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1701807

registered interest
date	17/04/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Crimes of Violence
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of section 156 (2) of the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 on levels of attacks on workers undertaking public-facing roles.
tabling member constituency	East Antrim
tabling member printed	Sammy Wilson
uin	22286
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/04/2024 answer text <p>Section 156 (2) of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 introduced a new statutory aggravating factor for certain assault offences where they are committed against a person providing a public service, performing a public duty, or providing services to the public. The Government introduced this to ensure that the public-facing nature of a victim's role would be considered, allowing the court to give a longer sentence within the statutory maximum for the offence.</p><p>The Ministry of Justice does not collect or publish data on the use of aggravating factors. Currently, there is no specific offence for an attack against a worker undertaking a public-facing role. As assault of a worker in a public-facing role is not a specific offence, we are unable to assess the trends relating to assaults on public-facing workers specifically.</p><p>The Government recognises the seriousness of assaults on workers undertaking public-facing roles and is clear that we must adopt a zero-tolerance approach to assault against those who serve the public. This is why in April 2024, the Government published ‘Fighting Retail Crime: more action’, within which the Government announced plans to introduce a new offence of assault against a shop worker, building on the operational policing commitments in the police-led Retail Crime Action Plan published in October 2023.</p> answering member constituency Newbury answering member printed Laura Farris question first answered 25/04/2024 16:21:28 answering member 4826 label Biography information for Laura Farris
tabling member	1593 label Biography information for Sammy Wilson

1701808

registered interest
date	17/04/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisoners
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 manage prison population levels.
tabling member constituency	Slough
tabling member printed	Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi
uin	22365
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/04/2024 answer text <p>We continue to focus on the prison capacity challenge.</p><p>To meet rising demand, we are building c.20,000 modern, rehabilitative prison places – the biggest prison build programme since the Victorian era. We have already delivered c.5,900 of these, including through our two new 1,700 places prisons, HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way, and c.590 Rapid Deployment Cells across 11 sites. By the end of 2025, we are on track to have delivered around 10,000 places in total.</p><p>On 11 March, I announced the next steps in our plan, to allow us to go further and faster in removing FNOs. This includes expediting prisoner transfers with our priority partners such as Albania and the creation of a new taskforce across the HO and MoJ to change the way we process FNO cases radically.</p><p>We have also put in place short-term measures across the prison estate to expand useable capacity, while ensuring our prisons remain safe for staff and offenders.</p><p>The Government will continue to monitor the evolving situation with demand for prison places carefully, so that we can make sure we have the right approaches in place to maintain the capacity required for a safe and effective criminal justice system.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 25/04/2024 11:24:47 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4638 label Biography information for Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

1701810

registered interest
date	17/04/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Prisons: Education and Training
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 that (a) educational and (b) vocational training opportunities are not reduced in prisons; and whether he plans to use those training opportunities to help reduce prison overcrowding.
tabling member constituency	Slough
tabling member printed	Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi
uin	22366
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/04/2024 answer text <p>Education is key for reducing reoffending and research indicates that prison education reduces reoffending by 9 percentage points. In September 2023, we set out our plans to deliver an improved Prison Education Service that will support more prisoners to improve their literacy and numeracy and increase the number of prison leavers employed on release.</p><p>Over the past 12 months we have seen a sustained delivery in the number vocational courses undertaken by prisoners following increases to 95,000. To ensure the right education and vocational training opportunities are available across prisons we have:</p><ul><li>Introduced new Head of Education Skills and Work roles in every prison to provide tailored education plans to meet the needs of their jail.</li><li>Enabled the first ever prisoner apprenticeships in catering and construction through ground-breaking partnerships with Greene King, Kier and Clipper, with talks underway to open up apprenticeships in other industries.</li><li>Recruited Neurodiversity Support Managers in every prison to support offenders with neurodivergent needs in accessing education, skills and work opportunities within the prison.</li><li>Launched a Future Skills programme to train up over 2,000 offenders over the next two years in vital industries such as scaffolding and electrics, before linking them up with employers in the local community and guaranteeing interviews on release.</li><li>We are investing £16 million to test new ways of increasing workshop activity to get prisoners work-ready and improve labour supply.</li><li>£1.8 million in the Literacy Innovation Fund which is delivering pilots in 15 prisons targeting those with low literacy levels.</li></ul><p>I am pleased to say that we have seen positive outcomes in employment in support of our work to make best use of prison capacity. The proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after release has more than doubled in the two years to March 2023, from 14% to over 30%and between 2011/12 and 2021/22, the overall proven reoffending rate has decreased from 31.3% to 25.2%.</p> answering member constituency Charnwood answering member printed Edward Argar question first answered 25/04/2024 11:25:49 answering member 4362 label Biography information for Edward Argar
tabling member	4638 label Biography information for Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

