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Written Question
Sentencing: Appeals
Tuesday 23rd June 2020

Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - North West Durham)

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many (a) appeals and (b) successful appeals the Government has made against sentences on the basis of undue leniency, in each of the last 20 years.

Answered by Michael Ellis

The statistics from 2000 are provided below. It should be noted that Attorney General’s Office does not hold accurate data prior to 2001 and we are not in possession of the data indicating the number of successful appeals for the year 2000.

Year

Appeals the Government has made against sentences on the basis of undue leniency

Successful appeals the Government has made against sentences on the basis of undue leniency

2000

31

Data unavailable

2001

147

90

2002

148

94

2003

96

78

2004

105

66

2005

108

67

2006

144

104

2007

76

53

2008

59

46

2009

84

58

2010

77

60

2011

117

94

2012

82

62

2013

70

61

2014

122

106

2015

136

102

2016

180

130

2017

173

137

2018

140

99

2019

97

63


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Fraud
Monday 2nd March 2020

Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - North West Durham)

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of people that were due to be prosecuted for benefit fraud have had their prosecution proceedings terminated in the latest period for which figures are available; and for what reasons were those proceedings terminated.

Answered by Michael Ellis

Allegations of benefit fraud are investigated by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and Local Authority investigators. DWP and Local Authority investigators have discretion to apply an administrative penalty or refer to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or Local Authority prosecutors for a decision on whether to prosecute.

The records held by the CPS identify the number of offences in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in magistrates’ courts, rather than the number of people prosecuted. A single defendant may be prosecuted for multiple offences.

No central records of the prosecution outcomes of offences are held by the CPS. To obtain details of the number of people prosecuted and whose proceedings were stopped by the CPS, for offences of benefit fraud would require a manual exercise of reviewing individual case files to be undertaken at a disproportionate cost.

Furthermore, cases of benefit fraud are also prosecuted by Local Authorities so any data the CPS can glean from a manual exercise would not provide a complete record.