Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)]

Absolutely. Local newspapers are incredibly important. As constituency MPs we all engage with them, as well as with the national media. I will be happy to meet the NUJ and take part in the week, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Ely cathedral has benefited from funding for essential building work from the first world war centenary cathedral repairs fund. The cathedral makes a significant and real contribution to community life. What future long-term funding is there for cathedrals?

[Tracey Crouch]

I was delighted recently to announce additional funding for many cathedrals around the country, including Ely. Cathedrals play an important part in our appreciation of heritage in the United Kingdom, so we continue to support the Heritage Lottery Fund to ensure that it continues to invest in cathedrals and other buildings of great importance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)]

4. What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to increase the number of prosecutions for violence against women and girls.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

5. What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to increase the number of prosecutions for violence against women and girls.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

The CPS is prosecuting and convicting more defendants of domestic abuse, rape, sexual offences and child sexual abuse than ever before. Under the cross-Government violence against women and girls strategy, the CPS has committed to a number of actions between now and 2020 to ensure the effective prosecution of these offences.

[The Solicitor General]

I know that my hon. Friend has a great interest in and concern about these serious matters. I am happy to tell her that in the last year, 1,805 cases were charged by the CPS—a rise to 70.6% compared with the figure for the previous year—and 1,867 cases resulted in a conviction. The conviction rate in Derbyshire is running at 4.4% higher than the national average.

[Lucy Frazer]

In Cambridgeshire in 2015-16 there was an increase in the number of convictions for violence against women and girls to 1,031. What is being done to use technology to improve the gathering of evidence for these crimes?

[The Solicitor General]

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General has just mentioned, the CPS and the police are embracing the use of technology. The use of body-worn cameras, which is being rolled out across the country, will transform conviction rates and the number of guilty pleas when the evidence is clear and overwhelming in these cases.