Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 2015-10-29.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they cancelled the contract with Saudi Arabia on justice, security and policing.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

The Ministry of Justice has not entered into, or withdrawn from, a contract with Saudi Arabia concerning justice, security and policing. Earlier this year Just Solutions international (JSi), the commercial arm of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), submitted a bid to undertake a training needs analysis for the Saudi Arabian prison service. On 13 October 2015, the Secretary of State for Justice announced that this bid would be withdrawn, and so no contract was signed. I refer the honourable member to the Justice Secretary’s statement to the House of Commons which can be found in House of Commons Hansard Debates, 13 Oct 2015: Column 180.

No direct cost was incurred as a result of withdrawing the bid from the competition process.