Written questions by Hayes.

Whether it is his Department's policy that (a) Ministers and (b) special advisers use the disappearing messages function on Whatsapp on Government devices.

The Ministry of Justice's Information Management Policy explains that non-corporate communication channels such as WhatsApp 'must not be used unless absolutely necessary'. The policy directs staff to the Non-corporate communication channels for government business guidance, which is the primary guidance that ministers and officials should follow. Recordkeeping responsibilities are listed in paragraphs 19 to 24.

How many staff within his Department are reliant on a visa for employment.

This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

How many prisoners have been released in error from HMP Morton Hall since July 2024.

Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.

How many prisoners have been released in error from North Sea Camp Prison since July 2024.

Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.

How many prisoners have been released in error from HM Prison Lincoln since July 2024.

Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.

How many prisoners have been released in error from HM Prison Peterborough since July 2024.

Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government. On 11 November, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a five-point national action plan to reduce releases in error, which includes strengthening release checks across prisons and an independent review led by Dame Lynne Owens.Totals for releases in error, including a breakdown by releasing prison (or Prisoner Escort Custody Services), are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab), and provide data up to March 2025.The Government is determined to fix the issue of mistaken releases and ensure the public is properly protected.

How many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.

Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the accredited official statistics release Public Sector Employment, UK: September 2025. This can be accessed at: (Source: ONS Public Sector Employment reference tables – Table 8 HC, September 2025 edition; MoJ Workforce MI, September 2025)Public sector employment - Office for National Statistics As at September 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics Public Sector Employment statistics (Table 8 HC), and published 16 December 2025, 455 civil servants in the Ministry of Justice were on temporary or casual contracts, representing approximately 0.5% of the Department’s civil service headcount (total 96,715). Ministry of Justice Civil Service Headcount – September 2025Contract TypeMaleFemaleTotalPermanent40,63055,63096,260Temporary / Casual165290455Overall Headcount40,79555,92096,715 Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Ministry of Justice’s Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at: Ministry of Justice – Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25(See Annex D: Off-payroll engagements, page 303). For clarity, consultants are not civil servants and are therefore not included in civil service headcount figures. The latest Ministry of Justice, Workforce Management Information (June 2025), publishes total cost of contractors, which is part of the department’s transparency data and can be accessed at: MoJ_headcount_and_payroll_data_for_June_2025_revised.ods

How many full-time equivalent staff in his Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the past three years.

Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on a broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.

What recent discussions he has had with HM Courts and Tribunals Service on reducing the backlog of criminal cases in Lincolnshire.

Lincoln Crown Court has continued to reduce outstanding workloads through the creation of a fourth Crown Court room in May 2021, utilising all Crown Court sitting day allocations for this financial year. To mitigate delays in setting trial dates, Lincoln actively identifies cases that are too large to be heard within Lincoln, moving these within the East Midlands in agreement with relevant parties. The Government inherited a justice system in crisis, with a record and rising open caseload of nearly 80,000 criminal cases waiting to be heard and too many victims waiting years for justice. Investment alone is not enough - that is why this Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to undertake his Independent Review of the Criminal Courts. On 2 December, the Deputy Prime Minister responded to the first part of that review and set out why reform is necessary, alongside investment and modernisation.

How many and what proportion of criminal trials involved a jury in each of the last ten years.

Only 3% of all cases were heard by a jury in the year to June 2025. This is based on the number of not guilty pleas as a proportion of all cases for trial, excluding Single Justice Procedure cases. Over 90% of criminal cases are heard in the magistrates’ courts without juries.The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes information concerning the volume of trials at the criminal courts as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly which can be found here: Criminal Court Statistics - GOV.UK.

How much the Legal Aid Agency has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.

The requested information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

How much HM Courts and Tribunals Service has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.

The information requested can be found in the table below. Translation:FYTranslationFY21-22£ 51,231.54FY22-23£ 113,487.07FY23-24£ 140,829.23FY24-25£ 126,433.75FY25-26£ 78,995.19Total£ 510,976.78Interpreting:FYInterpretingFY21/22£ 22,225,742.45FY22/23£ 27,362,968.49FY23/24£ 31,022,423.14FY24/25£ 32,390,150.55FY25/26£ 20,517,115.66Total£ 133,518,400.29 The Ministry of Justice has a statutory duty to provide Language Services to enable access to justice for users whom English is not their first language. Language Service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers whilst maintaining high standards of service delivery.

