Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what steps his Department has taken to minimise disruption to the work of the Serious Fraud Office in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The SFO has already put contingency plans in place to ensure minimal disruption to its casework in the event of no deal. This includes delivering training and awareness sessions and reviewing cases that are using or will use EU tools and measures. In addition an exercise is underway to recruit six additional staff members to support case teams when the UK exits the EU.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of knife related incidents that have not resulted in a successful prosecution in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) the UK in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of the number of cases relating to knife crime incidents that have not resulted in a successful prosecution. This information could only be obtained by examining CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.
National figures on selected offences involving a knife or sharp instrument may be obtained from the Crime in England and Wales Bulletin Tables published by the Office of National Statistics.
National figures on the numbers of prosecutions and outcomes for specific criminal offences including possession of weapons may be obtained from the official statistics published by the Ministry of Justice.
Prosecutions for knife related incidents may be brought by way of Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 which provides for the offence of possession of a bladed or pointed article in a public place or Section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 which makes the possession of an offensive weapon in a public place an offence.
The information held by CPS on such offences is limited to the number of offences in which a CPS prosecution was charged and which reached a first hearing in the Magistrates Court. The tables below show the number of these offences for England and Wales and the West Midlands CPS Area.
Table 1 - England & Wales | ||||||||
| 2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | 2012-2013 | 2013-2014 | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 |
Criminal Justice Act 1988 { 139 } | 12,717 | 12,641 | 10,483 | 11,090 | 11,712 | 13,261 | 15,204 | 16,619 |
Prevention of Crime Act 1953 { 1 } | 12,387 | 11,272 | 9,460 | 8,846 | 9,018 | 9,821 | 10,789 | 10,906 |
Table 2 - West Midlands CPS Area | ||||||||
| 2010-2011 | 2011-2012 | 2012-2013 | 2013-2014 | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 |
Criminal Justice Act 1988 { 139 } | 1,147 | 1,259 | 1,036 | 1,078 | 1,145 | 1,455 | 1,676 | 1,890 |
Prevention of Crime Act 1953 { 1 } | 1,123 | 1,054 | 822 | 877 | 914 | 994 | 1,158 | 1,183 |
It should be noted that the figures relate to the number of offences and not the number of individual defendants. It is often the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, if he will estimate the costs attributed to the Department for Education by the Government Legal Department since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Treasury Solicitor’s Department was renamed the Government Legal Department (GLD) on 1 April 2015. It is primarily funded through the fees it charges for its legal services. It provides Litigation, Employment, Commercial and Advisory legal services to the Department for Education (DfE). The fees charged to DfE for this work, including the cost of disbursements, are as follows:
Financial year | Fees (excluding VAT) £ |
2010-11 | 4,208,845 |
2011-12 | 4,499,546 |
2012-13 | 4,805,840 |
2013-14 | 4,409,976 |
2014-15 | 4,098,629 |
Providing information on the costs attributed to cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would incur disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual exercise to identify those historical cases that relate to FOI.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, if he will estimate the costs attributed to the Department for Education by the former Treasury Solicitor's Department in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Treasury Solicitor’s Department was renamed the Government Legal Department (GLD) on 1 April 2015. It is primarily funded through the fees it charges for its legal services. It provides Litigation, Employment, Commercial and Advisory legal services to the Department for Education (DfE). The fees charged to DfE for this work, including the cost of disbursements, are as follows:
Financial year | Fees (excluding VAT) £ |
2010-11 | 4,208,845 |
2011-12 | 4,499,546 |
2012-13 | 4,805,840 |
2013-14 | 4,409,976 |
2014-15 | 4,098,629 |
Providing information on the costs attributed to cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would incur disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual exercise to identify those historical cases that relate to FOI.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, if he will estimate the costs attributed to the Department for Education in cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by the Government Legal Department since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Treasury Solicitor’s Department was renamed the Government Legal Department (GLD) on 1 April 2015. It is primarily funded through the fees it charges for its legal services. It provides Litigation, Employment, Commercial and Advisory legal services to the Department for Education (DfE). The fees charged to DfE for this work, including the cost of disbursements, are as follows:
Financial year | Fees (excluding VAT) £ |
2010-11 | 4,208,845 |
2011-12 | 4,499,546 |
2012-13 | 4,805,840 |
2013-14 | 4,409,976 |
2014-15 | 4,098,629 |
Providing information on the costs attributed to cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would incur disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual exercise to identify those historical cases that relate to FOI.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, if he will publish an estimate of the costs attributed to the Department for Education in cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by the former Treasury Solicitor's Department in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Treasury Solicitor’s Department was renamed the Government Legal Department (GLD) on 1 April 2015. It is primarily funded through the fees it charges for its legal services. It provides Litigation, Employment, Commercial and Advisory legal services to the Department for Education (DfE). The fees charged to DfE for this work, including the cost of disbursements, are as follows:
Financial year | Fees (excluding VAT) £ |
2010-11 | 4,208,845 |
2011-12 | 4,499,546 |
2012-13 | 4,805,840 |
2013-14 | 4,409,976 |
2014-15 | 4,098,629 |
Providing information on the costs attributed to cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would incur disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual exercise to identify those historical cases that relate to FOI.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many prosecutions there have been for shoplifting in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Theft from a shop is one way in which the offence of Theft contrary to Section 1(1) & 7 of the Theft Act 1968 is committed. There is no specific offence of that title. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of the number of prosecutions for the specific offence of shoplifting. Identifying the number of prosecutions in which there was one or more charges relating to theft from a shop would require a manual exercise to review individual files which would incur a disproportionate cost.
The CPS does maintain a central record of the number of offences of shoplifting charged under section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in magistrates’ courts. It is not possible to identify the number of defendants or cases prosecuted from this data. The table below shows the number of shoplifting offences that reached a first hearing for the last five years:
Theft Act 1968 { 1(1) and 7 }: Theft from a shop | |
2009-2010 | 111,386 |
2010-2011 | 115,112 |
2011-2012 | 116,115 |
2012-2013 | 113,258 |
2013-2014 | 124,621 |
The CPS’s offences data provides no indication of the final prosecution outcome, or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at the time of finalisation. It is also often the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same victim.