Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, pursuant to the Answer of 6 May 2025 to Question 48266 on Equality, whether the proposed socio-economic duty will apply to the Law Officers.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The public sector duty regarding socio-economic inequalities will apply to the public authorities listed in section 1(3) of the Equality Act 2010. That list includes a Minister of the Crown. The duty will therefore apply to the Law Officers as Ministers of the Crown.

The duty is not yet in force in England. Once in force, the duty will require public authorities, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise their functions, to have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many people have been prosecuted for flying a drone in a Restricted Fly Zone around (a) closed prisons and (b) young offender institutions since January 2024.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, what information his Department holds on the number of people that have been prosecuted for facilitating forced marriages in each year since 2010 and broken down by local authority area.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

Offences relating to forced marriages are created by s121 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which came into force in June 2014. Section 121 was further amended in February 2023 when s121(3A) was inserted making it an offence to force a child under the age of 18 into a marriage.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information from 2015 which shows the number of offences charged by way of s121 (forced marriage) in which a prosecution commenced. Table 1 below shows the number of these offences from 1^st April 2015 to 30^th September 2025.

The figures relate to the number of offences and not the number of individual defendants. It can be the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same complainant. No data are held showing the final outcome or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at finalisation.

In addition to the offence-based data, management information is held showing the number of defendants flagged with the forced marriage monitoring flag who were prosecuted from 1^st April 2010 to 30^th September 2025. Table 2 shows the number of flagged defendants prosecuted during this period.

The CPS forced marriage monitoring flag applies to any person who commits an offence under the law of England and Wales if he or she (a) uses violence, threats, or any other form of coercion for the purpose of causing another person to enter into a marriage, and (b) believes, or ought reasonably to believe, that the conduct may cause the other person to enter into the marriage without free and full consent.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many prosecutions for human trafficking or sexual exploitation offences in each of the last three calendar years involved two or more defendants charged as part of the same case.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information which shows the number of prosecuted defendants flagged with the modern slavery (human trafficking) monitoring flag where 2 or more defendants have been prosecuted on the same case. The data is derived using a manual process as the CPS Case Management Information System does not report this information. As with any manual exercise, the data may be subject to errors in processing and the information is for operational use only.

The table below shows the flagged prosecution data (where 2 or more defendants have been prosecuted on the same cases) for the last three calendar years ending 31^st December 2024.

The CPS define modern slavery as the following – for offences committed prior to 31^st July 2015 ss57-59A Sexual Offences Act 2003, s4 Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004, s71 Coroners and Justice 2009 and for offences committed after the Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force on the 31^st July 2015, s1, 2 and 4 of the Act. Included in the definition are the inchoate versions of the listed offences.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the Attorney General fast-tracked the prosecution of Lucy Connolly in August 2024; and what reference he made to the Code for Crown Prosecutors to support that decision.

Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General

There were a number of similar prosecutions at the time which were responded to in the same manner and timeline. Between 9 and 14 August, the AG responded to 14 other applications for consent in similar matters. 11 of those had a decision within 24 hours, a similar timescale to that in which consent to prosecute was granted in respect of Lucy Connolly.

Certain offences require Law Officer consent to prosecute, and inciting racial hatred is one such offence. The Attorney General provided consent to the DPP to prosecute for this case under the Public Order Act 1986.

When providing consent, the Law Officers must be satisfied that the evidential test and the public interest test of the Code for Crown Prosecutors are met. This case and all similar cases were considered by reference to the test in the usual way.

When applying for consent, the CPS will independently provide an indication of proposed timescales for consent to be in place, and wherever possible the AGO will work to those.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, whether they will require their department and agencies to offer payroll deductions to all employees to enable them to join a credit union.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The AGO or its sponsored departments do not offer payroll deduction facility to employees to enable them to join a credit union.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, what information his Department holds on the number of people that have been prosecuted for honour-based offences broken down by (a) local authority area and (b) category of offence in each year since 2010.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The CPS define ‘honour’ based abuse as an incident or crime involving violence, threats of violence, intimidation coercion or abuse (including psychological, physical, sexual, financial, or emotional abuse) which has or may have been committed to protect or defend the honour of an individual, family and/ or community for alleged or perceived breaches of the family and/or community's code of behaviour. These data are accurate only to the extent that the flag is accurately applied.

Management information is available from 2010 which shows the number of prosecuted defendants flagged with the so-called honour-based abuse monitoring flag. The number of prosecuted defendants last year were at their highest level for seven years.

Table 1 (below) shows this information from 1^st April 2010 to 30^th September 2025, and Table 2 provides the same information by the Principal Offence Category allocated to the defendant at the conclusion of the prosecution proceeding.

