Every parliamentary written question tabled by Ben Goldsborough this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.
Showing 161–180 of 221 · this parliament
How many people were serving life sentences for second listed offences in prisons in England and Wales on 31 October 2024.
Information that would enable us to answer these questions robustly is not collated centrally, and to obtain it would involve a manual interrogation of courts and prison records which would result in a disproportionate cost to the Department.
How many of the people serving life sentences for second listed offences in prisons in England and Wales on the 31 October 2024 (a) were serving a recall and (b) have never been released.
Information that would enable us to answer these questions robustly is not collated centrally, and to obtain it would involve a manual interrogation of courts and prison records which would result in a disproportionate cost to the Department.
How many and what proportion of the people serving life sentences for second listed offences in prisons in England and Wales on 31 October 2024 were sentenced (a) on or prior to 9 November 2000, (b) between 9 November 2000 and 4 April 2005 and (c) after 4 April 2005.
Information that would enable us to answer these questions robustly is not collated centrally, and to obtain it would involve a manual interrogation of courts and prison records which would result in a disproportionate cost to the Department.
What proportion of sentences handed out in open magistrates' courts were fines in each of the last five financial years.
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of prosecutions at criminal courts in England and Wales between 2010 and June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly: June 2024. For prosecutions from the Magistrates’ courts in England & Wales between 2010 and 2023, the Magistrates court tool can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: December 2023 - GOV.UK. The data requested can be accessed by navigating to the ‘Sentence Outcomes’ tab and using the ‘Sentence outcome’ filter to select ‘Fine’ in both the Magistrates’ court tool and the Outcome by Offence tool. Currently, in centrally collated sentencing data, it is only possible to identify cases recorded and processed on the Automated Track Case Management System as Single Justice Procedure (SJP) cases – this only reflects a portion of all SJP cases. There is work ongoing to improve this. Select the filter ‘SJP Flag’ to see number of these cases.
What proportion of all sentences under the Single Justice Procedure were fines in each of the last five financial years.
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of prosecutions at criminal courts in England and Wales between 2010 and June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly: June 2024. For prosecutions from the Magistrates’ courts in England & Wales between 2010 and 2023, the Magistrates court tool can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: December 2023 - GOV.UK. The data requested can be accessed by navigating to the ‘Sentence Outcomes’ tab and using the ‘Sentence outcome’ filter to select ‘Fine’ in both the Magistrates’ court tool and the Outcome by Offence tool. Currently, in centrally collated sentencing data, it is only possible to identify cases recorded and processed on the Automated Track Case Management System as Single Justice Procedure (SJP) cases – this only reflects a portion of all SJP cases. There is work ongoing to improve this. Select the filter ‘SJP Flag’ to see number of these cases.
What proportion of magistrates' court sentences were fines in each of the last five financial years.
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of prosecutions at criminal courts in England and Wales between 2010 and June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly: June 2024. For prosecutions from the Magistrates’ courts in England & Wales between 2010 and 2023, the Magistrates court tool can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: December 2023 - GOV.UK. The data requested can be accessed by navigating to the ‘Sentence Outcomes’ tab and using the ‘Sentence outcome’ filter to select ‘Fine’ in both the Magistrates’ court tool and the Outcome by Offence tool. Currently, in centrally collated sentencing data, it is only possible to identify cases recorded and processed on the Automated Track Case Management System as Single Justice Procedure (SJP) cases – this only reflects a portion of all SJP cases. There is work ongoing to improve this. Select the filter ‘SJP Flag’ to see number of these cases.
Communities and Local Government, how much funding has been allocated to local authority planning departments in each of the last ten financial years.
The majority of funding in the Local Government Finance Settlement is unringfenced recognising that local leaders are best placed to identify local priorities.Local authorities routinely publish their spending information in Revenue Outturn data, which includes information on how much money they have spent on planning services. The latest Revenue Outturn information can be found on gov.uk here: Local authority revenue expenditure and financing England: 2022 to 2023 individual local authority data - outturn - GOV.UK
What steps she is taking to help ensure value for money in public spending.
At Autumn Budget, we launched the Office for Value for Money to realise benefits from every pound of public spending. We set out plans for a Covid Corruption Commissioner to recover public funds and we have cancelled the migration partnership with Rwanda.Through Phase 1 of the Spending Review, departments were set a 2% productivity, efficiency and savings target to ensure that every pound of taxpayer money is well spent.The next phase of the Spending Review will also have a clear focus on delivering value for money, driving efficiency and rooting out government waste.
What steps he is taking to help support food producers from Norfolk to increase exports.
DBT provides a wide-ranging package of export support for food and drink businesses in Norfolk and across the whole of the UK. This includes educational support to upskill food producers via our Export Academy and one to one support from International Trade Advisors and our extensive overseas network, with trade advisors promoting UK food in over 100 countries. Overseas we deliver a comprehensive programme of trade shows, trade missions and events to connect exporters with buyer and new market opportunities. Our UK Export Finance agency helps companies access export finance, with a dedicated finance manager covering Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.
If he will make an estimate of the number of jobs created via foreign direct investment in South Norfolk constituency in the last 12 months.