How much HM Prison and Probation Service has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.

The information requested can be found in the tables below.Translation:FY Translation FY21-22£ 83,462.46FY22-23£ 137,213.31FY23-24£ 280,071.34FY24-25£ 328,526.54FY25-26£ 142,303.32Total £ 971,576.97 Interpreting:FY Interpreting FY21/22£ 133,776.35FY22/23£ 125,495.41FY23/24£ 163,546.08FY24/25£ 161,212.42FY25/26£ 105,987.79Total £ 690,018.05 The Ministry of Justice has a statutory duty to provide Language Services to enable access to justice for users whom English is not their first language. Language Service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers whilst maintaining high standards of service delivery.

If he will list the titles of all the events organised by Civil Service networks in his Department since 2017.

The information requested is not held centrally.The Department only holds details of events organised by Ministry of Justice staff networks.

How many (a) single sex and (b) gender neutral bathroom facilities his Department provides in its premises.

This information can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

What the nationalities were of the non-British nationals released from prison under the Standard Determinate Sentences 40 releases that took place between September 2024 and December 2024.

This Government inherited prisons days from collapse. We had no choice but to take decisive action to stop our prisons overflowing and keep the public safe. On 10 September 2024, the Government therefore took the unavoidable step to move the release point for certain standard determinate sentences from 50% to 40% (‘SDS40’).We have published SDS40 release data alongside the quarterly Offender Management Statistics, in line with the Lord Chancellor’s commitment to transparency.Please find statistics on overall prison population nationality here: Offender management statistics quarterly: October to December 2024 - GOV.UK.Please find statistics on SDS40 release nationality here: Standard Determinate Sentence 40 (SDS40) : September 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK.

How many prisoners erroneously released since July 2024 have since been recaptured.

Releases in error have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of the prison system crisis inherited by this Government.While the overwhelming majority of offenders are released correctly, we’re clamping down on those releases in error that do occur – including through improved staff training and establishing a new specialist unit. A joint protocol between HMPPS and NPCC is in place, to ensure effective and timely communication between partner agencies when an individual is released in error to rearrest them as quickly as possible.We have gripped this chaos – by building more prison places, ending the last Government’s early release scheme, being transparent with the public, immediately making changes to sentences to ease pressure on the system and now, taking landmark reforms through our Sentencing Bill to make sure that prisons never run out of places againTotals for releases in error are published each July in the HMPPS Annual Digest, available via HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK, and provide data up to March 2025.

What measures his Department has in place to continue to run critical services in the event of a major internet outage.

The Government has a robust set of policies in place to ensure there are well-defined and tested incident management processes, and to ensure continuity of essential functions in the event of system or service failure. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will publish the Government Cyber Action Plan this Winter, which will set out a clear approach for the Government and the Wider Public Sector to manage cyber security and resilience incidents.

Whether (a) Ministers and (b) special advisers in his Department have met with abortion providers since July 2024.

Details of Ministers’ meetings with external organisations and individuals are published by Departments quarterly in arrears on their departmental pages on gov.uk. The most recent data - for the period April 2025 to June 2025 - was published on 25 September.Special Advisers are required to comply with the Special Adviser Code of Conduct at all times and are required to make declarations on meetings with senior media figures in line with published transparency guidance.

What estimate he has made of the number of community service hours offenders have completed in Lincolnshire in each of the last five years.

Between January 2022 and December 2024, a total of 140,104 hours of unpaid work were completed in Lincolnshire.Year Unpaid work hours workedJanuary to December 202231,901January to December 202353,817January to December 202454,386Data sourced from nDelius on 25/09/2025. 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 prior to July 2021 is unable to be reported on, due to difficulty in aligning regions pre and post-unification of the Probation Service. Because of this, we are unable to provide an accurate number of hours completed for 2021.