National Preventive Mechanism Ninth Annual Report 2017–18 This recommendation was not accepted and the Bill was subsequently withdrawn following the announcement of a General Election and the dissolution of parliament on 3 May 2017. The government subsequently confirmed that it would not reintroduce the Bill in the new parliament. In June 2017, the acting Director General of Justice and Courts Policy Group replied to the NPM Chair’s letter of January 2017. This letter confirmed that the position of the MoJ was that the NPM complies with the requirements of OPCAT without the need for a legislative basis.45 In light of this, the NPM wrote to the SPT seeking its advice on the lack of legislative basis for the NPM and what is required for compliance with OPCAT.46 The SPT replied to this letter in January 2018, confirming the view of the NPM that OPCAT requires it to be placed on a clear legislative basis and noting that the SPT would welcome the opportunity to clarify its position with the UK government at the earliest opportunity.47 Following this, the NPM has encouraged the UK government, through the MoJ, to meet with the SPT to discuss the requirements of OPCAT. Alongside efforts to secure a statutory footing, the NPM has continued to meet with officials from the MoJ to discuss other opportunities to strengthen the independence of the NPM and to raise awareness about its role. These meetings resulted in a commitment from the MoJ to develop a protocol between the NPM and the MoJ, setting out guarantees of independence for the NPM and its powers under OPCAT. The NPM has made it clear that this is an interim step to recognition in legislation. It was also welcome that the MoJ committed to hosting (alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) a meeting with key government stakeholders, devolved administrations and NPM members to develop awareness of the NPM, its role and to strengthen relationships between these different stakeholders. This event is expected to take place in 2018–19. The NPM Secretariat sought additional funding from the MoJ to undertake the work required to ensure it can fulfil its OPCAT mandate. This request was not met. In addition, towards the end of the year, several members of the NPM reported that they would be required by the UK Government to make cuts to their budgets for 2018–19. In addition to work to strengthen its independence, the NPM has continued work to strengthen its inspection and monitoring practices. As in the previous year, the NPM and its members worked with Professor Rachel Murray and Dr Judy Laing from the Human Rights Implementation Centre at Bristol University on two projects. The first project aims to examine the extent of compliance of the lay visiting schemes within the NPM with OPCAT. It is hoped that the results of this project will be published in the coming year. As noted above, the second project relates to identifying and reporting incidents of ill-treatment in detention. 45 The letter is available at https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/npm-prod-storage-19n0nag2nk8xk/uploads/2018/02/ Response-from-Scott-McPherson-to-JW-re-NPM-independence-1306170.pdf, accessed 19 July 2018. 46 See Appendix III of this report. 47 Ibid. 38