Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many prosecutions have been brought under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 for (1) harassment, and (2) unlawful eviction, offences by each police force in England and Wales in each of the past three financial years.

The Ministry of Justice holds data on prosecutions and outcomes for offences regarding harassment and unlawful eviction under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 in England and Wales, up to the year ending December 2019.

The following are the offences that were considered:

• Unlawful eviction of occupier
• Unlawful harassment of occupier

Figures can be found on the tables below.

PQ HL13982; PQ HL13983

Source: MoJ Court Proceedings Database

(1) The figures presented relate to defendants for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe

(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

(3) A defendant who is sent from magistrates’ courts to the Crown Court may not have both courts' processes complete within the same year. Defendants who appear before both courts may also be convicted at the Crown Court for a different offence to that for which they are counted as having been originally proceeded against at magistrates’ court, where the offence is changed after committal. This means that for a given year convictions may exceed prosecutions or sentences may not equal convictions