Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, what the performance of each Crown Prosecution Service business area was on (a) pre-charge decisions, (b) decisions to take to further action, (c) discontinuances after charge, (d) prosecutions, (e) convictions and (f) convictions after a not-guilty plea for each of the flagged offence groups in 2013-14 and each of the five previous years.

Tables have been deposited in the Library of the House containing the following information for each of the last five years for which complete and validated data is available;

· Number of pre-charge decisions and the proportion that resulted in a decision to take no further action.

· Number of finalised prosecutions.

· Number of convictions and the conviction rate

· Number of prosecutions discontinued after charge

· Number of convictions in contested cases

The figures are broken down for the 13 regional Crown Prosecution Service Areas and by principal offence category of the cases concerned. The principal offence category indicates the most serious offence with which the defendant is charged at the time of finalisation.