Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether her Department permits (1) Ministers, (2) Special advisers and (3) officials to use (a) Chat GPT, (b) Google Gemini, (c) Claude, (d) Deepseek and (e) Grok as part of their official duties.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Attorney General’s Office does not permit the use of external generative artificial intelligence tools of the type referenced in the Question, unless they have been formally approved and assessed as meeting the required security and data protection standards.
Asked by: Warinder Juss (Labour - Wolverhampton West)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many prosecutions have there been for the false or misleading information offence under Section 92 of the Care Act 2014 since it came into force.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
There have been no finalised prosecutions by the Crown Prosecution Service against defendants where offences of providing false or misleading information offences under Section 92 of the Care Act 2014 have been charged since it became law.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether the CPS has guidance on whether and in what manner it should publicly comment on controversial public policy matters.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The CPS does not have any internal guidance relating to public commentary on public policy matters.
Asked by: Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 24 March (HL15443), what steps the Attorney General Office's has taken in the last year to meet its legal duty to keep under review the question of when uncommenced legislation that falls within its area of responsibility should be brought into force.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
Whilst the Law Officers sit on the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee, the Attorney General’s Office does not, itself, have legislation that falls within its areas of policy responsibility. Questions as to the commencement of legislation should be directed to the Government departments with policy responsibility.
Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish (1) any interests that the Attorney-General has declared to his Permanent Secretary and the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests in relation to his work for Gerry Adams when a barrister at Matrix Chambers, and (2) whether the Attorney-General continues to receive payments from his time as a barrister at Matrix Chambers.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
As has previously been set out to the house both in January 2025 and in June 2025, there is an established rigorous system in place within the Attorney General’s Office to ensure that a Law Officer would not be consulted on any matter that could give rise to a potential conflict of interest.
If a Law Officer were to publicly confirm specific matters where they were recused, this would infer that legal advice had been requested by the Government on a specific matter, which would risk a breach of the Law Officers’ Convention.
This process also sits alongside the established system in place for declaration Ministerial Interests. I confirm that my relevant interests have been published for the public record, including my previous employment at Matrix Chambers.
Asked by: Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 24 March (HL15443), what steps the Office of the Advocate General for Scotland has taken in the last year to meet its legal duty to keep under review the question of when uncommenced legislation that falls within its area of responsibility should be brought into force.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
The Office of the Advocate General, along with supporting the Advocate General as a Law Officer, is the Scottish legal team for other UK Government departments. Decisions about the implementation of uncommenced legislation are made by the UK Government department with responsibility for the legislation in question
Asked by: Baroness Shawcross-Wolfson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hermer on 27 April (HL16377), whether the artificial intelligence tool developed by the Cabinet Office and No.10 to identify disproportionate reporting and consultation duties was piloted in any departments before being rolled out; and if so, what the results of that pilot were.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
The AI tool was developed to identify reporting and consultation duties in the statute book. The tool does not indicate whether the duties are useful, or unnecessary. It was tested on a small data set across the statute book. The dataset included legislation from multiple departments and performed with very high accuracy, rather than being piloted on a single department. The tool has since been applied to the wider statute book.
Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Attorney General has recused himself from advising on (1) all aspects of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, or (2) only those clauses of that Act that prevent payment of compensation to Gerry Adams.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
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.
As I set out to the house in January 2025, there has always been an established rigorous system in place within the Attorney General’s Office to ensure that a Law Officer would not be consulted on any matter that could give rise to a potential conflict of interest. That process sits against the backdrop of every lawyer’s professional obligation to be alert to, and actively manage, any situation that might give rise to a potential or actual conflict.
This process also sits alongside the declaration of interest system overseen by the Prime Minister’s Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what guidance she has issued to Departments on whether former Ministers should be consulted before internal Ministerial papers are shared with the courts.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Solicitor General has not issued any guidance to Departments on whether former Ministers should be consulted before internal Ministerial papers are shared with the courts.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, pursuant to the Answer of 12 February 2026 to Question 111851 on Law Officers: Equality, whether her Department's document entitled Attorney General's Guidance on Legal Risk, published on 6 November 2024, will be updated to reflect the proposed socio-economic duty when enacted.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The public sector duty regarding socio-economic inequalities is not yet in force in England. Once in force, the duty will require public authorities (including the Law Officers), 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.
The Attorney General’s Guidance on legal risk is intended to assist lawyers and others advising on lawfulness and legal risk in government, by setting out a common framework to assess risk. At such time that the duty comes into force, the Law Officers will have due regard to it in deciding whether any updates to this guidance are required.