Tag: Dan Jarvis

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2014-05-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of children aged under 16 years living in supported housing.

Kris Hopkins

The Department does not hold information on the number of children in existing supported housing tenancies; however this information is collected for new lettings. The new lettings data is collected in the CORE (Continuous Recording of Lettings and Sales), which reports there were 11,370 children (under 16 years) in the households who were let supported housing in England in 2012-13.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2014-06-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the proportion of offenders present at parole board hearings when a victim personal statement is read.

Jeremy Wright

The victims of serious violent and sexual offences, where the offender has been sentenced to 12 months or more, may opt into the statutory Victim Contact Scheme, operated by the National Probation Service. Where they do so, they will be informed of a Parole Board review and offered the opportunity to make a Victim Personal Statement (VPS). The VPS provides victims with a valuable opportunity to tell the Parole Board how the offence has affected them or their family, both at the time it was committed and since, and how they think the offender’s release would affect them. The VPS can contribute to a better and more informed hearing, as it may enable more robust questioning of the offender about the offence, remorse and victim empathy.

The independent Parole Board is responsible for the conduct of parole hearings. The normal practice is that the offender will not be present when the victim reads his/her VPS, but there may be circumstances where he/she will be. In many cases, the victim does not wish the offender to be present during the reading. Whilst the conduct of an individual hearing is for the Chair of the Panel of the Parole Board, the Chair cannot insist that the prisoner attends to hear the VPS being read if s/he does not wish to do so. No estimate has been made centrally of the proportion of offenders present at the hearing when the VPS is read out.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2014-05-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent representations he has received from HM Chief Inspector of Prisons about his plans to introduce secure colleges.

Jeremy Wright

In April 2013 Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) submitted a response to the Government’s Transforming Youth Custody consultation, which set out our proposals for Secure Colleges.

The Government values the important role HMIP performs in inspecting custodial establishments. We are therefore legislating in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill for HMIP, along with Ofsted, to have a duty to inspect Secure Colleges.

On 10 March 2014, I met with the Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Government’s proposals for Secure Colleges were discussed. In addition, my officials have had, and continue to have, discussions with the Chief Inspector’s staff in order to develop, in conjunction with Ofsted, arrangements for the inspection of Secure Colleges.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what criteria he will use in deciding in which schools to establish a new Combined Cadet Force detachment.

Anna Soubry

The cost of setting up a new Combined Cadet Force (CCF) unit under the Cadet Expansion Programme depends largely on the number of cadets in the unit.

Decisions on opening new CCFs in schools are made jointly by the Department for Education and Ministry of Defence (MOD). The key criteria for deciding which schools can establish a new CCF are the ability of the school to fund the new unit and provide sufficient adult volunteers to run it. However, we are particularly interested in establishing CCFs in areas of deprivation.

No assessment has been made of the effect of establishing new CCFs in state schools on recruitment to community cadet units. However, it should be noted that CCFs and community cadet units deliver different but complementary elements of the MOD’s youth engagement strategy.