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.

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).