Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask to the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress he has made on the objective of ensuring the number of rape cases being referred by the police and going to court is on track to be at the level reached in 2016 by the end of the Parliament; and if he will make a statement.

In June 2021, we published the End-to-End Rape Review Report and Action Plan. During that review, we took a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system deals with rape and in too many instances it simply has not been good enough. We apologised at the time for this and committed to delivering real improvements to transform support for victims, and working with the police and the CPS to more than double the number of adult rape cases being charged and reaching court by the end of this Parliament.

Since June 2021, we have made significant progress in delivering actions to change the system for the better. Whilst the majority of actions are on track and have been delivered in the timescales we intended, there is much work still to do to ensure that the actions are having the impact they need to.

We are committed to going further and pushing harder on our actions so that we can drive bigger impacts, deliver wider system change and crucially, deliver justice for victims of rape and sexual abuse. We are:

• Establishing suspect-focused rape investigations – known as Operation Soteria – across five police forces, and will expand this to 14 more by September, with a national rollout completed by June 2023.
• Expanding pre-recorded cross-examination (Section 28) for victims of sexual violence and modern slavery in Crown Courts nationwide – with this vital measure now available in almost half of all Crown Courts (37 locations). The Government is committed to rolling it out nationwide by September.
• Expanding support for victims. This includes creating a national 24/7 support line for victims of rape and sexual abuse, so that every victim can access support whenever and wherever they need it. We are using additional ringfenced funding to increase the number of Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors (ISVAs and IDVAs) by 300, to over 1000 by 2024/25 - a 43 percent increase over the next three years.
• Publishing the CJS delivery data dashboard quarterly for adult rape which brings together local data from across the system in one place for the first time, allowing us to increase transparency, increase understanding of the justice system and support collaboration, especially at a local level.
• Announcing a pilot of enhanced specialist sexual violence support in the Crown Court. This is aimed squarely at doing better by rape victims, giving them the support they need to stay engaged in the process and get the justice they deserve.

These actions are starting to have an impact on the system, though there is still more progress to be made:

• Rape cases referred by the police to the CPS have increased in the last quarter of 2021 by 76% from the quarterly average in 2019, when the Rape Review was commissioned.
• Rape cases charged by the CPS in the last quarter of 2021 have also increased by 38% from the quarterly average in 2019.
• Rape convictions are increasing: there was a 67% increase in the number of people convicted for rape offences between 2020 and 2021.

The average number of days for adult rape from CPS charge to the case being completed continued to fall by 38 days – roughly 5 weeks - since the peak in June 2021 – down from 457 days to 419 in October - December 2021.