Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutors make their decisions independently of the police, the government and other external parties. Their duty is to apply the criminal law of England & Wales as agreed by Parliament, to ensure the right person is prosecuted for the right offence and to bring offenders to justice wherever possible.

On 9 March 2026 the UK Government adopted its non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hostility across all central government departments. The CPS is a non-ministerial department, and CPS employees are civil servants and subject to the same central rules and policies. They may have regard to the definition, alongside other sources of information, in understanding the experience of Muslim communities in this country.

The Government published its draft Conversion Practices Bill on 25 June for pre-legislative scrutiny.

The draft Bill sets robust thresholds to target clear instances of harmful and abusive acts.

The pre-legislative scrutiny process will test and strengthen our draft Bill ensuring it is effective in the long term. Once the draft legislation has completed pre-legislative scrutiny and the subsequent parliamentary passage, it would be at this point that the Government would produce any necessary guidance. We would engage with all relevant public sector bodies in developing any such guidance.

I would like to assure you, My officials and I engaged with a wide range of stakeholders from across relevant sectors, this includes the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Government published its draft Conversion Practices Bill on 25 June for pre-legislative scrutiny.

The draft Bill sets robust thresholds to target clear instances of harmful and abusive acts.

The pre-legislative scrutiny process will test and strengthen our draft Bill ensuring it is effective in the long term. Once the draft legislation has completed pre-legislative scrutiny and the subsequent parliamentary passage, it would be at this point that the Government would produce any necessary guidance. We would engage with all relevant public sector bodies in developing any such guidance.

I would like to assure you, My officials and I engaged with a wide range of stakeholders from across relevant sectors, this includes the Crown Prosecution Service.

The CPS holds information on the sentences imposed following convictions in cases included in the Joint Enterprise National Monitoring Scheme 2024–25. However, the information requested could only be obtained through the manual inspection of individual case files and could therefore be provided only at disproportionate cost.

The total present value cost of implementing the new Victims’ Code is estimated to be £11.9 million over a 10-year appraisal period. This includes costs that the police and HMPPS will incur associated with increased interaction with victims. This estimate is based on the draft new Code which we recently consulted on and a full breakdown of the cost benefit analysis can be found in the impact assessment published alongside that consultation: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/a-new-victims-code.

We are now taking the time to consider nearly 200 responses we received in response to the consultation. We will issue a public response ahead of finalising and then implementing the new Code.

HMT’s publication of the 2026-27 financial reporting manual makes clear that a select group of smaller departments and independent bodies – which includes the Law Officers Departments - are exempt from the requirement to report efficiencies to HM Treasury in line with the Government Efficiency Framework. There are therefore no efficiency reports from the HMCPSI to HM Treasury, but the Law Officer Departments are all working towards their commitment at Spending Review 2025 to deliver at least 5% savings and efficiencies over Phase 2 of the SR period.

The CPS considers every case referred to it by investigators and will prosecute where the evidential and public interest tests set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors are met.

The Solicitor General supports the CPS in tackling serious financial crime across all sectors, including where offending occurs in the waste sector. This includes supporting cross-government economic crime reforms and investment in economic crime and asset recovery capability, helping the CPS and its law enforcement partners to prosecute offenders and recover criminal assets.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on average sentence length for a variety of offences including murder and attempted murder in England and Wales. These data are available by ethnicity and sex in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.

However, information on whether cases were included in the CPS Joint Enterprise National Monitoring Scheme is not held centrally in the Court Proceedings Database.

The publication of data by local authorities and the Crown Prosecution Service are matters for the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Attorney General respectively.

The Home Office is focused on delivering the recommendations from Baroness Casey’s National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. This includes mandating more comprehensive collection of data by police forces, as well as working across government to ensure safeguarding agencies (including the police, local authorities, schools and health services) are using information and intelligence to disrupt and prosecute those committing these terrible crimes and ensure victims and survivors are protected.

The annual budget and total headcount for the Serious Economic, Organised Crime and International Directorate (SEOCID) for each of the years 2022-23 up to 2025-26 are as follows:

Assaults on emergency workers are a serious matter. Prosecution decisions are for the independent Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider, and it would be inappropriate for a Minister to discuss this with the CPS. The evidential and public interest tests (termed the ‘two-stage’ test) are set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and consideration of how they are applied is a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions. Where a jury has been unable to reach a verdict or has been discharged, the prosecution will apply the two-stage test set out in the Code when deciding whether or not to proceed to a retrial. Prosecutors are expected to be fair and objective when making decisions and should only proceed with a prosecution if the two-stage test has been met.

The government encourages the adoption of the definition across the public, private and third sectors, and them to consider how this definition applies in their contexts.

The government encourages the adoption of the definition across the public, private and third sectors, and them to consider how this definition applies in their contexts.

The government will refer to the definition when developing and revising relevant policy. We encourage relevant organisations, employers and sectors to do the same – with the definition designed for organisations to use in ways that they consider to be useful and lawful.

Having been commissioned by the Home Office, Baroness Casey made clear in her National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June last year, that the recording and publication of data on the background of child sex offenders by police forces was variable and insufficient.

Last July, the then Home Secretary wrote to all Chief Constables making clear that ethnicity data should be collected from all suspects in child sexual exploitation (CSE) cases and to urge them to make sure they are fulfilling this obligation. We are also legislating to give the Home Secretary the power to mandate the collection of ethnicity data by police officers. The Police Reform White Paper, set out our intention to put data standards for policing, including in this area, on a statutory footing.

The recording and publication of data by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Local Authorities are outside the remit of the Home Secretary.

The CPS does not have any internal guidance relating to public commentary on public policy matters.

The definition is non-statutory and does not create any new tests around the “public interest”. The term should be understood in its ordinary, commonly used meaning in UK legislation and policy: matters that serve society’s wider interests. There is also no single personal or authority who decides whether conduct is within the public interest. As with all non-statutory guidance, application of the definition will always depend on the context.

We encourage adoption of the definition across the public, private and third sectors. Public bodies applying the definition should do so through their current processes for assessing context, proportionality and impact. As part of our next steps, we will work with sectors to consider practical approaches to provide guidance and support effective implementation.