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Written Question
Department for Education: Legal Costs
Thursday 4th February 2016

Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, if he will estimate the costs attributed to the Department for Education by the former Treasury Solicitor's Department in each year since 2010.

Answered by Robert Buckland

The Treasury Solicitor’s Department was renamed the Government Legal Department (GLD) on 1 April 2015. It is primarily funded through the fees it charges for its legal services. It provides Litigation, Employment, Commercial and Advisory legal services to the Department for Education (DfE). The fees charged to DfE for this work, including the cost of disbursements, are as follows:

Financial year

Fees (excluding VAT) £

2010-11

4,208,845

2011-12

4,499,546

2012-13

4,805,840

2013-14

4,409,976

2014-15

4,098,629

Providing information on the costs attributed to cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would incur disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual exercise to identify those historical cases that relate to FOI.


Written Question
Department for Education: Legal Costs
Thursday 4th February 2016

Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, if he will estimate the costs attributed to the Department for Education in cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by the Government Legal Department since 2010.

Answered by Robert Buckland

The Treasury Solicitor’s Department was renamed the Government Legal Department (GLD) on 1 April 2015. It is primarily funded through the fees it charges for its legal services. It provides Litigation, Employment, Commercial and Advisory legal services to the Department for Education (DfE). The fees charged to DfE for this work, including the cost of disbursements, are as follows:

Financial year

Fees (excluding VAT) £

2010-11

4,208,845

2011-12

4,499,546

2012-13

4,805,840

2013-14

4,409,976

2014-15

4,098,629

Providing information on the costs attributed to cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would incur disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual exercise to identify those historical cases that relate to FOI.


Written Question
Department for Education: Legal Costs
Thursday 4th February 2016

Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, if he will publish an estimate of the costs attributed to the Department for Education in cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by the former Treasury Solicitor's Department in each year since 2010.

Answered by Robert Buckland

The Treasury Solicitor’s Department was renamed the Government Legal Department (GLD) on 1 April 2015. It is primarily funded through the fees it charges for its legal services. It provides Litigation, Employment, Commercial and Advisory legal services to the Department for Education (DfE). The fees charged to DfE for this work, including the cost of disbursements, are as follows:

Financial year

Fees (excluding VAT) £

2010-11

4,208,845

2011-12

4,499,546

2012-13

4,805,840

2013-14

4,409,976

2014-15

4,098,629

Providing information on the costs attributed to cases relating to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would incur disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual exercise to identify those historical cases that relate to FOI.


Written Question
Shoplifting: Prosecutions
Monday 15th December 2014

Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many prosecutions there have been for shoplifting in each of the last five years.

Answered by Robert Buckland

Theft from a shop is one way in which the offence of Theft contrary to Section 1(1) & 7 of the Theft Act 1968 is committed. There is no specific offence of that title. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of the number of prosecutions for the specific offence of shoplifting. Identifying the number of prosecutions in which there was one or more charges relating to theft from a shop would require a manual exercise to review individual files which would incur a disproportionate cost.

The CPS does maintain a central record of the number of offences of shoplifting charged under section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in magistrates’ courts. It is not possible to identify the number of defendants or cases prosecuted from this data. The table below shows the number of shoplifting offences that reached a first hearing for the last five years:

Theft Act 1968 { 1(1) and 7 }: Theft from a shop

2009-2010

111,386

2010-2011

115,112

2011-2012

116,115

2012-2013

113,258

2013-2014

124,621

The CPS’s offences data provides no indication of the final prosecution outcome, or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at the time of finalisation. It is also often the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same victim.


Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 14 May 2014
Deregulation Bill

"Surely one of the tests for the way this Government handle the economy will come very shortly when interest rates go up and the small businesses and entrepreneurs that they boast about cannot get loans to facilitate their business transactions?..."
Jim Cunningham - View Speech

View all Jim Cunningham (Lab - Coventry South) contributions to the debate on: Deregulation Bill