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1718774

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Overcrowding
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many appearances in magistrates courts were delayed on (a) 15 and (b) 16 May 2024 as part of Operation Early Dawn.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26690
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>Operation Early Dawn is a contingency designed to mitigate impacts across the Criminal Justice System. We monitor system impacts but it is hard to say how many appearances in the magistrates courts were delayed because of Operation Early Dawn, as this data is not collected in our management information systems (because Operation Early Dawn is a contingency).</p><p> </p><p>The Ministry of Justice, across its agencies, is working to minimise any delays across the court system, which includes prioritising the most urgent cases.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 21/05/2024 13:34:10 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1718778

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Overcrowding
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential risk to public safety of Operation Early Dawn.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26691
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>Operation Early Dawn is an existing contingency measure to ensure sufficient governance exists between HMPPS, the Prison Escort Custody Service (PECS) and HMCTS to maintain the effective management of prisoner transfers between courts and custody.</p><p> </p><p>It involves an operational assessment being made each morning by HMPPS on which prisoners can be transferred from police cells and taken to courts to ensure there is a safe and secure location if remanded to custody.</p><p> </p><p>At least a partial collection is made from every Police Station which allows Police (and HMCTS for subsequent collections) to identify priority collections, including those who pose a higher risk.</p><p> </p><p>Public protection is carefully considered when taking decisions under Operation Early Dawn.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 21/05/2024 13:34:51 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1718781

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Overcrowding
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department consulted representatives of (a) magistrates and (b) solicitors before implementing Operation Early Dawn.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26692
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>The Ministry of Justice engaged with key Criminal Justice System partners, including the judiciary and legal profession, in advance of the activation of Operation Early Dawn.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 21/05/2024 13:36:47 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1718815

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Overcrowding
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether beds of prisoners who have been released on temporary licence are counted as available for the purposes of determining capacity.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26693
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>Where a prisoner is authorised to temporarily leave prison, including hospital visits and release on temporary licence (ROTL), their bed remains allocated to them. This reflects the fact that such absences are strictly time limited and the prisoner must return within the short term. Their bed is not therefore considered vacant for the purpose of determining available capacity.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 21/05/2024 13:36:19 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1718866

registered interest
date	16/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Probation Service: Vacancies
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many vacancies there are in the probation service by region.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26694
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2024 answer text <p>The workforce position, at 31 March 2024, was 20,758 FTE Staff in Post working in Probation Service grades (including those working in Approved Premises). This is an increase of 728 FTE (3.6%) since 31 March 2023.</p><p> </p><p>Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision, recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.</p><p> </p><p>We have recruited 4,582 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2023/24. Many of these trainees have already qualified and taken up Probation Officer posts and we expect the remainder of these intakes to qualify by the end of 2025 and begin to take on Probation Officer caseloads. We will continue to run centralised recruitment campaigns in priority regions to help bolster the number of applications.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Table One: Vacancies across Probation Service Regions, March 2024, all Probation Service grades.</strong></p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Probation Service Region</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Vacancies (FTE)</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS East Midlands</p></td><td><p>45</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS East of England</p></td><td><p>204</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS Greater Manchester</p></td><td><p>18</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS Kent, Surrey &amp; Sussex</p></td><td><p>100</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS London</p></td><td><p>446</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS North East</p></td><td><p>50</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS North West</p></td><td><p>89</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS South Central</p></td><td><p>103</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS South West</p></td><td><p>71</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS Wales</p></td><td><p>0</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS West Midlands</p></td><td><p>67</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS Yorkshire &amp; the Humber</p></td><td><p>109</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS Approved Premises</p></td><td><p>0</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><strong>Notes</strong></p><ol><li><em>Data shows average resource across the month, adjusted for joiners and leavers within the month. Data shown as of March 2024, aligning with the most recent HMPPS Workforce Quarterly publication. More recent data cannot be provided due to potentially pre-empting future statistical publications.</em></li><li><em>Vacancies have been calculated as Target Staffing (Full Time Equivalent - FTE) minus Staff in Post (FTE). </em></li><li><em>Where the number of Staff in Post (FTE) in a region exceeds Target Staffing (FTE), the number of vacancies has been shown as 0 FTE. Summing the figures in the table will not give the overall number of vacancies across the Probation Service due to the surpluses in some regions that haven’t been shown in the table. </em></li><li><em>Vacancies have been netted off between grades and business units. As a result, the overall vacancy figures presented mask the presence of vacancies at both grade and business unit level. </em></li><li><em>Data have been taken from the Workforce Planning Tool and are subject to inaccuracy as a result of the manual nature with which returns are completed. This approach differs from the published statistics, which uses data from the Single Operating Platform (our departmental HR system). </em></li><li><em>Staff in Post (FTE) has not been adjusted for long-term absences (e.g., Trainee Probation Officer training time). In addition, we have not factored in loans / temporary cover / agency and sessional. The actual resourced position will therefore differ as a result of these. </em></li><li><em>Trainee Probation Officers are included in the data. Trainees spend a proportion of their time training and the remainder of their time carrying out work at a Band 3 Probation Services Officer level. Both training time and time spent delivering caseload are included in the Staff in Post (FTE) calculations, which means that number of vacancies is lower than the actual gap between Target Staffing and frontline delivery.</em></li></ol> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 21/05/2024 13:37:30 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1718258

