Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many full-time equivalent staff in her Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the past three years.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, whether the Serious Fraud Office plans to update (a) operational guidance and (b) case selection criteria for foreign bribery cases.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The SFO’s operational guidance and processes are kept under constant review to ensure they continue to meet operational needs. The SFO’s case selection criteria are established in the Director’s Statement of Principle and ensure that the SFO meets its statutory obligations to investigate and prosecute serious or complex fraud, bribery and corruption.

The Law Officers have supervisory oversight of the SFO’s work and regularly assess their operational performance. The SFO’s work is also independently reviewed by the HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate to ensure that they are following good practice.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, what steps she is taking to promote public awareness of the foreign bribery indicators published by the Serious Fraud Office and Five Eyes partners, and to encourage reporting of suspected bribery.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

I regularly report on the work of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) publicly and in Parliament. This includes highlighting new guidance and casework updates published by the SFO and encouraging reporting of crime, including bribery.

The SFO promotes cooperation from business, including the benefits of self-reporting, and the Director and his senior team speak directly to businesses. The SFO routinely engages with the media to promote the SFO’s work and raise awareness of new publications, including the International Foreign Bribery Taskforce’s indicators of foreign bribery.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, what assessment he has made of the legality of the US military operation to capture President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The Law Officers’ Convention applies to advice which may or may not have been given by the Law Officers, or requested of the Law Officers, and the Convention applies to your question.

The Law Officers’ Convention can be found at paragraph 21.27 of Erskine May:

“By long-standing convention, observed by successive Governments, the fact of, and substance of advice from, the law officers of the Crown is not disclosed outside government. This convention is referred to in paragraph [5.14] of the Ministerial Code [updated on 6 November 2024]. The purpose of this convention is to enable the Government to obtain frank and full legal advice in confidence.”

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many and what proportion of civil servants in her Department are (a) on temporary contracts and are (b) consultants.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

Information on the number of staff employed by the Law Officers’ Departments on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/september2025

Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web addresses.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686f95fc10d550c668de3d9c/SFO_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_2024-25.pdf

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/september2025

Government Legal Department Annual Report and Accounts 2024–25 - GOV.UK

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service for immigration offences in the last three years were not prosecuted on evidential grounds.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The CPS does not hold the data requested. To establish whether suspects on cases where immigration offences were considered by reviewing lawyers at pre-charge stage, where then a subsequent no prosecution decision on evidential grounds was made in the last three years, would require a manual review of case files and this would be at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, what the current vacancy rate is for Crown Prosecutors, broken down by region.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The overall vacancy rate for ‘Crown Prosecutors’* across the 14 regional, geographic areas that make up the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is 4.5% (at the end of December 2025). The table below includes the regional breakdown for CPS vacancy rates applicable to these legal roles.

For context, the vacancy rates are shown alongside the number of vacancies within each geographic area, against the current area Full Time Equivalent (FTE).

*These figures include all legal staff designated as ‘Crown Prosecutors’ only.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, what the average time taken by the Crown Prosecution Service to make a charging decision was in each of the last five years.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information which shows the mean average in calendar days from referral for a charging decision or early advice to the decision to authorise a charge against suspects.

This was 46 days in 2024-25, 44 days in 2023-24, 45 days in 2022-23 and 42 days in 2021-22.

The timeliness data includes cases where the police have submitted a file for early advice as well as those for charging decision. The data includes cases where the police were required to submit further evidence prior to a decision to charge. This generally includes more than one submission and more investigation.

The timeliness of a charging decision is determined by three key factors: whether the case has been sent to the CPS for early advice during the investigative process, how quickly the police can complete the necessary enquiries; and how quickly the CPS can then review the evidence provided by the police and finalise the charging decision.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, If he will deposit case papers in the case R. v. Nathan Gill in the Library of the House of Commons.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The Law Officers will not deposit case papers in this matter.

This was a CPS prosecution and the Attorney General’s involvement was only to provide consent for one of the offences charged. This offence has been left to lie on file, following pleas from Nathan Gill to substantive offences of bribery.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, whether his Department holds data on communication between members of the European Parliament, UK Parliament and members of UK devolved legislatures and Oleh Voloshyn in the period between 2014-2019.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The department has conducted a search of the electronic materials currently available to it. No data on communications within the scope of this question was identified.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, What date is the earliest evidence of bribery in the case of R. v. Nathan Gill.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The dates of the bribery offences are a matter of public record, the earliest being 6 December 2018.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, on what specific date the Attorney General recused himself from discussions or decisions regarding the Government’s defence and settlement of Zubaydah v Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and whether he has had any communication with the Foreign Secretary, her predecessor, or any officials regarding this case since his appointment.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

Without commenting on individual cases, the government’s robust conflict process would clearly preclude Law Officers having any involvement in cases in which they were instructed for other parties prior to appointment.

By longstanding convention, recognised in paragraph 5.14 of the Ministerial Code, the fact that the Law Officers have advised or have not advised, and the content of their advice, must not be disclosed outside government without their authority.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, by how much they plan to reduce their Department's budget to help fund the digital ID scheme.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

Digital Identity policy is in development, with a dedicated team inside the Cabinet Office working to develop the proposals.

Costs in this Spending Review period will be met within the existing Spending Review settlements.

We are inviting the public to have their say in the upcoming consultation as we develop a safe, secure, and inclusive system for the UK. No final decisions will be made until after the consultation.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, what discussions she is having with the Ministry of Justice on expanding the Unduly Lenient Sentencing Scheme to include victims of technology-assisted child sexual abuse.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The Protection of Children Act 1978 already includes ‘pseudo’ images of children within the definition of indecent images. Therefore, any sexualised images of children produced by AI will already be covered by the legislation surrounding indecent images, and consequently already fall within ULS scheme.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, pursuant to the Answer of 13 January to Question 103029, on Crown Prosecution Service: Vacancies, how the vacancy rate for Crown Prosecutors as of the end of December 2025 compares the preceding five years, broken down by region.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)

The overall vacancy rate for ‘Crown Prosecutors’ across the 14 regional, geographic areas that make up the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is 4.5% (at the end of December 2025). The table below includes the regional breakdown for CPS vacancy rates applicable to these legal roles for December 2025 against the three preceding years only*.

*The CPS does not hold information on vacancy rates dating back five years and has therefore provided the three years preceding December 2025 only.

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