Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stella Creasy

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What recent assessment he has made of the reliability and punctuality of the Crown Prosecution Service in court proceedings.

[The Solicitor-General (Oliver Heald)]

Conviction rates are high and punctuality is good.

[Stella Creasy]

I am surprised by the Minister’s answer because last year the CPS failed to comply with nearly half the court orders on time—at great expense to the public purse. Just what do Ministers intend to do about this so that justice delayed is not justice denied?

[The Solicitor-General]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. Hot off the press today, we have had the annual report of Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, which looked at this issue and concluded that compliance with court directions was improving, as was monitoring. Looking at the overall picture, which is what the hon. Lady’s question was about, there are 800,000 cases a year—