Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what recent assessment she has made of the trends in the number of people called to the bar in England and Wales over the last five years.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The legal profession in England and Wales is independent of Government and is regulated by approved regulators, for which the Legal Services Board (LSB) has oversight responsibility. The approved regulators and LSB are independent of Government. Data on the trends of the number of people called to the bar in England and Wales, broken down by gender, ethnicity and age, provided by the Bar Standards Board can be found here. The statistics show that over the past 5 years the number of females being called to the bar is greater than the number of males. They also show that over the last three years the number of those called to the bar from an ethnic minority background is greater than those from a white background. This is testament to the huge amount of work to improve diversity of those practicing at the bar.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the time taken by the Crown Prosecution Services to make a decision on whether to prosecute in respect of Operation Sheridan.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Attorney General and I are responsible for superintending the Crown Prosecution Service but do not have oversight of specific cases.
Operation Sheridan is a live investigation under active review by a team of lawyers from the CPS Specialist Fraud Division. It is a large and complex case with significant sensitivities. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further on individual case details.
The CPS have confirmed that they have substantial legal resource devoted to progressing the case and there is also significant management oversight, at a senior level from both CPS and police.