Every parliamentary written question tabled by Paula Barker this session, with the full answer and department. See how every department answers, or back to the MP page.
Showing 1–13 of 13 · Ministry of Justice
How many people have been convicted for carrying cannabis in England and Wales in the last 12 months.
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on convictions for possession of cannabis at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
What consideration is given to home Energy Performance Certificates by the first-tier tribunal in determining a market rent assessment.
A market rent decision in the First-tier Tribunal is a judicial decision. In reaching a decision, a tribunal will take into account all relevant factors in a given case including, amongst others, those relating to the condition of a property such as energy efficiency or an Energy Performance Certificate, if that evidence is before the Tribunal.Tribunal market rents decisions are published at Residential property tribunal decisions - GOV.UK and can be searched using free text terms such as “EPC” or “energy efficiency” within the “Rents” category of decisions.
What steps her Department is taking to reduce prison officer vacancies in (a) public prisons and (b) prisons run by contractors.
We remain committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced and that we retain and build levels of experience, both of which are fundamental to delivering quality outcomes in prisons. As of December 2024, there are 23,062 Band 3-5 Prison officers in post and nationally we are at 97.2% of our Target Staffing Figure, based on hours adjusted FTE. Substantive recruitment efforts will continue at all sites where vacancies exist or are projected, with targeted interventions applied to those prisons with the most need.In private sector prisons, Directors (who are equivalent to Governing Governors in public sector prisons) manage vacancies in line with the contract set by the Government. If there are particularly acute resourcing challenges, we sometimes send HMPPS staff on detached duty to support sites.
What steps her Department is taking to ensure that Prison pathfinder meetings are provided with intelligence risk assessments on the release of prisoners that could pose a threat to national security.
The improvements being made to the Pathfinder process, to further enhance our ability to make informed decisions about offenders who pose national security risks, are set out in the Ministry of Justice’s response to the Prevention of Future Deaths Report by H M Coroner, following the inquest into deaths resulting from the terror attack in Forbury Gardens, Reading (https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024-0276-Response-from-Ministry-of-Justice.pdf). In addition, new guidance and templates have been produced for prison security departments to improve the quality and detail of the intelligence assessments that inform pre-release planning under the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements.
What steps her Department is taking to prevent women being put in danger following the release of perpetrators of domestic violence.
We have important safeguards in place for the early release scheme ‘SDS40’ and have made sure that changes won’t apply to a series of offences that occur most frequently in the context of domestic abuse including stalking, coercive or controlling behaviou...
What steps her Department is taking to help protect victims of domestic abuse and violence who are affected by the early release of some prisoners.
Due to acute prison capacity pressure, the Government has had no option but to introduce a change that will allow prisoners serving an eligible standard determinate sentence (SDS) to be released after serving 40% rather than 50% of that sentence in custod...
For what reason each prisoner who was released under the revised terms of the early release scheme and had previously breached a restraining order was released.
Certain offences are excluded from the SDS40 change. Exclusions included the Breach of Restraining Order (BoRO) offence under Section 363 of the Sentencing Act 2020.This offence replaced an older offence in Section 5 of the Protection from Harassment Act ...
What methodology was used to determine a 18 month review period for the new Early Release Scheme.
The Government inherited a criminal justice system in crisis. Due to ongoing pressures on prison capacity, the Government adjusted the release point for prisoners serving eligible standard determinate sentences (SDS), allowing release after 40% of their s...
What categorisations of crimes will perpetrators be eligible for release from prison under the early release schemes; and what methodology was been used to determine the categories of offenders to be released.
Release provisions for different sentence types and length are fixed by law. This change has amended the automatic release point for standard determinate sentences. Certain offences have been excluded from this change. This includes sex offences irrespect...
What steps her Department is taking to ensure that perpetrators in line for early release who have (a) history of and (b) prior convictions for domestic violence do not reoffend.
The Government inherited a justice system on the brink of collapse and due to acute prison capacity pressure, the Government had no option but to introduce a change that will allow prisoners serving an eligible standard determinate sentence (SDS) to be re...
Whether any prisoners convicted of violent offences are scheduled for early release.
Certain offences have been excluded from this change. This includes serious violent offences with a sentence of four years or more; specified offences linked to domestic abuse irrespective of sentence length (including stalking, coercive or controlling be...
What estimate her Department has made of the number of veterans in prison.
As per the statistics in the “Ex-service Personnel in the prison population: 2023” publication included at the following link, an estimated 3.6% of the prison population were ex-service personnel as of 30 June 2023: Offender Management Statistics quarterl...
What steps her Department is taking to help ensure prisoners do not become homeless upon release.
His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service delivers a transitional accommodation service, known as the Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS3), which offers prison leavers who are subject to probation supervision and at risk of homelessness on release up to 12 weeks of basic, temporary accommodation to provide a stable base on release. The service has been gradually rolled out nationwide since July 2021 and since then has supported over 12,200 prison leavers who would otherwise have been homeless.However, we know there is more to do to ensure people leaving prison can move to long-term settled accommodation, and will work closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to develop a long-term strategy to put us back on track to ending homelessness.