Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, other than special advisers if her Department has appointed anyone from outside the civil service since July 2024.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
Yes, The Attorney General’s Office has appointed a number of candidates who were external to the Civil Service into roles. This includes candidates who applied through standard recruitment campaigns on Civil Service Jobs and were successful after open and fair competition, as well as those who have joined on secondment and fixed term appointment.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many agency staff were employed by her Department in each of the last five years.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
The number of agency staff employed by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) in each of the last five years is shown in the table below.
Financial Year | Total Agency Staff |
2021–2022 | 4 |
2022–2023 | 2 |
2023–2024 | 0 |
2024–2025 | 0 |
2025–2026 | 0 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many political appointees have been made by her department since July 2024.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
We have taken ‘political appointees’ to mean special advisers. A list of special advisers by department is published each year in the Annual Report on Special Advisers which is laid in parliament. The Annual Report on Special Advisers 2026 will be published in due course.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether her Department has hired external public relations consultants since July 2024.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
The Attorney General’s Office has not engaged any external public relations consultants since July 2024.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, whether her Department permits civil servants employed in the UK to work from overseas on a regular basis.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) does not permit civil servants employed in the UK to work from overseas.
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 - Attorney General
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: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how much her Department has spent on special severance payments in each of the last three years.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
The total value of severance payments is set out in the department’s Annual Report and Accounts, which are available for the last three years.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many and what proportion of civil servants in her Department are (a) on temporary contracts and are (b) consultants.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
Information on the number of staff employed by the Law Officers’ Departments on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:
Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web addresses.
Government Legal Department Annual Report and Accounts 2024–25 - GOV.UK
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many full-time equivalent staff in her Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the past three years.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General
Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.
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 - Attorney General
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 |