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) works closely with local authorities and investment partners to monitor and support the impact of foreign direct investment in the South Norfolk constituency. Foreign direct investment in the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area resulted in 14 FDI projects and the creation of 516 new jobs in 2023-24, including both single-site and multi-site projects. While this area covers South Norfolk, specific statistics for the parliamentary constituency are not published due to confidentiality concerns.
Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to ensure that there is adequate funding for (a) innovation and (b) development in technology in South Norfolk constituency.
In 2021/22, UKRI invested £478 million in East Anglia.For example, Innovate UK’s Launchpad programme is allocating up to £7.5 million to help SMEs in the East of England agri-tech and food technology cluster to grow. Norfolk County Council is one of the Launchpad’s partners.Other UKRI investments in the region include the Next Generation Infrastructure programme, delivered jointly by the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory; and the Earlham Institute-coordinated BioFAIR, which will establish a transformative digital research infrastructure for life sciences.
What recent estimate he has made of the number of households that are in fuel poverty in (a) South Norfolk constituency and (b) Norfolk.
The latest statistics for the number of households in fuel poverty in 2022 in administrative areas and parliamentary constituencies in England can be found in the published sub-regional fuel poverty statistics, in Tables 2 and 4: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics
Food and Rural Affairs, how many Sustainable Farming Incentive payments were made (a) within and (b) after four months.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive has a rolling application window with the first payment normally issued four months after the start of the agreement and quarterly thereafter. As of 21 November 26,329, payments have been made within fourth months and 371 not within four months.
What estimate she has made of the potential impact of the bus fare cap on the average annual reduction in bus fares for people in South Norfolk constituency in each of the next three financial years.
In the Budget on 30 October, the government confirmed it will invest over £150 million to introduce a new £3 cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January until 31 December 2025. Under the plans of the previous administration, the current £2 cap on bus fares had been due to expire on 31 December 2024, and prior to the Budget, there was no further funding available to maintain the cap beyond this point. The published interim evaluation of the £2 fare cap showed that patronage continued to recover following the COVID 19 pandemic. The final evaluation of the £2 fare cap will be published in due course.
Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 20 November 2024 to Question 13929 on Water Abstraction: Licensing, what the regional breakdown of these water abstraction licences was in each of the last 10 financial years.
The number of water abstraction licences (temporary, full and transfer) live for all or part of the financial year for each of the last ten financial years is shown in the tables below. This data is shown by former Environment Agency (EA) regions. This had been done by former EA regions to ensure consistency and allow comparison, as the EA changed its area boundaries in 2016. For the purposes of this analysis, the boundary of each former EA region is river catchment based. Also, these figures are for the country of England only. Figures for the former ‘Wales’ and ‘Midlands’ EA regions only include water abstraction licences with abstraction points located in England. Former EA Region2014/20152015/20162016/20172017/20182018/2019Anglian47614717461044884556Wales450447434408413Midlands35663506348133863299North East21842162214020652033North West16571675164516151606South West22252179216520492023Southern17021669164216311567Thames16891672164816071603Total1823418027177651724917100 Former EA Region2019/20202020/20212021/20222022/20232023/2024Anglian44664507458046404656Wales412471474471465Midlands32773339332034823447North East20282115210421522157North West15761580160016211609South West20021999202120552054Southern15661551163916871677Thames16131622164817061714Total1694017184173861781417779
How many planned education courses in young offenders institutes have been cancelled in each of the last five financial years; and what information she holds on the reasons for those cancellations.
The information is not available in the form requested.It is not the practice to cancel courses, but they may be restricted on a day-to-day basis owing to staff unavailability. As part of the annual review of the curriculum, governors and their teams may decide to replace one course with another, based on the children’s needs.
How many children have been kept apart from one another on the way to and from classes in young offenders institutions in each of the last 10 financial years.
“Keep apart” alerts are recorded on individual young people’s records and are monitored to ensure that they are safely managed when moving between different activities and areas of their respective sites. The Youth Custody Service does not, however, collate information at the level of detail requested.
What the attendance rate in education was at Young Offender Institute (a) Feltham, (b) Parc, (c) Werrington and (d) Wetherby in each of the last 10 financial years.
It is not possible to provide the information requested without incurring disproportionate cost.
What steps her Department is taking to reduce the turnover of main governors in Young Offender Institutes.
The turnover of Governing Governors in Young Offender Institutions in the youth estate has stabilised over the last two years. The average time in post is similar to that in the adult estate. Support arrangements, such as Guided Reflective Practice for Senior leaders, are in place to improve retention of senior Governors working in the challenging environment. The recruitment of Governors has improved, with the most recent campaign receiving a large number of suitable applications.
What steps her Department is taking to ensure that senior leaders in Young Offender Institutes respond rapidly to an Ofsted requires improvement grade.
To improve the quality of education, learning services are designed to be flexible and adaptable. They are reviewed annually, following completion of a needs analysis that evaluates the success, progress, and achievement of each course, assessing the interests of children, their prior attainment, and their changing needs. The Youth Custody Services use all the mechanisms available under the contract to drive progress.The Children and Young People’s Strategy that is being developed will provide greater detail about our long-term vision for the future of the youth estate, with education and wellbeing at its centre.