Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many sentences have been successfully appealed under the Unduly Lenient Sentences Scheme in each year for which statistics are available.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The number of sentences that have been successfully appealed during the last six years are:
Year | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
AGO contacted | 443 | 498 | 676 | 713 | 837 | 943 |
Referred to Court of Appeal (CA) | 82 | 70 | 122 | 136 | 190 | 173* |
Sentence increased by CA | 62 | 61 | 106 | 102 | 141 | 116 |
* This includes 25 sentences passed in 2017 which have been referred to the Court of Appeal, but which it has not yet considered.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what recent discussions he has had with social media providers on user postings and the provisions of the Contempt of Court Act 1981.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The Law Officers have had no recent discussions with social media providers on users’ postings and the provisions of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. The Attorney General has, however, announced on 15 September 2017 a Call for Evidence to consider the impact of social media on the administration of justice. The Call for Evidence will assess the risks arising from social media to the fairness of criminal trials including contempt of court, the right to anonymity of victims and the integrity of judicial orders in criminal proceedings.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the work of the Serious Fraud Office in investigating and securing convictions for fraud offences.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has played an important role in the fight against serious and complex fraud, bribery and corruption. Between 2012/13 and 2016/17, 66 defendants were convicted from 94 who were prosecuted giving an overall defendant conviction rate of 70.2%. In terms of cases, 31 were successful out of 36. This gives a case conviction rate of 86.1%. In addition the SFO has concluded four deferred prosecution agreements.
The SFO also works closely with other justice partners on tackling serious fraud, as well as participating in a number of strategic delivery and working groups.
The SFO continues to work to improve performance and, following a report by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) in May 2016, progress has been made to bolster governance and ensure greater efficiency.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending the Unduly Lenient Sentences scheme to offences beyond those which are already covered by that scheme.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The Government re-committed in our manifesto that we will extend the scope of the scheme. As a first step, an extension of the scheme to further terrorism offences came into effect last month. We are considering with the Lord Chancellor how further to fulfil our commitment to extending the scheme.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what steps he is taking to improve public legal education.
Answered by Robert Buckland
In July, I launched a Public Legal Education panel to support and drive forward legal education initiatives. Bringing together key organisations will mean a more joined up approach to Public Legal Education and will ensure that more people can reap the benefits of the good work being done.Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what progress has been made on increasing the number of prosecutions for disability hate crime.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has taken a number of steps to improve its prosecution of all strands of hate crime. Specifically they have delivered mandatory face to face disability hate crime training for all prosecutors to deal more effectively with disability hate crime cases.
As a result, the CPS is prosecuting, and convicting, more defendants of disability hate crime than ever before. In 2015-16, the CPS completed 941 disability hate crime prosecutions, an increase of 275 on the previous year.
The proportion of successfully completed prosecutions with an announced and recorded sentence uplift increased to 11.9% from 5.4% the previous year.
The CPS will shortly be publishing a public policy statement on disability hate crime and a Support Guide for victims and witnesses with disabilities.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what recent progress has been made in increasing the prosecution rate for disability hate crime offences.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is committed to tackling disability hate crime and is prosecuting, and convicting, more defendants for disability hate crimes than ever before. In 2015/16, the CPS completed 941 disability hate crime prosecutions, an increase from 666 the previous year and the conviction rate has remained steady at 75%.
The CPS delivered mandatory face to face disability hate crime training between September 2015 and January 2016 to support prosecutors to more effectively deal with disability hate crime cases.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what progress he has made on increasing the number of prosecutions for disability hate crime.
Answered by Robert Buckland
In 2015/16, the CPS completed 941 prosecutions for disability hate crime, an increase of 41.3% on the previous year when it completed 666 prosecutions.
The number of convictions rose from 503 in 2014/15 to 707 in 2015/16, an increase of 40.6%.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what support his Department provides to victim and witness support units.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) continues to support the joint police/CPS Witness Care Units (WCUs) through the provision of staff and key case information that allows the unit to support victims and witnesses throughout the progress of their case. The CPS has also recently implemented Victim Liaison Units (VLUs) in every CPS Area. These dedicated units provide victims with clear explanations of CPS decisions about their cases, in line with our Victims’ Code commitments.