Written questions by Smith.

Whether she plans to (a) alter the statute of limitations and (b) review time limits for claims for (i) brain injuries and (ii) other lifelong conditions resulting from (A) medical and (B) clinical negligence.

Limitation periods set statutory time limits within which a party must bring a civil claim, or give notice of a claim, to the other party in a dispute. For negligence resulting in personal injury (which would include clinical negligence claims) the limitation period is normally three years from the date of the alleged negligence or the date of the claimant’s knowledge of damage, whichever is later.However, under Section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980, this period can be extended at the court’s discretion, if it appears that it would be equitable (fair and reasonable) to all parties to allow an action to proceed.The Government has no plans to reform the law.

If she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the safeguards to prevent the misuse of searches of the Office of the Public Guardian Registers by offenders to find the location of their past victims.

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) does not provide location information in the results of register searches. The information given is limited to whether a power of attorney, deputyship order or guardianship order is in place, and the scope and nature of the power. The OPG cannot conduct a search of a register unless the requestor provides the address of the donor of the power or of the person subject to the Court order. A request without this information would deliver a “no result” response.

How many people took their own life in prison while serving an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence in 2024.

There were four self-inflicted deaths of those serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection in 2024. This information can be found in Table 1.7 of the 'Safety in custody: quarterly update to September 2024. Self-inflicted deaths are any deaths of a person who has apparently taken his or her own life irrespective of intent. This not only includes suicides but also accidental deaths as a result of the person’s own actions.

What the longest period is that a person is in prison over their minimum tariff; and what the original tariff length was for that person.

We believe that disclosing the exact tariff information for a single person would be likely to lead to the individual concerned being identified. For this reason, we have chosen to provide figures for the ten prisoners who have served the longest period over their minimum tariff.The table below shows ten unreleased prisoners that have served the longest period over their tariff, broken down by their tariff length, as of 31 December 2024. All ten prisoners have served 35 years or more over their minimum tariff. Minimum tariff lengthNumber of prisonersLess than or equal to 10 years6Greater than 10 years to less than or equal to 20 years4 Notes:1. Tariff length is the time between date of sentencing and tariff expiry date and does not take into account any time served on remand.2. Figures only include those with recorded tariff information.Where a request is made for information and the total figure amounts to five or fewer, we must consider whether this would be likely to lead to the identification of individuals and whether disclosure of this information would be in breach of our statutory obligations under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and/or the Data Protection Act 2018.