Asked by: Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour - Calder Valley)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the amount of time taken by the Crown Prosecution Service to reach charging decisions in domestic abuse cases.
Answered by Andy Slaughter - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Tackling domestic abuse is a top priority for the government under our commitment to halve violence against women and girls.
Domestic abuse flagged charging decisions continue to have shorter timeframes than those for crime overall. In 2025/26, the mean average time from referral to charge in domestic abuse flagged cases was 25 days, compared with 44 days across all crime types. The median time from referral to charge was one day, indicating that many charging decisions were made shortly after referral to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). In addition, 74.9% of charging consultations in domestic abuse flagged cases were completed within 28 days, higher than the 71.7% recorded across crime overall.
The CPS continues to work with criminal justice partners to improve the timeliness of charging decisions, particularly in more complex cases where further evidence may be required before a charging decision can be made. Through the CPS and National Police Chiefs’ (NPCC) Council Domestic Abuse Joint Justice Plan, the CPS is working closely with policing partners through the Pathfinder Programme to strengthen early collaboration between police and prosecutors, improve case quality, and support more timely progression from investigation to charging decision.
Alongside this, the CPS, NPCC and Home Office are currently piloting the Charging Authority Project across England and Wales, enabling the police to charge in select domestic abuse cases and forming part of wider efforts across the criminal justice system to reduce delays and improve the handling of cases. This initiative is being piloted in two CPS Areas, with plans for expansion currently being considered.
These charging initiatives form part of the CPS's objective to strengthen the handling of domestic abuse cases and deliver effective charging decisions, helping victims to access justice sooner while ensuring offenders are held to account.
Asked by: Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour - Calder Valley)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many social media accounts their Department operates; and how much their Department spent on social media (a) subscriptions and (b) advertisements on each social media platform in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government communicates across a range of media channels in order to reach its target audience effectively. Channels are selected based on whether they will reach the intended audience on a specific issue to have the most impact.
Social media is an essential part of government communications and is used to inform the public directly about matters which may affect their lives or interests.
The Attorney General’s Office operates five social media accounts across X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Threads. It has not spent any money on social media subscriptions or advertisements in the last three years.
Asked by: Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour - Calder Valley)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many agricultural crime offences in Calderdale District resulted in suspects being (a) charged, (b) convicted and (c) not convicted in each year since 2010.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the impact that crimes of theft have on all our communities, whether rural or urban, and we are committed to tackling the problem.
There is no specific legal definition of agricultural crime and therefore data on it cannot be collated. However, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds data on the number of prosecutions where the principal offence category was theft and handling stolen goods.
It is important to note that CPS principal offence category data is only extracted from the Case Management Information System once the prosecution case has been finalised, this means that the following offence data only relates to completed prosecutions and not any ongoing prosecutions.
From 2010 to date, the CPS has prosecuted 57,641 cases with a theft and handling stolen goods principal offence category originating from the West Yorkshire police force area. Of these, 52,286 resulted in a conviction and only 5,355 resulted in an acquittal.