1701862

registered interest
date	17/04/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Ministry of Justice: ICT
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the policy paper entitled Transforming for a digital future: 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data, updated on 29 February 2024, when his Department first assessed each of the red-rated legacy IT systems in (a) his Department and (b) HM Courts and Tribunals Service to be red-rated.
tabling member constituency	Leicester South
tabling member printed	Jonathan Ashworth
uin	22312
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>We completed an assessment of our critical systems against the CDDO’s legacy technology measures in July 2023, identifying the red rated system during that process.</p><p>HMCTS first assessed the red-rated legacy IT systems in October 2022 as part of their Decommissioning and Legacy Risk Mitigation (DLRM) programme.</p> answering member constituency Finchley and Golders Green answering member printed Mike Freer question first answered 22/04/2024 16:25:28 answering member 4004 label Biography information for Mike Freer
tabling member	4244 label Biography information for Jonathan Ashworth

1701965

registered interest
date	17/04/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Judiciary: Public Appointments
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the report by the University of Manchester Racial Bias and the Bench: A response to the Judicial Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (2020-2025), published in November 2022, what support they will give to recommendations to overhaul judicial appointment processes to deliver a more diverse judiciary and embed equalities within the judiciary.
tabling member printed	The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
uin	HL3880
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/04/2024 answer text <p>The Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) is independent of government and has a statutory duty to select candidates for judicial appointment solely on merit; select only people of good character and have regard to the need to encourage diversity in the range of persons available for judicial selection. The JAC keeps its selection processes under continual review to ensure they are transparent, fair, and attract talented candidates from a wide range of backgrounds. In 2022-2023, across all legal JAC exercises, 51% of those recommended for appointment were women and 16% were ethnic minorities, contributing to a more diverse judiciary.</p><p>The Ministry of Justice, as a member of the Judicial Diversity Forum (JDF), works closely with the judiciary, the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), the Legal Services Board (LSB) and the three largest legal professions on actions to improve judicial diversity. The Forum’s 2024 action plan (<a href="https://judicialappointments.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Judicial-Diversity-Forum-Priorities-and-Actions-for-2024.pdf" target="_blank">https://judicialappointments.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Judicial-Diversity-Forum-Priorities-and-Actions-for-2024.pdf</a>) which was published in January, sets out our shared priorities.</p> answering member printed Lord Bellamy question first answered 30/04/2024 13:42:51 answering member 4941 label Biography information for Lord Bellamy
tabling member	4540 label Biography information for The Lord Bishop of Gloucester

1701966

registered interest
date	17/04/2024
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Criminal Cases Review Commission
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of resources allocated to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
tabling member printed	The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
uin	HL3881
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/05/2024 answer text <p>As part of the departmental allocation process, we assess the needs of individual organisations against the overarching backdrop of the wider departmental finances. The CCRC’s budget has increased year on year since 2020-21 both to increase the size of its caseworker team and to carry out more outreach work with people who may need their services. The budget for 2023/24 was set at just under £8 million, which is an increase of £1.26 million or 18% since 2021/22. Its 2024-25 allocation is under consideration.</p> answering member printed Lord Bellamy question first answered 01/05/2024 16:49:24 answering member 4941 label Biography information for Lord Bellamy
tabling member	4540 label Biography information for The Lord Bishop of Gloucester