Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what steps she is taking to help ensure effective prosecution rates (a) serious and (b) violent crime in Birmingham Edgbaston constituency.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Reducing serious and violent crime is integral to this Government’s Safer Streets Mission and commitment to halve knife crime in a decade.
Our new Crime and Policing Bill will back our police by giving them enhanced and tougher powers to keep our streets safe, to tackle anti-social behaviour, and to crack down on knife crime.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutes serious and violent crime robustly, providing early investigative advice on complex and serious offending to build strong cases and deliver justice for victims.
The CPS is working with cross-government partners to support the delivery of the Safer Streets Mission, and all CPS guidance and training is kept under constant review to ensure front-line prosecutors are equipped to prosecute these serious offences. Serious and violent crime encompasses many different types of crime but is more commonly associated with drug crime, knife crime, gun crime, and homicide.
In 2023-2024, the CPS prosecuted the following serious and violent offences in the West Midlands Police force area, in which the Birmingham Edgbaston constituency is located:
1,249 defendants for drug offences under the principal category offence for drugs (which includes possession of controlled drugs, supplying or offering to supply controlled drugs, unlawful importation of controlled drugs, and manufacturing a scheduled substance) (up from 942 in 2022-23).
1,645 offences for possession of a knife under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and Prevention of Crime Act 1953 (up from 1,408 in 2022-23).
189 offences under the Firearms Act 1968 (up from 117 in 2022-23).
124 defendants were prosecuted for homicide offences under the principal offence category for homicide (which includes offences of murder, attempted murder, causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult, child destruction, conspiring or soliciting to commit murder and causing death by dangerous or careless driving) (up from 73 in 2022-23).
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what steps she is taking to help ensure effective prosecutions in cases of violence against women and girls in Birmingham, Edgbaston constituency.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a national emergency and through the Safer Streets Mission, this Government will deliver on our ambition to halve VAWG in a decade. A key part will be delivering effective prosecutions, and we continue to see improvements in the prosecution of VAWG offences.
As Solicitor General, I superintend the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which is continuing to transform its approach to adult rape prosecution through the implementation of its new national operating model, based on robust evidence from Operation Soteria. Through this work, the CPS has seen substantial increases in referral, charge, and prosecution volumes for adult rape.
These improvements have also informed the Domestic Abuse Joint Justice Plan with policing which launched in November 2024. Better partnership with policing has already led to modest initial increases in domestic abuse referrals, setting a strong foundation for future improvements.
To address the increasingly complexity of VAWG offending and the holistic needs of victims, the CPS will also begin implementation of its 2025-30 VAWG strategy this spring. This will ensure prosecutors have the right skills and tools to prosecute VAWG effectively.
I was delighted to give a keynote address at a joint CPS, Home Office, and National Police Chiefs’ Council conference on tackling honour-based abuse held in Birmingham last week. On the same day, I met with the Chief Crown Prosecutor for the West Midlands and the Area’s Victim Liaison Unit and heard directly from CPS staff about the critical work they are doing to prosecute VAWG offences.
In the West Midlands police force area in 2023-24, the CPS prosecuted 1,596 domestic abuse flagged cases (an increase from 1,543 in 2022-23), 135 rape flagged cases (an increase from 108 in 2022-23), and 419 sexual offences (excluding rape flagged) cases (an increase from 295 in 2022-23).
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 8 May 2019 to Question 249931 on Prosecutions: West Midlands, what the average time was for the CPS to reach a decision in the West Midlands in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Records held by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), provide data showing the average time (in calendar days) from receipt of the pre-charge case to the decision to charge.
The table below shows the average number of days from the date a charging decision is requested by the police to the date the decision to charge is taken for the West Midlands Area in each year from 2013/14 to 2017/18.
| 2013-2014 | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 |
West Midlands | 10.54 | 10.95 | 11.65 | 14.41 | 17.31 |
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System
During this period there has been a shift in the type of pre-charge decisions referred to the CPS. For example, in the period between 2013/14 and 2017/18, there was an increase of over 26% in rape flagged pre-charge decisions referred to CPS West Midlands. Rape and serious sexual offences investigations can be highly complex in nature and typically involve the review of a large quantity of evidence resulting in an increase in the amount of time required for the CPS to come to a charging decision.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, in how many cases did the West Midlands Crown Prosecution Service decide not to charge a suspect on the grounds of (a) the evidential test and (b) the public interest test in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains a central record of the number of suspects referred to prosecutors for a pre-charge decision and the number of decisions not to prosecute suspects following the charging decision.
When prosecutors make decisions on cases, they refer to The Code for Crown Prosecutors. The Code contains a two stage test which has to be met before a suspect can be charged; the evidential stage followed by the public interest stage. When deciding whether there is enough evidence to charge, prosecutors must consider whether evidence can be used in court and is reliable and credible, and there is no other material that might affect the sufficiency of evidence. Prosecutors must be satisfied there is enough evidence to provide a "realistic prospect of conviction" against each defendant. At the public interest stage the prosecutor must consider whether a prosecution is required in the public interest. A prosecution will usually take place unless the prosecutor is sure that the public interest factors tending against prosecution outweigh those tending in favour.
The table below shows the volume and percentage of decisions not to prosecute for evidential and public interest reasons for the West Midlands Area in each year from 2013/14 to 2017/18.
| 2013-2014 | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | |||||
| Volume | % | Volume | % | Volume | % | Volume | % | Volume | % |
No Prosecution - Evidential | 4,760 | 18.8% | 5,396 | 16.1% | 4,580 | 18.7% | 4,479 | 17.4% | 3,589 | 13.8% |
No Prosecution - Public Interest | 152 | 0.6% | 584 | 1.7% | 165 | 0.7% | 164 | 0.6% | 183 | 0.7% |
Total of Evidential & Public Interest | 4,912 | 19.4% | 5,980 | 17.8% | 4,745 | 19.3% | 4,643 | 18.1% | 3,772 | 14.5% |
Total Decisions Made | 25,360 |
| 33,600 |
| 24,542 |
| 25,708 |
| 26,026 |
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Data Source: CPS Management Information System |
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