After a two-and-a-half-month break punctuated only by a fortnight back at Westminster and a week for each party conference, it is only natural that MPs are itching to get back to work.

None more so, it would seem, than shadow justice minister Imran Hussain. The Bradford MP and barrister near-bombarded the Ministry of Justice with written questions on his return this month, tabling 37 questions to the department in a single day (as well as a handful relating to health, transport and defence).

Hussain wants to know, amongst other things, about drug programmes in prisons, licence recalls for prisoners and a list of the books banned for people serving time.

At the time of writing, ministers had yet to answer any of his latest queries, although they had responded to five of his questions hanging over from the last sitting in September.

Hussain’s colleague Jon Trickett, meanwhile, may have already elicited the best response of this session following his question on the cost to the government of defending employment tribunal fees in the court.

Trickett wanted to know what the taxpayer had forked out for lawyers to fight the Unison case right up to the Supreme Court, only for the fees to be declared unlawful. Was the MoJ’s spending disproportionate? We don't know -  but the cost of answering the question would certainly be, according to justice minister Dominic Raab's well-worn reply. 

 

 

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