Asked by: Glyn Davies (Conservative - Montgomeryshire)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of introducing a new criminal offence of failure to prevent economic crime on the number of prosecutions for such crimes.
Answered by Jeremy Wright - Shadow Attorney General
Under existing law, a company only faces criminal liability if prosecutors can prove a sufficiently senior person knew about the criminal conduct. It can be extremely hard to prove this, especially in large companies with complex management structures.
A new failure to prevent offence could help prosecutors hold all companies to account for criminal conduct and bring some positive changes in corporate culture.
Asked by: Glyn Davies (Conservative - Montgomeryshire)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what the policy is of the Crown Prosecution Service in prosecuting cases of encouraging or assisting suicide.
Answered by Robert Buckland
When prosecuting cases of encouraging or assisting suicide, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutors make decisions in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the Director of Public Prosecutions Policy for Prosecutors in respect of cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide.
Following the recent Supreme Court Judgement in the case of ‘Nicklinson and others’, the policy was updated on the 16 October 2014 to clarify issues raised regarding healthcare professionals (and others with similar responsibilities for individuals).
A copy of the updated policy is available on the CPS website at: http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/assisted_suicide_policy.html