Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the (a) age and (b) sex of the (i) offender and (ii) victim was in each case where an offender was given a caution for the offence of sexual activity with a child under 13 in the last five years.

This Government has taken action to end the cautions culture and to make sure serious offenders do not receive penalties seen as soft options. The use of cautions is at its lowest point for thirty years.

We are changing the law to ban simple cautions for all of the indictable only offences - the most serious criminal offences which must be tried in the Crown Court, including rape, manslaughter and robbery. We are also banning simple cautions for possession of a knife or offensive weapon, supplying Class A drugs and a range of sexual offences against children.

Further, we have also outlined a new approach to scrap all cautions, which is being piloted in Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and Leicestershire, with a view to being extended across the country.

The Ministry of Justice issues guidance on the process to be followed by the police when they are administering simple cautions for adult offenders. The latest guidance, issued in November 2013 following the Simple Cautions Review, states that the use of a simple caution for indictable-only offences, such as rape, should only be given following authorisation by a senior police officer of at least the rank of Superintendent and the Crown Prosecution Service. These will be cases where there are exceptional circumstances which would mean that it is not in the public interest to prosecute.

Data for those offenders cautioned for sexual activity with a child under 13, in England and Wales from 2009 to 2013, is available in the public domain as part of the Criminal Justice Statistics annual publication, in the table ‘CJS outcomes by offence, 2009 to 2013.’ This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-december-2013

Under the list of offences please select “21 Sexual activity with child under 13”.

The age of the victims cannot be separately identified without contacting each individual police force area involved, which would be at disproportionate cost.