Joanna Cherry
Main Page: Joanna Cherry (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh South West)Department Debates - View all Joanna Cherry's debates with the Attorney General
(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Solicitor General
I reiterate that the police should follow the evidence wherever it leads. There should be no presumptions of truth or otherwise and they should objectively and fairly investigate cases before presenting them to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Is the Solicitor General aware that Scotland’s conviction rate for rape and sexual offences has increased significantly over the past few years as a result of setting up a centralised national sexual crimes unit in Edinburgh, in which the specialist prosecutors oversee the prosecution of all sexual crime across Scotland? I am sure that Scotland’s Law Officers would be very happy if England’s Law Officers wanted to visit and learn more about it.
The Solicitor General
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for raising that matter. The scale involved in England and Wales is slightly bigger, so they have taken the regional unit approach, but I entirely agree with her about the need to standardise practice. The Attorney General and I are always very conscious of that in our conversations with the Director of Public Prosecutions and the chief executive of the Crown Prosecution Service, and work is being done to improve that standardisation.