registered interest
date	15/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisoners' Release: Homelessness
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the number and proportion of prisoners that were released under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme who were homeless upon their release from prison.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26480
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/05/2024 answer text <p>End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) began in October 2023. Analysis of its use will be based on at least one year’s worth of data and published in line with the same approach we take for other statistical releases such as deaths of offenders in the community.</p><p> </p><p>Release under ECSL follows the same planning and arrangements as release at the normal automatic release point and that includes making suitable arrangements for accommodation.</p><p> </p><p>We know that having a safe place to stay helps cut crime which is why we are investing in our transitional accommodation service so prison leavers can have a guaranteed 12 weeks of basic, temporary accommodation to provide a stable base on release.</p><p> </p><p>Prisons and Probation have a statutory duty to refer someone at risk of homelessness to a local authority for assistance and we have worked closely with DLUHC on the design and delivery of their Accommodation for Ex-Offenders scheme.</p><p> </p><p>In 2022/23, 86% of prisoners were accommodated on first night of release, up from 80% in 2019/20.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 20/05/2024 11:06:01 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1718259

registered interest
date	15/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisoners' Release: Women
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an equality impact assessment of the proposal to extend the End of Custody Supervised License scheme to a maximum of 70 days within the women's prison estate.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26481
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/05/2024 answer text <p>End of Custody Supervised License (ECSL) only operates in the prisons where it is required, and it is currently not operating in the women’s estate. The use of ECSL is under constant review and prior to extending its use in the male estate the impact on the criminal justice system, victims and others was carefully considered.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 20/05/2024 11:06:45 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1718336

registered interest
date	15/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisoners' Release
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice on 14 May 2024, Official Report, column 119, whether a decision by a Governor to block the early release of a prisoner under the End of Custody Supervised License scheme can be overruled by HM Prison and Probation Service.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	26482
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/05/2024 answer text <p>It remains at the discretion of the prison service to prevent the End of Custody Supervised Licence release of any prisoners where releasing an offender earlier presents a heightened risk than if they were released at their automatic release date. A panel formed of HMPPS senior leaders take decisions over exclusions following advice from prison and probation staff.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 20/05/2024 11:07:37 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1716911

registered interest
date	09/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Construction
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Department's press release entitled First Rapid Deployment Cells unveiled to boost prison places, published on 3 March 2023, how many such cells have been built as of 9 May 2024.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	25498
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/05/2024 answer text <p>As part of our commitment to build 20,000 prison places, the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era, we have so far delivered c.730 Rapid Deployment Cells (RDCs) across 13 sites, and we are pushing ahead with hundreds more.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 14/05/2024 16:39:28 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury

1716483

registered interest
date	08/05/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Nitazenes
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 level of availability of nitazenes in prisons.
tabling member constituency	Brentford and Isleworth
tabling member printed	Ruth Cadbury
uin	25240
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/05/2024 answer text <p>Since February 2024, all prisoners subject to mandatory drug testing in prisons have been tested for fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid. We are working closely with our contracted drug testing provider to further improve our capabilities to test prisoners for other synthetic opioids, including nitazenes.</p><p> </p><p>Forensic testing of suspected drug finds was made available to all public sector prisons in April 2023. Our contracted forensic analysis provider has capability to detect synthetic opioids including all fentanyls and nitazenes.</p><p> </p><p>All prisons have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs and we are aware of the threat synthetic drugs present. Our current assessment is that there is a low prevalence of Nitazenes in prison custody. However, we are alert to the risks and continue to monitor this.</p><p> </p><p>Our £100 million investment in tough security measures, such as X-ray body scanners, is helping tackle the supply of illicit drugs into prisons.</p><p> </p><p>To prevent the smuggling of drugs through the mail, we have also invested in next-generation drug trace detection machines. As of March 2024, every public sector prison now has this cutting-edge technology.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar grouped question UIN 25241 question first answered 14/05/2024 16:25:47 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4389 label Biography information for Ruth Cadbury