The seven leaders of the Baha’i faith have now served almost five years of their 20-year sentences. Regrettably, there have been no signs to date that the Iranian authorities intend to release them. Meanwhile, the persecution of followers of the Baha’i faith in Iran continues at an alarming level. This and the continuing detention of the Baha’i leaders are matters of serious concern. We therefore call again on Iran to release all seven leaders and to cease its persecution of the Baha’is. Iran must meet its obligations under international law to respect its citizens’ rights to freedom of religion and belief.

It has not been possible to respond to my hon. Friend in the time available before Prorogation.

Prisons will always try and accommodate the requirements of expert witnesses. However operational constraints, including the limited availability of the expert witness or requests for interviews made at short notice, may mean this is not always possible.

Prisons will always try and accommodate the requirements of expert witnesses. However operational constraints, including the limited availability of the expert witness or requests for interviews made at short notice, may mean this is not always possible.

Prisons will always try and accommodate the requirements of expert witnesses. However operational constraints, including the limited availability of the expert witness or requests for interviews made at short notice, may mean this is not always possible.

The Government cannot ignore that we have one of the most expensive legal aid systems in the world, spending more than £l billion of taxpayer's money on criminal legal aid each year. We must ensure we get the very best value for every penny spent. The Government is tackling areas which are eroding public confidence—such as wealthy defendants who can afford to pay their own costs routinely receiving legal aid, prisoners being given legal aid for issues better dealt with via the prisoner complaints system, a small amount of high cost cases swallowing up many millions in public money, and those who do not have a strong connection to this country qualifying for civil legal aid.

The anticipated savings the Ministry of Justice aims to achieve in relation to the three specific areas you have raised are as follows:

(A) Competition:

The purpose of the proposed tendering exercise is for lawyers to compete to offer the taxpayer the best value price for a quality service. Therefore the extent of any savings is dependent upon the outcome of that exercise. In order to ensure the price competition delivers a saving to the legal aid fund, we are proposing to set a price cap at 17.5% below the rates paid in 2012-13 for each class of work in each procurement area, which is expected to ensure savings of £118 million per annum. The figures in the table above reflect the 17.5% reduction.

(B) Prison Law:

As stated in the table above, from 2016-17 this proposal is estimated to save taxpayers approximately £4 million and reduce by around 11,000 the number of criminal legally-aided cases brought by prisoners a year.

(C) Residence Test :

We do not currently collect data on the nationality or immigration status of civil legal aid recipients, so it is not possible to quantify how many people will be affected by this proposal or any associated cost savings. This proposal aims to improve public confidence in the legal aid scheme and to focus our limited resources for civil legal aid on those who have a strong connection to the UK. This is in line with the approach taken across Government to provision of public services.

The Government is clear that legal aid must be available to those who need it, but resources are not limitless.

Restrictions placed on prisoners' access to legal advice are having an impact. In July 2010 we reduced the availability of legal aid for prison law treatment cases, which has already reduced spend. A consultation paper outlining a number of proposed reforms to the legal aid scheme, including a proposal to restrict the scope of criminal legal aid for prison law, was published by the Ministry of Justice on 9 April 2013.

The majority of prison complaints can and should be dealt with through the prison service's complaints system. All prisoners have access to this internal complaint system, which has a clear set of procedures and regulations to fairly hear cases. Even if this has been exhausted a prisoner can refer an issue to the Independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for consideration. In most cases prisoners do not require legal advice to use these processes. A publicly funded lawyer is just unnecessary. We believe our proposals will save taxpayers about £4 million and reduce the number of legally-aided cases brought by prisoners a year by around 11,000.

The details of total criminal legal aid spending on prison law each year from financial years 2007-08 to 2011-12 is in the following table. The amount spent on prison law in financial year 2012-13 is not yet available, but will be published by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) in the summer.

Figures disclosed relate to spend on prison law only rather than legal aid spent on prisoners. The LAA does not identify or record in its databases whether claimants of civil legal aid are prisoners.

