Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many nights were spent in hotels by Departmental staff in financial year 2024-25 by the star rating of the hotel.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
In 2024-25 there were a total of 61 nights spent in hotels by departmental staff where overnight stays were essential for departmental business. These are broken down in the following table.
Star rating | Stays |
3 Star | 2 |
4 Star | 11 |
5 Star | 1 |
Not rated | 47 |
For the hotels that do not have a star rating, these are classed as budget hotels.
Feb. 12 2026
Source Page: Attorney General's speech at Great Synagogue, SydneyAsked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what information his Department holds on the number of people that have been prosecuted for honour-based offences broken down by (a) local authority area and (b) category of offence in each year since 2010.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The CPS define ‘honour’ based abuse as an incident or crime involving violence, threats of violence, intimidation coercion or abuse (including psychological, physical, sexual, financial, or emotional abuse) which has or may have been committed to protect or defend the honour of an individual, family and/ or community for alleged or perceived breaches of the family and/or community's code of behaviour. These data are accurate only to the extent that the flag is accurately applied.
Management information is available from 2010 which shows the number of prosecuted defendants flagged with the so-called honour-based abuse monitoring flag. The number of prosecuted defendants last year were at their highest level for seven years.
Table 1 (below) shows this information from 1st April 2010 to 30th September 2025, and Table 2 provides the same information by the Principal Offence Category allocated to the defendant at the conclusion of the prosecution proceeding.
Table 1 – Prosecuted defendants charged with ‘honour’ based abuse monitoring flag
| 2010- 2011 | 2011- 2012 | 2012- 2013 | 2013- 2014 | 2014- 2015 | 2015- 2016 | 2016- 2017 | 2017- 2018 | 2018- 2019 | 2019- 2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021- 2022 | 2022- 2023 | 2023- 2024 | 2024- 2025 |
Prosecutions | 234 | 172 | 200 | 206 | 225 | 182 | 171 | 127 | 72 | 61 | 53 | 76 | 68 | 80 | 95 |
Table 2 – Prosecuted defendants by principal offence category and flagged with the ‘honour’ based abuse monitoring flag
| 2010- 2011 | 2011- 2012 | 2012- 2013 | 2013- 2014 | 2014- 2015 | 2015- 2016 | 2016- 2017 | 2017- 2018 | 2018- 2019 | 2019- 2020 | 2020- 2021 | 2021- 2022 | 2022- 2023 | 2023- 2024 | 2024- 2025 |
A Homicide | 13 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
B Offences Against the Person | 152 | 119 | 121 | 154 | 183 | 143 | 146 | 93 | 64 | 45 | 45 | 58 | 61 | 65 | 84 |
C Sexual Offences | 9 | 7 | 14 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 4 |
D Burglary | 6 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
E Robbery | 9 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
F Theft and Handling | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
G Fraud and Forgery | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
H Criminal Damage | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
I Drugs Offences | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
J Public Order Offences | 13 | 14 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
K All Other Offences (excluding Motoring) | 15 | 14 | 14 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
L Motoring Offences | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Other (Not specified) | 8 | 9 | 14 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
Data source: CPS Case Management Information System
The CPS collects data to assist in the effective management of its prosecution functions through its Case Management System (CMS). The CPS does not collect data that constitutes official statistics as defined in the Statistics and Registration Act 2007.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many people have been prosecuted for flying a drone in a Restricted Fly Zone around (a) closed prisons and (b) young offender institutions since January 2024.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Flying a drone in the restricted airspace around a closed prison or young offender institution is an offence contrary to the Air Navigation Order 2016. The Civil Aviation Authority is responsible for investigating and prosecuting this offence and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not hold any data in respect of it. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not hold any data which shows the number of defendants prosecuted and convicted of offences created by the Prison Act 1952 including the offences created by sections 40B, 40C and 40CB. Similarly, no data is held showing the method of used to convey items into or out of a prison or young offender institution. To establish how many defendants charged with these offences were prosecuted and if a drone was used would require a manual review of case files and this would be at disproportionate cost. Management information is available from 2024 which shows the number of offences charged by way of section 40B, 40C and 40CB in which a prosecution commenced. The table below shows the number of these offences from 1st January 2024 to 30th September 2025.
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Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, pursuant to the Answer of 6 May 2025 to Question 48266 on Equality, whether the proposed socio-economic duty will apply to the Law Officers.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The public sector duty regarding socio-economic inequalities will apply to the public authorities listed in section 1(3) of the Equality Act 2010. That list includes a Minister of the Crown. The duty will therefore apply to the Law Officers as Ministers of the Crown.
