Written questions by Lowe.

How many of those convicted for their involvement in Pakistani heritage grooming gangs (a) are still in prison, (b) have been deported, (c) have been released back into the same community and (d) did not serve a custodial sentence.

Information on whether individuals are part of ‘Pakistani heritage grooming gangs’ is not centrally identified in the data systems relevant to these questions. Therefore, it is not possible to provide the specific information requested.It is also not possible to identify an offender’s nationality from the centrally collated convictions data. This information may be held on court records: however, to identify the nationality of people convicted of specific crimes would require the examination of individual court records. This would incur disproportionate costs.

If the Minister will make an assessment of the potential merits of immediately releasing of all court transcripts related to the Pakistani heritage grooming gangs.

The release of court transcripts to interested parties in relation to individual court cases is a matter for the trial judge to consider. There is a standard process all applicants must follow to request and access a Crown Court transcript. An application form must be submitted to the court where the trial took place, and it is then considered by the judge. The provision of transcripts is also subject to payment of the relevant charge to cover the cost of transcription. Additionally, in certain high-profile cases, the judge’s sentencing remarks are published online on judiciary.uk.

If she will publish the nationality of people convicted for their involvement in grooming gangs.

Information on whether individuals are part of ‘Pakistani heritage grooming gangs’ is not centrally identified in the data systems relevant to these questions. Therefore, it is not possible to provide the specific information requested.It is also not possible to identify an offender’s nationality from the centrally collated convictions data. This information may be held on court records: however, to identify the nationality of people convicted of specific crimes would require the examination of individual court records. This would incur disproportionate costs.

How many and what proportion of officials in her Department were hired via positive action schemes in the last financial year.

The Ministry of Justice works within the Civil Service Recruitment Principles, as regulated by the Civil Service Commission, to recruit using a fair and open process and appoint on merit. The Department will only limit a campaign to a specific group as a form of positive action as a proportionate response to achieve a legitimate aim as defined in section 159 of the Equality Act 2010.The Ministry of Justice does not currently utilise any positive action schemes, as defined by the Equality Act, to support the hiring of those with protected characteristics.The Civil Service is committed to a diverse workforce and culture of openness and inclusivity - not as ends in themselves but as means of delivering better outcomes to the citizens we serve.The Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022-25 Promoting Fairness and Performance, published in February 2022, is positioned as an essential lever to deliver a Modern Civil Service, where our values are to serve with integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality; driving our vision to be a skilled, innovative and ambitious Civil Service equipped for the future. This strategy sets out a broader definition of diversity, to include geographical, social and career backgrounds alongside the protected groups.As set out in the Civil Service People Plan 2024 - 2027, we are committed to ensuring we attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds, to create a modern Civil Service, now and for the future.

How many and what proportion of prisoners in HMP (a) Maidstone, (b) Huntercombe and (c) Morton Hall have access to mobile phones.

Prisoners are not permitted to have mobile telephones, and stringent measures are in place to prevent the entry of mobile telephones into establishments.

How many and what proportion of foreign national offenders serving prison sentences have been transferred to prison in their country of origin in each of the last five years.

The table below shows the number of foreign national offenders removed under prisoner transfer agreements in each year since 2020, including 2024 to date:202081202173202250202333202474As the number of foreign national prisoners is constantly changing, it is not possible to represent the above figures as a proportion of the total.

How much the Forward Trust received from contracts in HMP (a) Maidstone, (b) Huntercombe and (c) Morton Hall in the last financial year.

In the last financial year (FY 23/24) Forward Trust has received £7,401,140 from the Department for prison contracts. Forward Trust has received £0 for contracts relating to HMP Maidstone, HMPS Huntercombe and HMP Morton Hall in the last financial year.

How much the Prison Phoenix Trust has received from her Department for (a) prison contracts and (b) contracts relating (i) HMP Maidstone, (ii) HMP Huntercombe and (iii) HMP Morton Hall in the last financial year.

In the last financial year (FY 23/24) Prison Phoenix Trust has received £54,663 from the Department for prison contracts. The Prison Phoenix Trust has received £0 for contracts relating to HMP Maidstone, HMPS Huntercombe and HMP Morton Hall in the last financial year.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of reviewing guidance on the sentencing of people committing offences on social media.

