Written questions by Mitchell.

What recent steps his Department has taken to help reduce levels of reoffending in the West Midlands.

HMPPS Area Executive Directors (AEDs) are responsible for leading a joined-up approach to prisons and probation in their region, alongside working with criminal justice partners such as the police and local authorities to address the causes of offending and to make sure that those released from prison do not reoffend. For those who persistently break the law, we are building 14,000 new prison places to make sure they are removed from the streets. Whilst in prison they will be expected to take part in education or learn new skills to make them more useful contributors to society after release. Anyone released from prison is subject to strict licence conditions, including exclusion zones where appropriate. If found to have breached these conditions they can be returned to prison. The Probation Service puts in place services aimed at reducing re-offending by supporting the needs of people on probation in the West Midlands. These include providing support in obtaining and maintaining suitable accommodation, help with drug and alcohol dependency issues, assistance with personal wellbeing needs and a holistic service addressing all needs for women. In the Midlands, we have introduced an area Reducing Reoffending lead who will lead on projects working with Prison and Probations across the Midlands to help in reducing reoffending.

How many people have been released early from prisons in the West Midlands in 2025 due to overcapacity.

This Government inherited prisons days from collapse. We have had no choice but to take decisive action to stop our prisons overflowing and keep the public safe.The Ministry of Justice has published SDS40 release data alongside the quarterly Offender Management Statistics which includes figures on SDS40 releases by prison (Table 8) to June 2025: Standard Determinate Sentence 40 (SDS40): September 2024 to June 2025 - GOV.UK.

How many vacancies for prison officers there were in the West Midlands in the latest period for which figures are available.

In the latest published figures as of 31 March 2025, there were 89 FTE fewer staff in post compared to the target staffing level. This relates to the full-time equivalent, adjusted for different contracted hours, for Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers working in public sector prisons in the West Midlands. These figures are available in HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly: March 2025, Prison and Probation Officer Recruitment annex: March 2025 via HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly: March 2025.Notes:This figure covers all Band 3 - 5 Officers includes Band 3 - 4 Prison Officers (including specialists), Band 4 Supervising Officers, and Band 5 Custodial Managers.The figure is a net value and balances out surpluses and deficits between the individual establishments.Prisons included in this analysis cover the West Midlands Prison Group (Birmingham, Brinsford, Featherstone, Hewell, Stafford, Stoke Heath, Sudbury, and Swinfen Hall), supplemented by a Long Term High Security Estate prison, a women’s prison and a Young Offenders Institution in the West Midlands region (Long Lartin, Drake Hall and Werrington).Data only includes Public Sector Prisons. Data does not include Private Sector Prison establishments.The Target Staffing level changes regularly in response to Governors' freedoms and other changes requested by the business.Target Staffing is the number of staff required to run an optimal regime in each prison. This level is greater than the minimum number of staff required for a prison to operate safely, and includes allowances for staff taking leave, being off sick or being on training.

What estimate she has made of the number of community service hours offenders have completed in the West Midlands in each of the last five years.

Between July 2021 and December 2024, a total of 1,272,250 hours of unpaid work were worked in the West Midlands.YearUnpaid work hours workedJuly to December 2021143,360January to December 2022352,660January to December 2023371,915January to December 2024404,315Data from April 2022 to December 2024 sourced from the latest published statistics on unpaid work. A link can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/biannual-unpaid-work-management-information.Data from July 2021 to March 2022 sourced from nDelius on 22/07/2025. While these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.Data from the biannual Unpaid Work publication are rounded to the nearest five hours worked for data suppression purposes. To be consistent with the publication, the hours worked between July 2021 and March 2022 have also been rounded to the nearest five.The next publication is due in Autumn 2025.Data prior to July 2021 is unable to be reported on, due to difficulty in aligning regions pre and post-unification. The unification of Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service in England and Wales took place on 26 June 2021, marking a significant restructuring of the probation system.

How many and what proportion of (a) male and (b) female ex-offenders found employment within six months of release in the West Midlands in the latest period for which data is available.

The latest data available (April 2023-March 2024) shows that 13.0% of females and 21.8% of males in the West Midlands region were employed six months after release from custody, a gap of 8.8 percentage points. This represents 30 females and 715 males from sample sizes of 230 and 3,280 respectively. We know that women face additional barriers to employment, including greater prevalence of trauma, substance misuse issues and being more likely to be a primary carer for children. In recognition of these additional challenges, New Futures Network, the prison service’s specialist employment team, has a dedicated employment broker for the women’s prison estate. In addition, an expert in education and employment for women with convictions has been appointed to the cross-government Partnership Delivery Group, which supports our recently established Women’s Justice Board. The Board will set the vision for and deliver on our ambition to have fewer women in custody.

What assessment she has made of effectiveness of her Department's programmes for supporting offenders in returning to employment in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

We know that finding employment after release reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. That is why the Government’s manifesto commits to break the cycle of reoffending by better supporting prisons to link up with employers to get more people with convictions into work.We have launched regional Employment Councils, including for the region East, North & West Midlands. For the first time, they bring businesses together with probation and the Department of Work and Pensions to support offenders leaving prison.In addition, Prison Employment Leads, Employment Hubs, ID and Banking Administrators and Employment Advisory Boards are in every resettlement prison, including at HMP’s Birmingham, Oakwood and Featherstone in the West Midlands region. They play a key role in getting offenders work-ready, matching them to jobs on release and linking prisons with local businesses.The proportion of ex-offenders in employment within six months of release in the West Midlands was 25.7% in the year to March 2024, an increase of 5.7 percentage points from the previous reporting year to March 2023.

What steps she is taking to reduce the backlog of crown court cases in the West Midlands.

This Government inherited a record and rising courts backlog. For this financial year (2025/26), this Government is funding a record allocation of Crown Court sitting days to deliver swifter justice for victims – 110,000 sitting days this year, 4,000 higher than the last Government funded. However, the scale of the challenge is beyond what increasing sitting days can achieve. That is why we have commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to conduct a review of efficiency that will propose once-in-a-generation reform to deliver swifter justice for victims.In the West Midlands:Over the past three years, the West Midlands Crown Court centres have experienced a significant increase in receipts, rising by 40%, a figure that surpasses the national average of 30%. This growth reflects the increasing demand on the judicial system in the region.In response to this rising caseload, the Crown Court centres in the West Midlands (Birmingham Crown Court and Wolverhampton Crown Court) have proactively increased their operational capacity, sitting a total of 5655 days in 2024/25 (an increase of 3.8% from 5450 days in 2023/24).Wolverhampton Crown Court has expanded its capacity from seven to eight courtrooms, with the addition of an extra courtroom at Telford Annex. Furthermore, in 2023 Wolverhampton welcomed an increase in circuit judges, and Birmingham saw an extra circuit judge last year, thus strengthening the judiciary to manage the rising volume of cases. Efforts are also underway to bolster judicial resources further, with plans for additional judicial recruitment in an upcoming campaign.

How much funding from the Victims Surcharge has been allocated to charities in the West Midlands in the last three years.

The Ministry of Justice Victim and Witness budget funds a variety of support services, both at a national and local level, which offer practical, emotional and therapeutic support to help victims cope and move forward in the aftermath of crime. This includes funding to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), including West Midlands OPCC, and the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund (RASASF), which funds local sexual violence support organisations.The Victim Surcharge is not a standalone funding stream and instead provides a contribution to the overall Ministry of Justice Victim and Witness budget described above. Therefore, we are unable to say how much funding to the West Midlands area was specifically allocated from the Surcharge.