Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the spirit in which he asked his question. I can tell him that the total value of cost awards against the CPS was only 0.2% of its budget, and that, within that percentage, identifying specific errors of law was going to be very difficult. However, I can assure him that only 142 appeals against conviction were allowed last year, and that very few of those will have involved an error of law on the part of a CPS lawyer. An error might well have been made by the trial judge, or might have been made at some other point in the system, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the number of errors of law committed purely by CPS lawyers is very small indeed.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

8. When he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss the length of pre-charge bail.

[The Attorney-General (Jeremy Wright)]

I regularly meet the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss matters affecting the CPS, as my hon. Friend might expect. We discussed the Home Office’s consultation paper on limiting police pre-charge bail before it was published, and I expect the CPS to contribute to that consultation.

[Mr Chope]

How would my right hon. and learned Friend feel if, like one of my constituents, he was subjected to the ignominy of a highly publicised arrest, suspended from his job, and put on pre-charge bail for 11 months before being released without charge? How is such oppressive treatment of innocent people consistent with the spirit of Magna Carta?

[The Attorney-General]

I do not think that oppressive treatment is consistent with the spirit of Magna Carta. In this of all years, we should consider very carefully what my hon. Friend has said, and I think that that is why the Home Secretary initiated the consultation. We need to consider all aspects of this matter. It is right to balance against the important points that my hon. Friend has made the need to ensure that, in complex cases, investigation is given its proper time, and that victims and witnesses are protected, as they can be, by conditions attached to pre-charge bail. However, he is right in what he says, which is why we are considering the issue.