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1484209

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	Ministry of Justice: Ipswich
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 plan to open a new regional office in Ipswich, announced on 1 February 2022, when he expects that new office to open, and what estimate he has made of the number of jobs which that new office will create in Ipswich.
tabling member constituency	Ipswich
tabling member printed	Tom Hunt
uin	26861
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/07/2022 answer text <p>We are currently planning to open a Justice Collaboration Centre in Ipswich in late summer this year. The MoJ will be moving roles away from London through a national talent location strategy which relies on roles becoming vacant to then be advertised nationally to one of our 7 hubs. This allows MoJ to attract the best talent regardless of their location.</p><p> </p><p>Due to this strategy, it is difficult for MoJ to estimate the number of jobs that may be created in Ipswich; however, this does mean the opening of the regional office will create new opportunities for the people of Ipswich, and its locality, to access good quality civil service jobs in the MoJ.</p> answering member constituency South Suffolk answering member printed James Cartlidge question first answered 04/07/2022 09:50:00 answering member 4519 label Biography information for James Cartlidge
tabling member	4771 label Biography information for Tom Hunt

1484305

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	Community Orders: Easington
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what Community Payback projects have been completed in Easington constituency in each of the last five years.
tabling member constituency	Easington
tabling member printed	Grahame Morris
uin	26738
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/07/2022 answer text <p>Community Payback is a visible punishment which sees offenders undertake work that directly benefits the communities they have harmed.</p><p>Rigorous and constructive projects are delivered across England and Wales on a daily basis. Work carried out by offenders may include removing graffiti from public buildings, clearing wasteland, or decorating a community centre.</p><p>Local engagement is an integral part of Community Payback, and anyone can nominate a project in their local area via the Gov.uk website.</p><p>Prior to unification of the Probation Service in June 2021, Community Payback was delivered by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and consequently we do not have access to an exhaustive list of projects delivered in each of the last five years.</p><p>However, the Durham Tees Valley CRC did deliver regular projects in partnership with Durham County Council in the Peterlee area, with Community Payback teams working four days a week to improve local open spaces.</p><p>Post-unification, the North East Probation region currently has regular projects running at the Castle Eden Walkway, Parkside Walkway, Woodhouse Park and South Hetton allotments.</p><p>Work undertaken at the projects listed above in Easington have included grounds maintenance, such as strimming, grass cutting, clearing overgrown vegetation to open up pathways and raising the canopy to remove overhanging branches, path edging and litter picking.</p> answering member constituency North West Hampshire answering member printed Kit Malthouse question first answered 04/07/2022 11:05:26 answering member 4495 label Biography information for Kit Malthouse
tabling member	3973 label Biography information for Grahame Morris

1484348

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	Youth Custody: Travellers
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) Gypsy, (b) Roma and (c) Traveller children are in the youth secure estate as on 28 June 2022.
tabling member constituency	Hendon
tabling member printed	Dr Matthew Offord
uin	26747
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2022 answer text <p>Data on the ethnic makeup of the youth estate population is published annually as part of the Youth justice statistics series and monthly as part of the Youth Custody Report. These publications, however, do not include details of traveller categories. There are no current plans to alter the ethnic groups for these publications. The broad categories included in the information released are in line with current guidance from the Race Disparity Unit of the Cabinet Office.</p><p>As of 28 June 2022, there were 16 children and young people in custody who self-designated as either white, other ethnic group, any other or white, Gypsy or Irish Traveller.</p> answering member constituency South Suffolk answering member printed James Cartlidge question first answered 06/07/2022 13:33:14 answering member 4519 label Biography information for James Cartlidge
tabling member	4006 label Biography information for Dr Matthew Offord

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

1484402

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	Rape: Prosecutions
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister of State in response to the Urgent Question of 28 June 2022 on prosecution of incidences of rape, if he will take steps to strengthen the understanding of consent and evidencing the absence of consent in rape cases.
tabling member constituency	York Central
tabling member printed	Rachael Maskell
uin	26795
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2022 answer text <p>As part of the Rape Review action plan, the Law Commission is conducting an independent review of the law, guidance and practice relating to the trial process in prosecutions of sexual offences, including rape, with one aim being to better support understanding of consent and misconceptions about sexual harm. As part of this project, the Law Commission will also consider how law and guidance can counter jurors’ misconceptions about sexual harm (“rape myths”) in relation to the credibility, behaviour and experience of complainants and defendants.</p><p>We await the results of the Law Commission’s review, and will carefully consider how the findings can contribute towards this government’s ambition to improve the treatment of victims, boost successful rape prosecutions, whilst also ensuring that defendants receive a fair trial.</p><p>In the meantime, to help address the attitudes and behaviours that can underpin these violent crimes, this Spring the government launched ‘Enough’: a new nationwide communications campaign which aims to challenge perpetrators and the harmful attitudes that exist within wider society, educate young people about healthy relationships and ensure victims can access support.</p> answering member constituency South Suffolk answering member printed James Cartlidge question first answered 06/07/2022 13:36:28 answering member 4519 label Biography information for James Cartlidge
tabling member	4471 label Biography information for Rachael Maskell

1484404

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	Rape: Victim Support Schemes
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to bring forward additional support services for survivors of rape.
tabling member constituency	York Central
tabling member printed	Rachael Maskell
uin	26797
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/07/2022 answer text <p>Rape and sexual violence are devastating crimes that can have life-long impacts on victims and survivors. Following the publication of the End to End Rape Review Action Plan last year, this Government has committed to ensuring that every victim of rape and sexual assault will have access to quality support, appropriate to their needs, when they need it. We have increased the funding for victim and witness support services to £192 million by 2024/25. This represents an uplift of 92% on core budgets in 2020/21. We are using additional ringfenced funding to increase the number of Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) by 300 to over 1000 by 2024/25 - a 43% increase on the number of ISVAs and IDVAs over the next three years.</p><p>This Government provides core funding through the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund to over 75 support services run by independent organisations across England and Wales. Funding has been extended until March 2023 whilst we undertake targeted research with rape victim-survivors to better understand their support needs, both within and outside the criminal justice system, to inform the recommissioning of these services.</p><p>In addition, this Government is establishing a remote, national 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Service. This will be a free support service to all victims and survivors aged 16 and over across England and Wales, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Support will be available through website, webchat, online resources, and telephone helpline.</p><p>To support victims at the court stage, this Government has also announced a pilot of enhanced specialist sexual violence support in the Crown Court. The pilot will run in three Crown Court centres – Snaresbrook in London, Leeds, and Newcastle – which we have chosen because of the high volume of sexual offences cases they are tackling. These court centres will be enabled with the technology to allow victims to give pre-recorded evidence, so they are not retraumatised by giving evidence in a live trial, with court staff who have received trauma-informed training available.</p> answering member constituency South Suffolk answering member printed James Cartlidge question first answered 06/07/2022 13:35:26 answering member 4519 label Biography information for James Cartlidge
tabling member	4471 label Biography information for Rachael Maskell