Table 1 – Prosecuted defendants charged with ‘honour’ based abuse monitoring flag

Table 2 – Prosecuted defendants by principal offence category and flagged with the ‘honour’ based abuse monitoring flag

Data source: CPS Case Management Information System

The CPS collects data to assist in the effective management of its prosecution functions through its Case Management System (CMS). The CPS does not collect data that constitutes official statistics as defined in the Statistics and Registration Act 2007.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many nights were spent in hotels by Departmental staff in financial year 2024-25 by the star rating of the hotel.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

In 2024-25 there were a total of 61 nights spent in hotels by departmental staff where overnight stays were essential for departmental business. These are broken down in the following table.

For the hotels that do not have a star rating, these are classed as budget hotels.

Found: Fraud Office (SFO) is a non-ministerial Government department under the superintendence of the Attorney General

Found: Finally, I will work with the Home Secretary and Attorney General to create a single, shared vision

Found: The Prime Minister and the Attorney General had also set out the Government’s commitment to the 3

Found: The Attorney General and I have taken a particular interest in the report, given the thematic continuity

Found: Minister Sackman told us that the Government had been presented by court staff, judges and the Attorney General

Found: Officials Relevant Conclusions and Recommendations: Conclusion: “We are satisfied that the current Attorney General

Found: Recently the Bermuda Attorney General addressed the Committee, confirming Bermuda’s positive UK partnership

Found: government, and we propose a structural reshaping of the CMA, and, when needed, the use of the Attorney-General

Found: Wheatley, Premier, British Virgin Islands; The Hon Kim Wilkerson JP, Attorney-General, Bermuda.

Found: Ministerial responsibility lies with the Attorney General.

Found: We have had the Attorney- General, the Minister for Justice and the Foreign Secretary starting to make

Found: your bundle of documents in fulfilment of Standing Order 142 for these processes, where the Attorney-General

Found: your bundle of documents in fulfilment of Standing Order 142 for these processes, where the Attorney-General

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to parts 1 and 2 of the Service Justice System Review, published on 29 March 2018 and 29 March 2019, if he will amend the Armed Forces Bill to exclude rape and sexual assault with penetration from Court Martial jurisdiction except when the consent of the Attorney General is given.

Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)

There are no plans to amend the Armed Forces Bill in the way proposed. There have been significant improvements to investigations, prosecutions and victim support in the Service Justice System since the Lyons Review and the House of Commons’ Defence Committee’s previous recommendation. The Defence Serious Crime Command is implementing national standards set by the College of Policing through the Professionalising Investigations Programme and the National Operating Model under Operation Soteria, in line with National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing guidance. This ensures that investigations into rape and serious sexual offences are victim-centred, suspect-focused, and consistent with nationally recognised policing standards. The Victim Witness Care Unit provides independent, trauma-informed and end-to-end support. Reports by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate independently verify the progress made.

Sir Brian Leveson’s July 2025 Independent Review of the Criminal Courts stated that “criminal justice is in crisis” with cases being listed as far ahead as 2029, while the Court Martial has no backlogs and cases progress without delay. In the civilian system 19% of victims withdraw from adult-rape-flagged proceedings in the Crown Court; in the Court Martial none withdrew in 2024.

Whilst conviction rates cannot be reliably compared, published data does not support claims that the conviction rate is higher in the Crown Court. The conviction rate for adult-rape-flagged cases in the Court Martial, excluding guilty pleas, is 51% from 2022 to 2024 compared to 36% in the Crown Court.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether her Department has sought a legal assessment from the Attorney General on the legal status of the US-proposed Board of Peace.

Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

I refer the Hon Member to the answers that the Foreign Secretary and I provided on this issue at departmental oral questions on 20 January. We will keep the House updated on further developments as international discussions on the 20-point plan continue.

Found: secondments of staff; favourable costs awarded; cost awards made by the courts in favour of the Attorney General

Found: secondments of staff; favourable costs awarded; cost awards made by the courts in favour of the Attorney General

Found: Applications and Declarations Section 7 CMP Revocation Final Judgments Outcome 14 HM Attorney General

Found: and Declarations Section 7 CMP Revocation Final Judgments Outcome General v BBC HM Attorney General

Found: The case began by the Attorney General of Northern Ireland making a ‘reference’ to the Supreme Court

Found: includes recommendations for law reform on issues of liability for contempt and the role of the Attorney General

Found: includes recommendations for law reform on issues of liability for contempt and the role of the Attorney General

Found: includes recommendations for law reform on issues of liability for contempt and the role of the Attorney General

Found: sentences the judge could have reasonably considered appropriate in the circumstances. 9.6 If the Attorney General

Found: Courts Bill to amend the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme by amending the timescales for the Attorney General

Found: Decision in its entirety that the FTT was not in this introductory passage referring to what the Attorney General

Found: to account via regular appearances at Select Committees and via the superintendence of the Attorney General

Found: former practitioner at the Bar of Ireland, subsequently as a legal adviser in the Office of the Attorney General

Found: former practitioner at the Bar of Ireland, subsequently as a legal adviser in the Office of the Attorney General

Found: The Attorney General for England and Wales was also looking at this issue.