The duty is not yet in force in England. Once in force, the duty will require public authorities, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise their functions, to have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage.
Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government why the Attorney General fast-tracked the prosecution of Lucy Connolly in August 2024; and what reference he made to the Code for Crown Prosecutors to support that decision.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
There were a number of similar prosecutions at the time which were responded to in the same manner and timeline. Between 9 and 14 August, the AG responded to 14 other applications for consent in similar matters. 11 of those had a decision within 24 hours, a similar timescale to that in which consent to prosecute was granted in respect of Lucy Connolly.
Certain offences require Law Officer consent to prosecute, and inciting racial hatred is one such offence. The Attorney General provided consent to the DPP to prosecute for this case under the Public Order Act 1986.
When providing consent, the Law Officers must be satisfied that the evidential test and the public interest test of the Code for Crown Prosecutors are met. This case and all similar cases were considered by reference to the test in the usual way.
When applying for consent, the CPS will independently provide an indication of proposed timescales for consent to be in place, and wherever possible the AGO will work to those.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether they will require their department and agencies to offer payroll deductions to all employees to enable them to join a credit union.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The AGO or its sponsored departments do not offer payroll deduction facility to employees to enable them to join a credit union.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many prosecutions for human trafficking or sexual exploitation offences in each of the last three calendar years involved two or more defendants charged as part of the same case.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information which shows the number of prosecuted defendants flagged with the modern slavery (human trafficking) monitoring flag where 2 or more defendants have been prosecuted on the same case. The data is derived using a manual process as the CPS Case Management Information System does not report this information. As with any manual exercise, the data may be subject to errors in processing and the information is for operational use only.
The table below shows the flagged prosecution data (where 2 or more defendants have been prosecuted on the same cases) for the last three calendar years ending 31st December 2024.
Prosecuted defendants flagged with the modern slavery monitoring flag | |||
2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
Modern slavery flagged defendants with a completed prosecution outcome on cases with 2 or more defendants | 281 | 263 | 314 |
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System | |||
The CPS define modern slavery as the following – for offences committed prior to 31st July 2015 ss57-59A Sexual Offences Act 2003, s4 Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004, s71 Coroners and Justice 2009 and for offences committed after the Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force on the 31st July 2015, s1, 2 and 4 of the Act. Included in the definition are the inchoate versions of the listed offences.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what information his Department holds on the number of people that have been prosecuted for facilitating forced marriages in each year since 2010 and broken down by local authority area.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Offences relating to forced marriages are created by s121 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which came into force in June 2014. Section 121 was further amended in February 2023 when s121(3A) was inserted making it an offence to force a child under the age of 18 into a marriage.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information from 2015 which shows the number of offences charged by way of s121 (forced marriage) in which a prosecution commenced. Table 1 below shows the number of these offences from 1st April 2015 to 30th September 2025.
The figures relate to the number of offences and not the number of individual defendants. It can be the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same complainant. No data are held showing the final outcome or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at finalisation.
In addition to the offence-based data, management information is held showing the number of defendants flagged with the forced marriage monitoring flag who were prosecuted from 1st April 2010 to 30th September 2025. Table 2 shows the number of flagged defendants prosecuted during this period.
The CPS forced marriage monitoring flag applies to any person who commits an offence under the law of England and Wales if he or she (a) uses violence, threats, or any other form of coercion for the purpose of causing another person to enter into a marriage, and (b) believes, or ought reasonably to believe, that the conduct may cause the other person to enter into the marriage without free and full consent.
Table 1 - Offences charged and reaching a magistrates' courts hearing | ||||||||||
2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 | 2024-2025 | |
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 { 121(1) and (9) } | 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 10 |
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 { 121(3A) and (9) } | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 { 121(3) and (9) } | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System | ||||||||||
Table 2 - Completed defendant prosecutions - forced marriage monitoring flag applied | ||||||||||
Financial Year | Finalised | |||||||||
2010-2011 | 41 | |||||||||
2011-2012 | 42 | |||||||||
2012-2013 | 41 | |||||||||
2013-2014 | 45 | |||||||||
2014-2015 | 46 | |||||||||
2015-2016 | 53 | |||||||||
2016-2017 | 44 | |||||||||
2017-2018 | 50 | |||||||||
2018-2019 | 12 | |||||||||
2019-2020 | 8 | |||||||||
2020-2021 | 8 | |||||||||
2021-2022 | 33 | |||||||||
2022-2023 | 20 | |||||||||
2023-2024 | 27 | |||||||||
2024-2025 | 30 | |||||||||
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System | ||||||||||
Feb. 06 2026
Source Page: Sexual predator’s sentence extended after Solicitor General intervenes