Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many prosecutions for criminal financial sanctions breaches the Crown Prosecution Service has prosecuted in each of the last three years.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The CPS does not record or hold the requested data centrally on prosecutions for criminal financial sanctions breaches. The information could only be obtained by completing manual case file reviews, which would be at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many referrals the Crown Prosecution Service has received from the National Crime Agency's International Corruption Unit for charging decisions for each year in the last five years.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The CPS is committed to tackling economic crime, including where these crimes span multiple jurisdictions. The CPS works closely with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and other investigative agencies; this includes providing early investigative advice on cases, obtaining evidence from overseas using mutual legal assistance and proving support through its network of prosecutors deployed overseas.
The CPS does not breakdown referrals by individual departments within the NCA. The following data is available which shows the number of cases received by the CPS Specialist Fraud Division from the National Crime Agency for pre-charge decisions.
Pre-charge decision receipts
| 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 |
| 11 | 26 | 20 | 6 | 42 |
The following shows number of cases where charging decisions have been reached.
Pre-charge decision finalisations
| 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 |
| 0 | 2 | 26 | 42 | 34 |
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many cases referred by the National Crime Agency's International Corruption Unit the Crown Prosecution Service has reached charging decisions on for each year in the last five years.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The CPS is committed to tackling economic crime, including where these crimes span multiple jurisdictions. The CPS works closely with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and other investigative agencies; this includes providing early investigative advice on cases, obtaining evidence from overseas using mutual legal assistance and proving support through its network of prosecutors deployed overseas.
The CPS does not breakdown referrals by individual departments within the NCA. The following data is available which shows the number of cases received by the CPS Specialist Fraud Division from the National Crime Agency for pre-charge decisions.
Pre-charge decision receipts
| 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 |
| 11 | 26 | 20 | 6 | 42 |
The following shows number of cases where charging decisions have been reached.
Pre-charge decision finalisations
| 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 |
| 0 | 2 | 26 | 42 | 34 |
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what progress his Department has made in ensuring that the UK has adequate corporate criminal liability for economic crime.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Call for Evidence on Corporate Criminal Liability for Economic Crime contained a number of different options for reform, including a proposal to extend the failure to prevent offence to wider economic crimes other than bribery or tax evasion. The Government’s response is expected to be issued in 2019.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many times the Serious Fraud Office has requested beneficial ownership information from each register of beneficial ownership from the UK's Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies since 1 July 2017.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The SFO does request information from the UK's Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies as well as other overseas partners in relation to its ongoing investigations. However, for operational reasons the SFO does not provide details of such requests as it could prejudice the conduct of those investigations.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 25 October 2016 to Question 49510, from whom the Serious Fraud Office first received information concerning allegations of bribery and corruption at Rolls Royce.
Answered by Robert Buckland
It is not the SFO’s policy to disclose information about the source of what are confidential reports about an alleged criminal offence, or the details of a report. Releasing such information could potentially compromise criminal investigations or prosecutions and may also discourage other individuals from reporting crimes to the SFO.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, on what date the Serious Fraud Office first received information on allegations of bribery and corruption at Rolls Royce.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Serious Fraud Office first received information concerning allegations of bribery and corruption at Rolls Royce in November 2011.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many times the Law Officers' Departments have used the services of (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) other consulting firms in the last three financial years; and what (i) work was undertaken and (ii) the cost to the public purse was on each such occasion.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The Government Legal Department (GLD) and the Attorney General’s Office have not procured any consultancy advice or support in the last three years.
GLD has used two of the firms specified to provide support to litigation cases involving the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The table below shows the amount spent with PwC and KPMG.
Supplier | 2013/14 Total Value (Net) | 2014/15 Total Value (Net) | 2015/16 Total Value (Net) |
PwC | £1,187,975 | £1,221,674 | £603,938 |
KPMG | £241,920 | £308,576 | £208,364 |
Over the past three financial years Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service (HCMPSI) has spent £47,440 on consultancy services to provide general advice and support to the Chief Inspector and £6,662 to assist with a review of the shape and size of HMCPSI.
The table below sets out payments made for the past three financial years by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to the above firms and the reason for payment. None of these payments were for consultancy services. The SFO have engaged some other firms who provide consultancy services but in all cases this was for forensic accounting or expert witness services in support of our investigations rather than consultancy.
Supplier | 2013/14 Total Value (Net) | 2014/15 Total Value (Net) | 2015/16 Total Value (Net) |
Deloitte | - | £8,732 | - |
PwC | £12,500 | £1,259 | £8,262 |
KPMG | - | £4,800 | - |
The Deloitte spending related to data recovery. PwC and Ernst & Young expenditure related to payment to an expert witness for an SFO case.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has not incurred any expenditure with PwC, Ernst and Young or KPMG in the last three financial years.
he CPS has incurred expenditure with Deloitte. However, records of each separate engagement are not maintained and the department is therefore unable to confirm the number of times Deloitte’s have been engaged.
Central records of total CPS expenditure are maintained and expenditure with Deloitte’s for each of last financial years is shown in the table below.
Deloitte LLP Milton Keynes
Year | £’s |
2013/14 | 9,661 |
2014/15 | 20,952 |
2015/16 | 26,347 |
Total | 56,960 |
The payments relate to building works and associated services in respect of three offices the CPS has lease agreements on and where Deloitte’s act on behalf of the properties landlords.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, if he will publish a list of all secondees to the Law Officers' Departments from (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) other consulting firms in the last three financial years; and what the role was of each of those secondees.
Answered by Robert Buckland
There have been no secondees from any consulting firm to the Attorney General’s Office, Government Legal Department, Crown Prosecution Service or Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate in the last three financial years.
The Serious Fraud Office had one KPMG employee with them on secondment in 2015-16 covering a Principal Investigator role as an accountant on an operational case team.