Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of section 22A of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980.

Section 176 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 inserted Section 22A into the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980. Under this provision, shoplifting of goods worth £200 or less is treated as a summary only offence, unless the defendant elects to be tried in the Crown Court. These cases can now be handled as police-led prosecutions.

Police-led prosecutions were introduced to provide a simpler and more proportionate response to high-volume, low-level offences where the case is uncontested, increasing police discretion to tackle crime in their area, freeing up CPS resource to focus on more complex cases, and generating efficiencies in the criminal justice system. The Ministry of Justice does not maintain statistics on police-led prosecutions.