Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many staff in their Department have been on mental health leave for six months or more; and for what reason.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Cabinet Office publishes sickness absence data for the Civil Service on an annual basis, including by organisation and by absence reason. I refer you to the statistics publicly available which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sickness-absence. The next release is likely to be around 18 December 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many cases have been referred for the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions regarding a prosecution under the Suicide Act 1861 in the last ten years.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
From 1 April 2009 up to 31 March 2025, manual records indicate there have been 199 cases referred to the CPS by law enforcement partners that have been recorded as encouraging or assisting suicide. The DPP has provided consent to prosecute in six cases. Five of these cases have been successfully prosecuted, and one was acquitted after trial. These figures are published on the CPS website and will next be updated in April 2026.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many (a) active and (b) concluded cases the Government Legal Department has handled relating to legal challenges against the one-in, one-out migrant returns scheme; and what the total cost of that litigation has been.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The UK-France Treaty is an innovative pilot designed to deter illegal migration across the Channel. Litigation related to this pilot was anticipated and we are concentrating resources on robustly defending this so that removals can continue as planned. As of 28 November, 153 individuals have been returned to France through this agreement.
Operational details on the pilot are sensitive, and we will not be disclosing such information as it could inadvertently assist the organised immigration crime gangs that are behind small boats crossings.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, with reference to the Home Office policy paper entitled Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy, updated 20 November 2025, what assessment has the Attorney General made of how changes to the interpretation of Article 8 will impact the number of cases being escalated to Strasbourg.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
This Labour government is committed to bringing back control and fairness to our border.
By long-standing convention, the fact that I, or a fellow Law Officer, may have advised or not advised, as well as the content of our advice, is not disclosed outside government.
As explained in 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. The purpose of this convention is to enable the Government to obtain frank and full legal advice in confidence.”
Asked by: Lord Lucas (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the prosecution of Greg Hadfield in the Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on 17 November, what discussions they have had with the Crown Prosecution Service about why they brought an exhibit to the court that the judge found was not an accurate record; what assessment they have made of the implications for freedom of speech; and what actions they are taking in response.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
The Crown Prosecution Service makes prosecution decisions independently.
CPS prosecutors are committed to protecting the principles of free expression and to prosecuting objectively and fairly, in accordance with the two-stage test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, pursuant to the Answer of 17 November 2025, to Question 88976 on Fireworks: Injuries, how many prosecutions have there been in each of the past five financial years for (a) deliberately and (b) negligently causing an injury with a firework.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Acting recklessly with or throwing fireworks can cause life-changing injuries. These actions can result in criminal prosecution and/or civil liability, depending on whether the injury was caused deliberately, recklessly or negligently.
There are numerous offences this can fall under, including: s.39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (common assault/battery) or from the+ Offences against the Person Act 1861: s47 (assault occasioning actual bodily harm), s20 (wounding/inflicting grievous bodily harm), s18 (wounding/causing grievous bodily harm with intent to do grievous bodily harm), s28 (grievous bodily harm by the unlawful explosion of gunpowder or other explosive substance), s29 (unlawfully causing gunpowder or some other explosive substance to explode with intent to cause grievous bodily harm). The charge chosen will depend on the facts and circumstances of the case and the level of injury caused.
During the most recently available 12 months (ending June 2025) management information shows that a total of 102,493 offences charged by way of the above legislation, commenced prosecution in magistrates’ courts. Of these charges the CPS is unable to identify which offences specifically involved fireworks as opposed to physical assaults or the use of other types of weapons, without a manual review of each case, which would incur disproportionate cost.
If an injury is caused through negligence (e.g. due to an accident at a private or publicly organised display) the person who set off the firework (or the event organiser/landowner) may be sued for damages in a civil court. Information on proceedings in civil courts is held by HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
Asked by: Lola McEvoy (Labour - Darlington)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what steps she is taking to help tackle differences in sentencing guidelines that contribute to uses of the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Sentencing decisions in individual cases are a matter for our independent judiciary. Sentencers must follow any relevant sentencing guidelines, issued by the Sentencing Council, unless not in the interests of justice to do so. The guidelines provide a structured approach for sentencers to follow and are designed to help enhance consistency and transparency in sentencing.
The Sentencing Council keeps the guidelines under review continuously. Cases will vary widely in seriousness and complexity. Constantly evolving case law also helps to shape and influence how these are applied.
The Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme allows Law Officers to ask the Court of Appeal to review exceptional cases where there has been a gross error, or the sentence is unduly lenient.
The Sentencing Council itself is within the policy area of the MOJ and my office, with its public interest role in bringing justice in qualifying cases only, is necessarily independent of it.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how much the Crown Prosecution Service has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
There has been a significant increase in demand, as well as costs for translation services post Covid. This has led to a necessary increase in expenditure on translation and interpretation services. We continue to regularly monitor expenditure to ensure best value for money for taxpayers.
Crown Prosecution Service has spent the following on translation and interpretation services over the last five financial years:
Financial year | Spend |
2020-21 | £484,087 |
2021-22 | £811,458 |
2022-23 | £888,170 |
2023-24 | £1,012,710 |
2024-25 | £1,104,021 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how much the Government Legal Department has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Government Legal Department has not incurred any translation and interpretation services costs in the last five years.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how much the Serious Fraud Office has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Almost all the SFO’s cases are connected to other jurisdictions and often include overseas suspects or witnesses and involve significant amounts of evidential material. This means that it needs to make use of translation services in its work. We regularly monitor expenditure to ensure best value for money for taxpayers.
Its expenditure on translation services is contained in the following table.
2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 | 2024-2025 |
£101,102 | £125,082 | £168,777 | £67,149 | £55,393 |
The SFO has not made use of any interpretation services in the last five financial years.