Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase the number of rape convictions.

Increasing the number of rape convictions continues to be a priority in the criminal justice system. On 6 June 2014, a Rape Action Plan was jointly published by the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which sets out a series of actions designed to improve the criminal justice response in rape cases. This followed a Rape National Scrutiny Panel led by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the National Policing lead for rape, which considered the investigation and prosecution of rape cases including their referral from the police to the CPS. The Action plan can be found on the CPS website at; http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/equality/vaw/rape_action_plan.pdf