Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of criminal cases where evidence has not been fully disclosed.

I refer the honourable member to the answer given by the Attorney General on March 7th of this year to a parliamentary question posed by Thangam Debonnaire MP on this topic; and to the answer I gave on March 14^th of this year to a question posed by the honourable member for Ashfield. I reiterate what I said in March: this is an issue that the Government takes extremely seriously. Compliance with disclosure requirements is vital if there is to be a fair trial, in the interests of both complainant and accused. To that end, the police and CPS are already taking steps to improve disclosure through the National Disclosure Improvement Plan. In addition, the Attorney General has been conducting a wide-ranging review of the practices and procedures around the disclosure of unused material in criminal cases.