Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

It is true that clients in the Departments are billed by TSOL, but this is a lean process and fees are being kept down at a reasonable level.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

5. Whether the Crown Prosecution Service is always informed when an undercover police officer has been involved in an investigation that leads to a prosecution.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

The CPS should always be informed. The CPS signed a memorandum of understanding in June 2012 with the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which ensures investigators and prosecutors work closely together when covert operations are embarked upon where there is clear potential for a prosecution.

[Ian Mearns]

The former police Minister said undercover police officers could have sex with suspects if abstaining would blow their cover. Does the Attorney-General agree with the Northumbria police and crime commissioner and former Solicitor-General, Vera Baird, that the sexual activities of some of these undercover officers when they enter into a relationship with protestors may fall within the definition of rape?

[The Attorney-General]

I think the hon. Gentleman is asking me for a legal opinion, which I do not think I am in a position to provide across the Floor of the House. That was the thrust of his question, but what I can say is that the CPS takes very seriously the fact that if there is covert police activity it must be informed about it, because it is highly relevant to the conduct of any prosecution.