Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what steps she is taking to ensure the effective prosecution of fraud and economic crime.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
We continue to work closely with the SFO and CPS to identify any policy changes that could support their work. This is why we sought the introduction of a provision in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill to extend the SFO’s pre-investigation powers under section 2A of the Criminal Justice Act 1987. The CPS published its first ever Economic Crime Strategy in March 2021 to focus its efforts in tackling the economic crime threat. The Serious Economic, Organised Crime and International Directorate (SEOCID) ensures that the CPS has the resilience, expertise and flexibility in its staff and organisational structure to best respond to new and changing areas of complex crime. The CPS and SFO continue to deliver real success in the fight against economic crime. This financial year alone, the SFO has brought seven cases to trial involving criminality valued at above £500 million. Five of these trials have already concluded, and each case resulted in guilty pleas or convictions. The SFO prosecution of Glencore saw the company pay a record fine of £280 million for its actions. In the year ending September 2022 the CPS prosecuted 6,381 defendants, where Fraud and Forgery was the principal offence, and the conviction rate was 83.4%. The CPS Fraud and Forgery charge rate was at 79% in Q2 22/23, 5 percentage points higher than the previous quarter. |
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 10 January 2018 to Question 121288, on Forced Marriage, what the timetable is for cascading the 13 December 2017 masterclass and other training by local area forced marriage leads.
Answered by Robert Buckland
On 13 December 2017, a masterclass was delivered to all CPS Areas to address the unique difficulties in prosecuting so-called ‘honour’ based violence and forced marriage. This training will be cascaded by the local Area forced marriage leads by the end of June 2018.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how much money has been spent from the public purse on training members of the CPS and its agents on the criminalisation of forced marriage and the breach of forced marriage protection orders since the coming into force of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014; what events took place relating to that training; and how many people attended those events.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The specific offence of forced marriage and breach of a Forced Marriage Protection Order came into force in June 2014 under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Since then, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has updated its legal guidance, developed e-learning and delivered training to its Area lead forced marriage prosecutors.
Training workshops were delivered jointly with the police on Forced Marriage, Honour Based Violence and Female Genital Mutilation across all CPS Areas between July and December 2014. The workshops included input from stakeholders at a cost of £5,000.
On 13 December 2017, a further masterclass was delivered to all CPS Areas to address the unique difficulties in prosecuting these crimes. This masterclass included input from stakeholders at a cost of £1,633.50. This training will be cascaded by the local Area forced marriage leads.
The CPS’s Prosecution College, provides award-winning courses to CPS employees, and hosts the e-learning course, “Forced Marriage and Honour Based Violence”. To date 231 of its employees who were in post on 8 January 2018 had completed all elements of the e-learning course. The course was developed in-house which enables targeted and consistent training delivered to employees in an efficient and cost-effective way.
The CPS will continue to train its staff in this critical area of work.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, with reference to the charges for Government Car Services supplied ministerial cars between 2012 and 2015, published on 17 December 2017, what the (a) purpose, (b) distance travelled and (c) cost was of each journey booked by his Office.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Government Car Service stopped providing individual cars in April 2012. Therefore, there is no individual journey data available from 1 April 2012. The Department for Transport, as part of their transparency agenda, publishes information on the costs incurred by each government department through the use of vehicles provided by the Government Car Services.
Information on recent years can be found via the Gov.UK website below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/ministerial-cars
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many dedicated staff there are to deal with domestic violence cases at each Crown Prosecution Service office in the North West.
Answered by Robert Buckland
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) North West has two main offices based in Preston and Greater Manchester. In addition there are two smaller offices at Barrow and Cumbria.
CPS North West has 230 prosecutors of varying grades who have received comprehensive domestic violence training. These staff are split between Preston and Manchester.
There are 9 Specialist Domestic Violence Co-ordinators in Greater Manchester and 9 Specialist Domestic Violence Prosecutors who prosecute the Specialist Domestic Violence Courts in Cumbria and Lancashire.