Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many directors with responsibility for human resources are employed across their department and its executive agencies; and how many of those directors hold professional HR qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development or equivalent professional bodies.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
As the number of individuals is five or fewer, across the AGO and the Law Officer Departments, I am unable to disclose the figure. This is to protect against the risk that individuals could be identified, in line with our obligations under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, if the Attorney General whether he provided advice to (a) the Prime Minister and (b) the Secretary of State for Local Government on the original decision to cancel local elections in May 2026.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
By long standing convention, whether the Law Officers have been asked to provide advice, and the contents of any such advice, is not disclosed outside Government.
This convention protects the Law Officers’ ability as chief legal advisers to the Government to give full and frank legal advice and provides the fullest guarantee that government business will be conducted at all times in light of thorough and candid legal advice.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether the offence of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 is within the scope of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The offence of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 is not within the scope of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme as it is not an indictable only offence and is not specified in statute as qualifying for review under the scheme.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether she has held recent discussions with her counterpart in the United Arab Emirates on the enforcement of UK High Court rulings in the case of Muhammad Tahir Lakhani and Muhammad Ali Lakhani.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Solicitor General has not had any such meetings.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, on how many occasions the Attorney General held discussions with Dapo Akande on the Chagos Islands.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Attorney General has never engaged in discussion with Dapo Akande on the UK-Mauritius Agreement concerning the Chagos Archipelago.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, pursuant to the Answer of 12 February 2026 to Question 111611, how many employees are employed by her Department and its agencies.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Departments are required to publish quarterly, the latest of which was released on 16 December 2025. You are referred to Public sector employment - Office for National Statistics for the information you have requested which states that 11,720 people are employed across all the Law Officers Departments.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many rape cases have been awaiting a decision for more than 3 years broken down by Crown Prosecution Service region.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The CPS is committed to increasing the number of rape cases brought to court each year, and is working closely with other criminal justice partners to ensure that access to justice is not delayed.
The CPS continues to deliver the RASSO National Operating Model (NOM) developed in consultation with stakeholders to ensure a consistently high standard of decision making in rape cases. A key component of model is the offer of early advice (EA) to police to strengthen collaboration and help build the strongest cases from the outset by enabling police to seek advice from a prosecutor during the early stages of a case.
This change means that more cases are coming to the CPS earlier than before, impacting their data on timeliness. The enhanced EA offer was trialled first in the CPS pathfinder Areas London, West Midlands, South West and North East. The South East ran an EA pilot alongside these pathfinders.
The below table provides the number of rape-flagged cases awaiting a decision from the CPS that were first submitted to the CPS three or more years ago, by CPS Area as of the 25th of February 2026. These will include cases which are under further investigation by the police, and cases which have been subject to one or more legal reviews in the past but have not yet been subject to a final charging decision:
CPS Area | Live pre-charge rape flagged cases older than three years from date of receipt |
Cymru Wales | 8 |
East Midlands | 0 |
East of England | 1 |
London | 19 |
Merseyside & Cheshire | 0 |
North East | 1 |
North West | 1 |
South East | 6 |
South West | 4 |
Thames and Chiltern | 2 |
Wessex | 0 |
West Midlands | 2 |
Yorkshire and Humberside | 2 |
Total | 46 |
Data source: CPS Case Management System | |
Whilst there are 46 cases which have not had a final legal decision after three or more years, there are no RASSO cases that have been awaiting a legal review for three or more years following initial submission or subsequent investigation by the police.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what steps she is taking to ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance on religiously aggravated and religion-based hate crime offences is applied; and what assessment she has made of the potential impact of CPS decision-making on community confidence across different faith groups.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) issues legal guidance on prosecuting racist and religious hate crime, available on their website. To support effective application of this guidance, all new CPS prosecutors receive mandatory training on hate crime, including religiously aggravated offending.
A Chief Crown Prosecutor National Lead for hate crime oversees a network of Hate Crime Coordinators and Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor leads, who provide specialist advice, support casework quality and promote consistent decision-making in every regional CPS Area. They oversee a robust assurance scheme which includes bi-monthly checks of the religiously aggravated hate crime cases in every Area. These checks examine whether such cases have been appropriately identified, and review the case strategy and handling, including whether applications are made to uplift the sentence on conviction. Feeback on casework is provided directly to prosecutors and shared at a regional and national level to identify shared challenges and best practice.
Engaging with communities affected by hate crime is important to build trust and support victims. The CPS has a strong record of engaging openly with a wide range of stakeholders, including academics, the voluntary sector, advocacy groups and community representatives. This helps to ensure that CPS policy and legal guidance reflect best practice and is responsive to communities’ needs. Across every Area and nationally, the CPS holds regular Hate Crime Scrutiny Panels for external scrutiny of its performance on hate crime, including examination of cases of religious hatred.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what proportion of staff in the Department have (a) office-based, (b) hybrid, and (c) remote-working contracts.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Contracts issued to staff do not record the information requested. Hybrid working is an informal, non-contractual agreement.
The AGO is committed to flexible working and the business benefits that it offers, including supporting the Civil Service priority of ensuring continued, effective and productive delivery of the work carried out by civil servants across the full range of services.
The AGO operates a ‘hybrid’ approach, led by business needs, and as a result many employees work both from home and in the workplace on an informal basis.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, on how many occasions did the Attorney General meet with Philippe Sands KC in discussions on the Chagos Islands.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Attorney General has never engaged in discussion with Philippe Sands KC on the UK-Mauritius Agreement concerning the Chagos Archipelago.