The LAA does not hold information on the number of prisoners who were granted legal aid in each of the last five years. This is because the LAA records the number of ‘acts of assistance’, rather than the number of people who receive legal aid. One individual may receive a number of separate acts of assistance, and one act of assistance can help more than one person.

The Government is clear that legal aid must be available to those who need it, but resources are not limitless.

Restrictions placed on prisoners' access to legal advice are having an impact. In July 2010 we reduced the availability of legal aid for prison law treatment cases, which has already reduced spend. A consultation paper outlining a number of proposed reforms to the legal aid scheme, including a proposal to restrict the scope of criminal legal aid for prison law, was published by the Ministry of Justice on 9 April 2013.

The majority of prison complaints can and should be dealt with through the prison service's complaints system. All prisoners have access to this internal complaint system, which has a clear set of procedures and regulations to fairly hear cases. Even if this has been exhausted a prisoner can refer an issue to the Independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for consideration. In most cases prisoners do not require legal advice to use these processes. A publicly funded lawyer is just unnecessary. We believe our proposals will save taxpayers about £4 million and reduce the number of legally-aided cases brought by prisoners a year by around 11,000.

The details of total criminal legal aid spending on prison law each year from financial years 2007-08 to 2011-12 is in the following table. The amount spent on prison law in financial year 2012-13 is not yet available, but will be published by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) in the summer.

Figures disclosed relate to spend on prison law only rather than legal aid spent on prisoners. The LAA does not identify or record in its databases whether claimants of civil legal aid are prisoners.

The LAA does not hold information on the number of prisoners who were granted legal aid in each of the last five years. This is because the LAA records the number of ‘acts of assistance’, rather than the number of people who receive legal aid. One individual may receive a number of separate acts of assistance, and one act of assistance can help more than one person.

It has not been possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation. I will write to the hon. Member in due course.

It has not been possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation. I will write to the hon. Member in due course.

The National Offender Management Service's central accounting system has a single accounting code for prisoners' earnings. It does not distinguish, for example, between prisoners' pay and other incentive payments. To separate out the amount earned by prisoners who participated in purposeful activity or the amount paid in specific incentive payments would require examining a high volume of local individual records from each establishment and this would incur disproportionate costs.

The following table shows the total amount spent on prisoners' earnings over the last five years:

When NOMS last conducted a survey of prisoner pay, in 2007, average prisoner pay was £9.60 per week. Work which prisoners undertake covers a range of tasks, such as cleaning within prisons. This reduces the need for external contractors to undertake the work at higher costs.

It is in practice impossible for an offender working inside a prison to earn sufficient pay that would reach the usual tax thresholds. However, prisoners working inside prison under Prison Rules are not technically classed as employees and as such are not liable to tax, unlike prisoners on "working out" schemes who are eligible for tax on any earnings.

Existing policy on Prisoners' Pay is set out in Prison Service Order 4460, a copy of which is available in the House of Commons Library.

It has not been possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not been possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The United Kingdom is a signatory to 28 bilateral prisoner transfer agreements. From 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2012, 65 prisoners were transferred to and from the United Kingdom and countries who are signatories to the bilateral prisoner transfer agreements

In addition to the 28 bilateral prisoner transfer agreements, the United Kingdom is a signatory to three multilateral agreements, which are the Council of Europe convention on the transfer of sentenced persons, the scheme for the transfer of convicted offenders within the Commonwealth and the European Union prisoner transfer agreement. A further 697 prisoners have transferred under these arrangements between 2007 and 2012 under multilateral prisoner transfer agreements

The number of prisoners transferred between 2007 and 2012 under the bilateral prisoner transfer agreements is set out in the following table:

The figures given in the table relate to England and Wales only. The transfer of prisoners to Scotland and to Northern Ireland is a devolved matter, and is therefore the responsibility of the relevant Minister.

