Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts
Tuesday 7th January 2014

(10 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Philip Davies Portrait Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
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Many people, not just victims of crime, have concerns about the performance of public prosecutors in court. Will the Attorney-General set out what inspections are made of public prosecutors in court and how many unannounced visits are made in order to assess the performance of the CPS prosecutors?

Dominic Grieve Portrait The Attorney-General
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The Crown prosecutors who appear in court as advocates are monitored. Indeed, it is a rather more rigorous monitoring process than the one available, for example, for the independent Bar that does their work. I would be happy to write to my hon. Friend with further details of how this monitoring is carried out. The previous Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, made a very particular point in the first year that I was working with him in carrying out an extensive review of the performance of Crown prosecutors. This is monitored and it is also the subject of inspections by the Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate. There are published reports on the quality of the advocacy being delivered.