here - United Kingdom Parliament

1291W
Written Answers
6 JUNE 2013
Written Answers
1292W
Jeremy Wright: The essential prerequisite for the
commencement of the reforms to the Rehabilitation of
Offenders Act 1974 is to put in place a system for
producing basic disclosure certificates, which show unspent
convictions, which reflects the new rehabilitation periods
for England and Wales. Until we do that there would be
no way for an individual to obtain an official statement
of their unspent convictions under the new rules.
Currently, basic disclosures reflecting the existing
rehabilitation periods are only available from Disclosure
Scotland and this service is provided to residents of
England and Wales as well as Scotland. However, the
reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act only
revise rehabilitation periods for England and Wales,
leaving the position in Scotland unchanged under its
legislation. This complicates matters and creates two
different rehabilitation regimes within the UK, which
means that there are significant business and technical
issues to work through.
The Government is considering the best option for
implementing these important changes with Disclosure
Scotland and the Disclosure and Barring Service and
aim to have the reforms in place at the earliest possible
point.
Prisoners
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
what steps the National Offender Management Service
is taking to improve opportunities for imprisonment for
public protection prisoners to progress towards release.
[155194]
Jeremy Wright: The primary concern of the Government
with regard to prisoners serving indeterminate sentences
is that of protecting the public.
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders
Act 2012 introduced a new sentencing framework for
dangerous offenders. The Indeterminate Sentence for
Public Protection (IPP) was abolished for offenders
convicted before 3 December 2012 and was replaced by
the new Extended Determinate sentence (EDS) and
supporting regime. However, the abolition of the IPP
sentence has not been applied retrospectively. Therefore,
prisoners serving an IPP sentence will remain in custody
after they have completed their tariff until the Parole
Board directs their release. In making its decisions, the
Parole Board will continue to apply the terms of the
existing statutory release test.
The population of IPP prisoners has now begun to
decrease. This can be explained by the abolition of the
sentence which means that no new IPP sentences are
given for those convicted on or after 3 December. 2012,
and the increasing number of releases.
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS)
continues to help IPP prisoners to address successfully
the risks evident in their offending, so that, where they
do, the Parole Board may decide that those offenders
may now be effectively managed in the community. No
longer do just accredited courses enable offenders to
move on, Offender Managers and Offender Supervisors
must provide the Parole Board with a comprehensive
assessment of the work undertaken to address offenders’
risks—and of offenders’ engagement with that work.
Prisons
Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
what the direct resource outturn expenditure was for
each public sector prison in each financial year from
2009-10 to 2012-13. [154063]
Jeremy Wright: As part of the Government’s
Transparency Agenda, the Department routinely publishes
full details of direct resource outturn expenditure for
each private and public sector prison in England and
Wales after the end of the financial year. The information
for financial year 2009-10 to 2010-11 is published as an
Addendum to the NOMS Annual Report and Accounts
and available on the Department’s website at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prisonperformance-statistics-2009-2011
For financial year 2011-12 figures are published on
the following website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prison-andprobation-trusts-performance-statistics-2011-12
Copies of these are also placed in the House library.
Figures for outturn expenditure for financial year
2012-13 have not yet been finalised or audited and
therefore not yet available.
The overall cost per prison place has fallen under this
Government from £42,914 in 2007-08 to £37,648 in
2011-12. The Government intends to continue to drive
down these costs through its strategy of replacing old,
uneconomic prisons with new, cost-effective ones.
Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
how many hours on average each prisoner spent per week
(a) in a cell and (b) on purposeful activity in (i) each
prison, (ii) each category of prison and (iii) the entire
prison estate in each of the last five years. [155181]
Jeremy Wright: Information on purposeful activity in
each prison, category of prison and for the entire estate
is published annually in the Prison Performance Digest.
The latest data cover the period to 2011-12 and can be
found at the following location:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/163299/prison-performance-digest-2011-
12.xls.xls
Average time in cell is measured per week day and
this information is provided in Tables 1 and 2 as follows
by individual prison establishment and by prison category.
The figures for time in cell are derived from information
collected on the average hours per weekday that prisoners
are unlocked. By subtracting the average hours unlocked
from the 24 hours in a day it is possible to estimate
hours spent locked in cell. It should be noted that time
in cell includes hours when prisoners are asleep. Time
unlocked includes time where a prisoner is either out of
their cell or where the cell door is unlocked allowing
them to move freely in and out of the cell.
Purposeful activity and time unlocked were two of
the NOMS performance indicators of safety and decency
in prisons up to 2011-12. The indicators were discontinued
at the start of 2012-13.
Figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems,
which, as with any large scale recording system, are
subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.