Matt Vickers MP: written questions
931 published records · newest first.
Written questions
Domestic Abuse: Civil ProceedingsMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71326More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support is available to victims of domestic abuse on navigating the civil court system.
Answer: Victims of domestic abuse in both the civil and family court systems have the protection of special measures such as giving evidence via a video link or from behind a screen, and prohibition of direct cross examination of a victim by a perpetrator.The Gov...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordPrison SentencesMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71325More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she is taking steps to reduce the use of short custodial sentences for non-violent offences.
Answer: In line with the Independent Sentencing Review’s recommendation on reducing the use of short custodial sentences, the Sentencing Bill 2025 introduces a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences of 12 months or less, including for non-violent offenc...
Answered 5 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordPrisons: SafetyMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71324More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of prison safety in Category (a) B and (b) C prisons.
Answer: Safety in prisons is a key priority, and we are working hard to make prisons as safe as possible for staff and prisoners.We have specialist staff and equipment to stop the smuggling of contraband in prisons, such as drugs, weapons and mobile phones, which...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordLegal Aid Scheme: Rural AreasMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71323More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support she is providing to legal aid providers in (a) rural and (b) semi-rural areas.
Answer: Citizens in England and Wales meeting the eligibility criteria should be able to access legal aid services regardless of where they live.The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning legal aid services, and it monitors the numbers of provide...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordYouth Justice: FinanceMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71322More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what funding she is providing for youth justice services in areas of high need.
Answer: For 2025/26, this Government is providing c.£94 million in funding to Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) to support the operation and provision of youth justice services across England and Wales. This funding enables YOTs to provide interventions and support ta...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordReparation by OffendersMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71321More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to expand the availability of restorative justice schemes in England.
Answer: This Government supports the use of restorative justice in line with the evidence of its efficacy. We know that restorative justice can improve victim satisfaction and reduce reoffending when delivered in the right circumstances. This not only benefits th...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordProbate: StandardsMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71320More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to help reduce the time taken for probate processing.
Answer: HM Courts & Tribunals Service have invested in more staff, alongside system and process improvements to reduce and then maintain lower processing times during the last year.The Ministry of Justice publishes data on probate timeliness here: https://www...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordRemote HearingsMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71319More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of digital hearings on access to justice.
Answer: Remote hearings can, in appropriate cases, improve access to justice by reducing travel requirements, enabling more flexible scheduling and supporting vulnerable users through remote participation. The mode of hearing is a judicial decision ensuring the i...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordOffenders: DisadvantagedMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71318More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support is available to help ex-offenders reintegrate into communities in high deprivation areas.
Answer: Effective resettlement of prison leavers is crucial to reduce reoffending. This includes making sure someone has a home, family links where appropriate, access to healthcare, a job or education, and timely access to benefits where needed. Community probat...
Answered 5 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordPrisons: StaffMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71317More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent steps she has taken to increase staffing levels in the prison service.
Answer: We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure, and rehabilitative prisons. We remain committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced and that we retain and build levels of experience. The latest ...
Answered 9 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordCourts: Tees ValleyMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71316More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress she has made in upgrading court buildings in the Tees Valley.
Answer: Historical underfunding has resulted in challenges across the court and tribunal estate. That is why this Government has announced a boost in court capital maintenance and project funding from £120 million last year, to £148.5 million for 2025/26. In 2025...
Answered 4 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordReoffenders: Community OrdersMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71315More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of community sentencing in reducing reoffending.
Answer: There is evidence that community orders and suspended sentence orders are more effective at reducing reoffending than sentences of immediate custody in certain circumstances.Robust analysis (using a matched comparison group to account for cohort differenc...
Answered 5 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordFamily Courts: StandardsMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71314More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to reduce waiting times for family court proceedings.
Answer: Good progress is being made to reduce waiting times in the family court. In public law, average case duration was 33 weeks as at the end of May 2025, which is a four-week reduction since May 2024. In private law, the average case duration in was 38 weeks ...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordCourts: North EastMinistry of JusticeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71313More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of court backlogs in the North East.
Answer: For criminal courts, despite a brief fall at the end of 2024, the open caseload at the Crown court in the North East has steadily increased since 2022, with 10,678 open cases at the end of March 2025.For this financial year (25/26), this Government is fun...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordArson: North EastHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71312More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what support is available for communities in the North East experiencing repeated incidents of arson.
Answer: The Government is committed to tackling and preventing arson. We know the serious impact that arson can have on both individuals and the wider community.We are committed to ensuring fire services have the resources they need to do their vital work and to ...
Answered 11 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordOrganised Crime: North EastHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71311More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to help tackle organised crime networks operating in ports in the North East.
Answer: The Government is committed to tackling serious and organised crime (SOC) across the United Kingdom, including criminal activity at and around our ports. The Home Office works closely with law enforcement partners, including the National Crime Agency (NCA...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordCleveland Fire Brigade: ExpenditureMinistry of Housing, Communities and Local GovernmentTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71310More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what additional resources have been allocated to Cleveland Fire Brigade in the last three financial years.
Answer: On 3 February, the Ministry published the 2025/26 Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS) which sets out funding allocations for all local authorities, including Fire and Rescue Authorities. to support their operational and capital needs.These allocati...
Answered 11 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordPolice: RecruitmentHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71309More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Police Uplift Programme in high-crime areas.
Answer: The Police Uplift Programme supported forces in England and Wales to deliver the recruitment of 20,000 additional police officers by March 2023.The deployment of police officers is a matter for operationally independent Chief Constable and directly electe...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordPolice: North EastHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71308More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress she has made on expanding multi-agency safeguarding hubs across police forces in the North East.
Answer: Multi-agency working is critical to safeguarding children, and multi-agency safeguarding hubs (or ‘multi-agency front doors’) play an important role in the safeguarding system. However, the Government is going further to better protect children, including...
Answered 9 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordFire and Rescue Services: Labour Turnover and RecruitmentMinistry of Housing, Communities and Local GovernmentTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71307More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions she has had with fire and rescue services on recruitment and retention.
Answer: Responsibility for the recruitment and retention of firefighters rests with individual fire and rescue authorities.Since the transfer of Ministerial responsibility for all fire functions from the Home Office to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Loc...
Answered 5 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordTravellers: Caravan SitesHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71306More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to support local authorities in tackling illegal encampments.
Answer: The police and local authorities are equipped with a range of powers to respond to unauthorised encampments. These include long-standing provisions under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, as well as additional powers introduced through the P...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordFraud: North EastHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71305More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of fraud-related crime rates in the North East.
Answer: The Home Office holds data on incidents of fraud reported to Action Fraud by Police Force Area (PFA), which is published each quarter by the ONS and is available at the following link: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/da...
Answered 17 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordEmergency Calls: StandardsHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71304More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to improve emergency call handling times by forces.
Answer: The process handling of emergency and non-emergency calls to the Police is determined by operationally independent local forces, however The Home Office and Policing have undertaken work in support of national consistency and to reduce wait times for the ...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordKnives: Tees ValleyHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71303More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of knife crime incidents in the Tees Valley.
Answer: The Home Office collects information on the number of offences involving a knife or sharp instrument recorded by the police in England and Wales at the Police Force Area level only.The latest published information for Cleveland Police, published by the Of...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament recordCleveland PoliceHome OfficeTabled 29 Aug 2025AnsweredUIN 71302More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many additional police officers have been deployed in Cleveland Police since July 2024.
Answer: The Home Office does not hold the data requested.The Home Office collects and publishes data biannually on the number of police officers, as at 31 March each year, in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin which can be accessed her...
Answered 8 Sept 2025
Original Parliament record
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