed Miss Sarah Dines question first answered 14/07/2022 16:50:37 answering member 4816 label Biography information for Miss Sarah Dines
	tabling member	4671 label Biography information for Afzal Khan