Sentencing guidelines are developed by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales, in fulfilment of its statutory duty to do so.The Council is independent of Parliament and Government. As an independent body, the Council decides on its own priorities and work plan for producing and reviewing guidelines. The Lord Chancellor or the Court of Appeal can ask the Council to consider reviewing or producing guidelines in a particular area, but the Council is not required to agree to any such requests.The Council monitors and evaluates all definitive guidelines, as per its statutory duty to do so. The assessment covers the operation and effect of the guideline. A report on the evaluation findings is published online. A variety of different methods of data collection and analysis may be used, as necessary: analysis of existing data on sentencing trends over time, collections of data from sentencers on factors that influence their sentencing of different offences, interviews and focus groups, analysis of Crown Court sentencing transcripts and media reports.Sentencing guidelines for child sexual offences were first published in 2013. Following consultation, revised guidelines were published and came into force in May 2022.

If she will make an estimate of the total number of drug related incidents in (a) HMP Maidstone, (b) HMP Huntercombe and (c) HMP Morton Hall in each of the last five years.

To provide data on prisoners remaining in custody beyond their sentence date would require a search of individual records, which could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.Information on interpretation and translation costs covering the time period specified is not available. Expenditure interpretation and translation in the current financial year to date is shown in the table below. As both types of expenditure are accounted for under the same budget item, it is not possible to provide a further breakdown.EstablishmentInterpretation and translation costs, Apr-Sept 2024 (£)HMP Maidstone41,230.97HMP Huntercombe1,890.87HMP Morton Hall8,575.63“Drug-related incident” is not a discrete category within the data collected. A variety of different types of incidents could potentially be drug related. It would therefore be necessary to make a detailed search of individual records to establish which incidents could be categorised in that way. This could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.The latest published breakdown of offences for which prisoners at the three establishments have been imprisoned can be found via the following link (under the ‘PT’ tab): Prison_Population_data_tool_2024-09-30.xlsx.

How much was spent on (a) translation and (b) interpretation in HMP (i) Maidstone, (ii) Huntercombe and (iii) Morton Hall in each of the last ten years.

To provide data on prisoners remaining in custody beyond their sentence date would require a search of individual records, which could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.Information on interpretation and translation costs covering the time period specified is not available. Expenditure interpretation and translation in the current financial year to date is shown in the table below. As both types of expenditure are accounted for under the same budget item, it is not possible to provide a further breakdown.EstablishmentInterpretation and translation costs, Apr-Sept 2024 (£)HMP Maidstone41,230.97HMP Huntercombe1,890.87HMP Morton Hall8,575.63“Drug-related incident” is not a discrete category within the data collected. A variety of different types of incidents could potentially be drug related. It would therefore be necessary to make a detailed search of individual records to establish which incidents could be categorised in that way. This could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.The latest published breakdown of offences for which prisoners at the three establishments have been imprisoned can be found via the following link (under the ‘PT’ tab): Prison_Population_data_tool_2024-09-30.xlsx.

If she will provide a breakdown of the offences inmates are serving time for in (a) HMP Maidstone, (b) HMP Huntercombe and (c) HMP Morton Hall.

To provide data on prisoners remaining in custody beyond their sentence date would require a search of individual records, which could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.Information on interpretation and translation costs covering the time period specified is not available. Expenditure interpretation and translation in the current financial year to date is shown in the table below. As both types of expenditure are accounted for under the same budget item, it is not possible to provide a further breakdown.EstablishmentInterpretation and translation costs, Apr-Sept 2024 (£)HMP Maidstone41,230.97HMP Huntercombe1,890.87HMP Morton Hall8,575.63“Drug-related incident” is not a discrete category within the data collected. A variety of different types of incidents could potentially be drug related. It would therefore be necessary to make a detailed search of individual records to establish which incidents could be categorised in that way. This could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.The latest published breakdown of offences for which prisoners at the three establishments have been imprisoned can be found via the following link (under the ‘PT’ tab): Prison_Population_data_tool_2024-09-30.xlsx.

How many assaults on staff there were by prisoners in HMP (a) Maidstone, (b) Huntercombe and (c) Morton Hall in each of the last five years; and what the national average was for those assaults.

Please see the below table showing the number and rate of assaults on staff in HMP (a) Maidstone, (b) Huntercombe and (c) Morton Hall in each of the last five years, together with the rate of assaults on staff across the estate as a whole.Number and rate per 1,000 prisoners of assaults on staff1 within prison custody, 2019 to 2023 20192020202120222023Number of incidentsMaidstone2548202740Huntercombe191617108Morton Hall42138616England & Wales9,1857,5017,5397,2219,204Rate of incidents per 1,000 prisoners2Maidstone42.686.835.946.767.2Huntercombe40.837.041.222.117.3Morton Hall170.0114.9107.733.747.9England & Wales111.693.996.589.8107.6These figures have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing returns but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level.(1) Assaults on staff are a subset of all assault incidents. Some assault incidents may be recorded as both a prisoner-on-prisoner assault and an assault on staff.(2) Rates express the number of incidents per 1,000 prisoners, and give a more reliable indicator of trends than numbers of incidents because they take account of changes in the prison population over time. The rates are calculated by dividing the number of incidents occurring within a twelve-month period by the average prison population at the end of each month within the same period, multiplied by 1,000. The prison population figures are published in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly.

