Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what steps he is taking to improve public legal education.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Teaching people about their legal rights and responsibilities, together with helping them gain the confidence and skills to get access to justice can really make a difference to people’s lives – as well as our legal system. To further this work, the Government is working closely with partners across the PLE community, including representitives from the Citizenship Foundation, The Law Society, Bar Council, Magistrates’ Association, and Citizens Advice, among others.
On 31 October, as part of Justice Week, we launched the new vision statement for Public Legal Education. The statement creates a shared vision, which will help drive forward legal education initiatives. The statement reveals seven goals for where PLE might be in 10 years’ time.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many successful prosecutions there have been for personal injury insurance fraud in the UK court system in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of the number of prosecutions for personal injury insurance frauds. Nor is any record held to show if defendants were purporting to have sustained an injury on a road when making a fraudulent claim. This information could only be obtained by examining CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many proven fraudulent personal injury claims were made by (a) horse-riders, (b) pedestrians, (c) cyclists and (d) other vulnerable road users in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of the number of prosecutions for personal injury insurance frauds. Nor is any record held to show if defendants were purporting to have sustained an injury on a road when making a fraudulent claim. This information could only be obtained by examining CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many successful prosecutions for using a mobile telephone while in control of a motor vehicle were recorded in London in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Regulation 110 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 creates a prohibition on the use of mobile telephones in motor vehicles. All such offences are initially prosecuted by the police. Only those cases where the offence is contested are referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Records held by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) identify the number of contested offences in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in magistrates’ courts, rather than the number of successful prosecutions.
During the last five years the number of these offences, prosecuted by the CPS in London, was as follows:
- | 2012-2013 | 2013-2014 | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 |
Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 { 110 } | 1,629 | 1,373 | 1,436 | 1,403 | 510 |
Data Source: CPS Management Information System
There is no indication of the number of individual defendants prosecuted for these offences or the final outcome of the prosecution proceeding or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at the time of finalisation.
These figures do not reflect prosecutions under the Road Traffic Act for offences of dangerous and careless driving where use of a mobile phone was a factor.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many successful prosecutions for using a mobile telephone while in control of a motor vehicle were recorded in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Regulation 110 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 creates a prohibition on the use of mobile telephones in motor vehicles. All such offences are initially prosecuted by the police. Only those cases where the offence is contested are referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Records held by the CPS identify the number of contested offences in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in magistrates’ courts, rather than the number of successful prosecutions.
During the last five years the number of these offences, prosecuted by the CPS, was as follows:
- | 2012-2013 | 2013-2014 | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 |
Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 { 110 } | 5,805 | 3,870 | 2,910 | 2,780 | 1,527 |
Data Source: CPS Management Information System
There is no indication of the number of individual defendants prosecuted for these offences or the final outcome of the prosecution proceeding or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at the time of finalisation.
These figures do not reflect prosecutions under the Road Traffic Act for offences of dangerous and careless driving where use of a mobile phone was a factor.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many successful prosecutions relating to domestic violence offences which were initially reported to police in London were recorded in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The CPS maintains a central record of the number of defendants flagged as domestic abuse that were prosecuted and convicted through its Case Management System.
The CPS defines domestic abuse as any threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional) between those who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender or sexuality. Family members include mother, father, son, daughter, sister, and grandparents, whether directly related, in-laws or step family.
The table below shows the volume and proportion of domestic abuse prosecutions and convictions by CPS London in each of the last five financial years.
| 2012 - 13 | 2013 - 14 | 2014 - 15 | 2015 - 16 | 2016 - 17 | |||||
- | Volume | % | Volume | % | Volume | % | Volume | % | Volume | % |
Convictions | 5,424 | 61.7% | 6,442 | 65.2% | 7,871 | 66.3% | 9,400 | 64.5% | 9,377 | 65.6% |
Unsuccessful | 3,363 | 38.3% | 3,433 | 34.8% | 4,006 | 33.7% | 5,179 | 35.5% | 4,909 | 34.4% |
Total | 8,787 |
| 9,875 |
| 11,877 |
| 14,579 |
| 14,286 |
|
Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System | ||||||||||