Question to the Attorney General:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many times the Crown Prosecution Service has made a charging decision not to proceed on the use of section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 in each of the last five years where the victim was under 18 at the time of commission of the offence.

The Crown Prosecution Service does not hold figures centrally for the number of cases where a decision was made not to charge under section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, including those cases where the victim was under 18 at the time of commission of the offence. To obtain such information would require a manual examination of records which would incur a disproportionate cost.