Justice Committee: weekly update

1 December 2017

At the end of sitting weeks the Justice Committee publishes a brief summary of its activities in the form of a weekly update.

This week

This week we met on Tuesday for a private meeting.

At that meeting we discussed and agreed our Pre-legislative scrutiny: draft personal injury discount rate clause Report.

We also agreed to publish five letters and considered several other papers relating to our current and future work.

Also on Tuesday, we met our counterparts from the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee to discuss areas of mutual interest both in terms of policy and ways of working.

On Thursday, we visited HM Young Offender Institution Cookham Wood, HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Rochester, and Medway Secure Training Centre.

Report: Pre-legislative scrutiny: draft personal injury discount rate clause

We published our Report on the Government's proposed legislation on the personal injury discount rate on Thursday 30 November.

We undertook this inquiry at the request of the Government, who asked us to report our views by the end of November.

You can read our Report on our website.

Prison visit

On Thursday, we visited HM Young Offender Institution Cookham Wood, HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Rochester, and Medway Secure Training Centre.

This gave us an opportunity to speak to offenders in these institutions as well as the Governors and staff who work there.

Inquiries with open calls for written evidence

You can still submit evidence to the Committee through its evidence portal for the following inquiries:

Prison population 2022: planning for the future (initial written evidence deadline Monday 4 December): Read the terms of reference

Transforming Rehabilitation (the initial deadline for written submissions was 17 November, however, the portal remains open for further submissions): Read the terms of reference

Guidance: Written submissions

Published correspondence

This week we agreed to publish several pieces of correspondence:

Chair's letter to Dr Phillip Lee MP on his comments at the evidence session on 7 November about arrangements for that session
Letter from Philip Bowen, Director, Centre for Justice, on the young adults at court project
Letter from Sam Gyimah MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice, following up on the 18 October evidence session on the work of the Parole Board
Letter from Dr Phillip Lee MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice, on support for vulnerable and intimidated witnesses giving evidence
Letter from Rt Hon David Lidington CBE MP, Secretary of State for Justice, following up on the 25 October evidence session on the work of the Ministry of Justice.

Future business

Next week we have no formal meetings.

Our next public oral evidence session will be on 13 December. You will be able to come along to watch this session or you can watch it online at parliamentlive.tv.