How many (a) foreign national offenders have been deported and (b) UK citizens have been returned following imprisonment abroad for each country with which the UK has a prisoner transfer agreement in each of the last 10 years.

Data on returns of foreign national offenders are regularly published in the Home Office’s quarterly release “Immigration Systems Statistics”.Statistics on UK citizens who were returned to England and Wales following imprisonment abroad are provided in the table attached. To prevent disclosure that could identify individuals, as required under the data protection principles, the symbol * is used for suppressed values of five or fewer.Foreign national offenders who commit crime should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced and, where appropriate, we will work with the Home Office to pursue their deportation. This will help to manage prison pressures, keep the public safe and reduce crime.

How many prisoners remained in prison beyond the end of their sentence in HMP (a) Maidstone, (b) Huntercombe and(c) Morton Hall in each of the last ten years.

To provide data on prisoners remaining in custody beyond their sentence date would require a search of individual records, which could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.Information on interpretation and translation costs covering the time period specified is not available. Expenditure interpretation and translation in the current financial year to date is shown in the table below. As both types of expenditure are accounted for under the same budget item, it is not possible to provide a further breakdown.EstablishmentInterpretation and translation costs, Apr-Sept 2024 (£)HMP Maidstone41,230.97HMP Huntercombe1,890.87HMP Morton Hall8,575.63“Drug-related incident” is not a discrete category within the data collected. A variety of different types of incidents could potentially be drug related. It would therefore be necessary to make a detailed search of individual records to establish which incidents could be categorised in that way. This could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.The latest published breakdown of offences for which prisoners at the three establishments have been imprisoned can be found via the following link (under the ‘PT’ tab): Prison_Population_data_tool_2024-09-30.xlsx.

Pursuant to the Answer of 4 December to Question 16095 on Reoffenders: Foreign Nations, what was the (a) total number of reoffences and (b) nationality of the five reoffenders with the highest number of reoffences.

Regarding (a), the total number of reoffences for all adult foreign national offenders who received a court or custody order, I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 11 November to Question 12200.We have provided data for (b), the nationalities of the five foreign national reoffenders with the highest number of reoffences, in the attached table.We refer all foreign national offenders in receipt of custodial sentences to the Home Office. Those sentenced to 12 months, or more are automatically considered for deportation.Foreign national offenders who commit crime should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced and, where appropriate, we will work with the Home Office to pursue their deportation. This will help to manage prison pressures, keep the public safe and reduce crime. We are currently on track to remove more foreign national offenders this year than at any time in recent years, and we are working across government to explore the ways we accelerate this work further.

How many prisoners (a) have been released under the early release scheme and (b) are housed in (i) hotels and (ii) other contingency accommodation.

There were 1,889 SDS40 ‘Tranche 1’ prisoner releases on 10 September 2024 (day one of tranche 1). There were 1,223 SDS40 ‘Tranche 2’ prisoner releases on 22 October 2024 (day one of tranche 2).The number of people released in total so far under SDS40 and the number housed in hotels and other contingency accommodation forms a subset of prison releases data which is scheduled for future publication.

How many trials have not taken place as a result of the defendant being deemed not fit for trial due to mental health conditions in each of the last five years.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data regarding ineffective trials due to a defendant being ill or otherwise unfit to proceed. However, it is not possible to identify specific instances where this was due to mental health concerns because this data is not held centrally. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate cost.The published data on ineffective trials can be found in the “trials data tool” which is available as part of the Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly which is available at the following link: Criminal court statistics quarterly: October to December 2023 - GOV.UK.

How much legal aid was provided to (a) irregular migrants and (b) asylum seekers in each of the last five years.

Expenditure data for irregular migrants and asylum seekers across all legal aid schemes is not held centrally.The Legal Aid Agency publishes information about case volumes and expenditure data for the immigration and asylum category as part of its official statistics.

In what proportion of Great Yarmouth Magistrates' Court cases has the defendant required a translator in each of the last 10 years.

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.