The numbers reported here are drawn from a Prison Service case tracking system. Care is taken when processing these cases but the figures may subject to inaccuracies associated with any recording system.

It is Government policy that foreign national prisoners should serve their sentences in prisons in their own country. We will seek to return Mr Burinskas to Lithuania at the earliest opportunity.

It has not been possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation. I will write to the hon. Member in due course.

We are advised by Public Health England that data is not collected centrally about the actual number of prisoners receiving abstinence-based treatment, methadone or other drug substitutes. Data is collected on the total number of methadone prescriptions and abstinence-based treatments issued in the course of a reporting year and the following table shows data for the five most recently available years. However, prisoners may receive more than one prescription or course of treatment in the course of a reporting year so data do not accurately record the actual number of prisoners receiving these treatments.

Unless there are clinical reasons to the contrary, prisoners expected to serve a sentence of three months or more will work towards becoming drug free, including undertaking an abstinence programme if clinically appropriate. This approach was endorsed by guidance issued by the Recovery Orientated Drug Treatment Expert Group in 2012. The national drug treatment monitoring system (NDTMS) was introduced in prisons in 2012-13 and will assist with assessing how effectively the new guidance is being implemented. NDTMS will also provide data on whether the correct balance between maintenance and detoxification is being achieved and improvements to the quality and extent of available data from NDTMS should be available after 2013-14.

Data on how many prisoners are readmitted to opiate substitution treatment before release from prison is not collected centrally. The decision to initiate treatment in this way is a clinical decision made on a case-by-case basis. All prisoners who have been engaged in structured drug treatment while in custody should undergo a pre-release review by the prison substance misuse team, primarily to ensure that the necessary continuity of care arrangements are in place.

The completion of pre-release reviews has been monitored as part of the performance management

arrangements which accompanies the NDTMS across all English prisons and young offender institutions from April 2012.

We are advised by Public Health England that data is not collected centrally about the actual number of prisoners receiving abstinence-based treatment, methadone or other drug substitutes. Data is collected on the total number of methadone prescriptions and abstinence-based treatments issued in the course of a reporting year and the following table shows data for the five most recently available years. However, prisoners may receive more than one prescription or course of treatment in the course of a reporting year so data do not accurately record the actual number of prisoners receiving these treatments.

Unless there are clinical reasons to the contrary, prisoners expected to serve a sentence of three months or more will work towards becoming drug free, including undertaking an abstinence programme if clinically appropriate. This approach was endorsed by guidance issued by the Recovery Orientated Drug Treatment Expert Group in 2012. The national drug treatment monitoring system (NDTMS) was introduced in prisons in 2012-13 and will assist with assessing how effectively the new guidance is being implemented. NDTMS will also provide data on whether the correct balance between maintenance and detoxification is being achieved and improvements to the quality and extent of available data from NDTMS should be available after 2013-14.

Data on how many prisoners are readmitted to opiate substitution treatment before release from prison is not collected centrally. The decision to initiate treatment in this way is a clinical decision made on a case-by-case basis. All prisoners who have been engaged in structured drug treatment while in custody should undergo a pre-release review by the prison substance misuse team, primarily to ensure that the necessary continuity of care arrangements are in place.

The completion of pre-release reviews has been monitored as part of the performance management

arrangements which accompanies the NDTMS across all English prisons and young offender institutions from April 2012.

The Government's cross-departmental drug strategy promotes the recovery of those dependent on drugs, including offenders. There are drug recovery wings in prison which offer specific support for offenders to recover from dependence. Ministers for Justice and Health are members of the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) on Drugs which discusses progress on the strategy regularly.

My Lords, the European Court’s judgment did not find sentences of imprisonment for public protection to be unlawful. Therefore, it remains for the Parole Board to determine whether to direct the release of an IPP prisoner once he has completed his tariff. The National Offender Management Service continues to improve opportunities for IPP prisoners to progress towards release.