The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-05-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in how many immigration appeal hearings lost by the Government her Department failed to send a presenting officer in each of the last four years.
James Brokenshire
I will write to the Rt Hon Member.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-06-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many barristers have been employed by the Public Defence Service in each month since January 2014.
Mr Shailesh Vara
Since January 2014 the PDS has employed the following number of Barristers (Full Time Equivalent):
|
January 2014 |
0.5 |
|
February 2014 |
2 |
|
March 2014 |
2 |
|
April 2014 |
4.5 |
|
May 2014 |
6.5 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-06-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what new prison accommodation is planned to come on stream and in which locations before May 2015.
Jeremy Wright
We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts and continue to modernise the prison estate so that it delivers best value for the taxpayer. This Government has a long term strategy for managing the prison estate which will provide more adult male prison capacity than we inherited from the previous Government.
Over 2,000 further places for adult male prisoners will become available before May 2015, including new house-blocks at HM Prisons The Mount, Thameside, Parc and Peterborough. The remainder of the places will come from re-opening refurbished or mothballed capacity
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) charges and (b) successful convictions have been brought following assaults against prison staff by prisoners in each year since 2010.
Jeremy Wright
NOMS takes the issue of assaults on prison staff very seriously. It currently has systems in place to deal with perpetrators quickly and robustly, with serious incidents referred to the police for prosecution. It is working with the police and Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that prisoners who assault staff are charged and punished appropriately.
NOMS is committed to exploring options to continue to improve how violence is tackled in prisons to keep both staff and prisoners safe. It is currently reviewing the policy and practice of the management of violence.
The number of prisoner on prison officers assault incidents in each year are provided in table 3.8 of the supplementary tables on assaults that accompany each Safety in Custody statistics bulletin. The latest publication can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safety-in-custody.
Figures for the number of these incidents that are reported on the centralised administrative system as being referred to the police in each year are provided in table 1. These figures do not represent individuals as there may be multiple assailants in some incidents. How many of these resulted in charges or conviction can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Table 1: Number of prisoner on officer assault incidents referred to the police
|
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
|
|
Prisoner on officer assaults referred to police |
374 |
393 |
543 |
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which prisons received how many detached duty staff of which grade in each month since December 2013.
Jeremy Wright
The Ministry of Justice has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison staff were allocated to the handling, processing and checking of prisoners’ post, in each prison, on 1 April in each of the last four years.
Jeremy Wright
The levels of staff in each prison allocated to handling, processing and checking of prisoners’ post varies according to the security category and size of each prison and is not recorded centrally. To determine the numbers of staff engaged in this activity for the periods in question could only be determined by asking each prison to calculate these numbers using historic records. This cannot be done without incurring disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much will have been spent on maintining the closed wings at HM Prison Hull and HM Prison Chelmsford by the time both will re-open.
Jeremy Wright
We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts and continue to modernise the prison estate so that it delivers best value for the taxpayer
This Government has a long term strategy for managing the prison estate. We will have increased the adult male prison capacity so that we have more places than we inherited from the previous Government.
The retention of significant spare prison capacity over and above what is required is expensive and cannot be justified given the current financial climate. The mothballing of spare capacity at HM Prisons Chelmsford and Hull saved the taxpayer £3.6m in the financial year 2013-14. This compares to the significantly lower cost of maintaining this accommodation on a mothballed basis, so that it could be reactivated if necessary.
We have reviewed the refurbishment requirements at both sites and believe that, with minor investment, they can now be reopened on a contingency basis without carrying out a full refurbishment. These costs are anticipated to be around £132k by the time they have reopened. From the end of March to date, around £12k has been spent on Chelmsford, and around £107k has been spent on Hull.
The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Hull is around 65 members of staff – of which approximately 40 are uniformed. The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Chelmsford is around 30 members of staff – of which approximately 20 are uniformed grades. This means we are able to create additional places at an average cost of £7k per place (subject to final benchmarking review), as opposed to the average cost of a prison per place of £26,139.
The staffing requirement will initially be met by short term detached duty from other prisons, before looking to redeploy staff permanently where surpluses exist – and if necessary through external recruitment.
Subject to certification, Hull will create 282 places and Chelmsford 148 places, with prisoners due to start arriving this summer.
The reactivation of these places is a prudent and good value for money response to an increased prison population. Under the previous administration, police and court cells were turned into temporary prisons, with over 50,000 prisoners held in these cells in 2007-08 alone.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) prisoners and (b) young adult prisoners were on suicide watch in HM Prison High Down on (i) 1 September 2013 and (ii) 1 April 2014.
Jeremy Wright
Prisoners who are identified as being at-risk of suicide or self-harm will be placed on an Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) Plan. ACCT is a prisoner focused care planning system which is used by prisons to manage and support at risk prisoners. The ACCT plan will include what level of observations are required for each prisoner which will be decided on a case by case basis.
At HMP High Down
(i) there were 62 prisoners on an open ACCT on the 1st September 2013, of which 6 were young adult prisoners
(ii) there were 33 prisoners on an open ACCT on the 1st April 2014, of which 2 were young adult prisoners.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-05-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answers of 28 February 2014, Official Report, columns 556-7W, on Serco, what liability his Department has for termination payments to Serco for its surrender of the contract for running community payback in London; and how much his Department will have to pay to Serco for its surrender of that contract.
Jeremy Wright
I refer the Honourable MP to the response sent to him in 28th February 2014 under PQ 187896, PQ 187897, PQ 187898, and PQ 187894 which can be found on Hansard under the reference columns 556-7W, for ease of reference, the link is:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140228/text/140228w0003.htm
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-06-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been spent on advertising vacancies in the Public Defence Service in 2014.
Mr Shailesh Vara
£15,494.72 has been spent on advertising vacancies within the PDS in 2014. This includes vacancies for Accredited Police Station Representatives as well as for Queens Counsel and Higher Courts Advocates.