I thank the noble Lord for his Question, and I know that this is not the first time he has raised this very important issue before your Lordships’ House. The Home Office began collating data on a mandatory basis in April 2019. Since then, there have been 350 FGM offences recorded by the police. We have, though, only seen three convictions. Notwithstanding the complexities inherent in prosecuting these cases, the disparity between police reporting and successful prosecution rates is extremely concerning. We are determined to ensure that all the levers within the criminal justice system are utilised to increase accountability for this abhorrent crime.

But the response cannot lie just within the criminal justice system. The extent and complexity of FGM in our society means that we must address it in a multi-agency approach, not least through education and healthcare. That is why, for example, in healthcare we now have FGM clinics, which are mainstreamed in the NHS, and it is why at the borders we have a forced marriage unit on hand when victims are at risk of being taken abroad. It is also why we have had over 50,000 frontline staff undertake e-training in the last year. But the data shows, and the noble Lord’s Question raises the point, that there is much more to be done.

My Lords, the Government are committed to giving the police the resourcing and staffing they need to tackle crime. As set out in the police funding settlement, overall funding for policing will total £19.6 billion in 2025-26, an increase of up to £1.2 billion compared to the 2024-25 settlement under the Government the noble Lord supported. The Government will also publish a White Paper on police reform later this year.

For security reasons, the Houses do not publish data about the movements of passholders on the Parliamentary Estate.

For security reasons, the Houses do not publish capital expenditure on security mitigating projects as providing this level of detail could enable an individual to infer the extent and nature of the works, and thus the vulnerabilities which they were intended to mitigate.

Support for postmasters and postmistresses is provided when needed as part of the compensation offer; for example, money to fund cognitive behavioural therapy. There are no programmes in place for the families of sub-postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal. Claimants can claim for the wide-ranging impacts on their lives. This can be larger due to witnessing the wider impact on their family members. We recognise that seeing family members suffer, as many of these families have done, has been traumatic.

This government is committed to increasing the volumes of rape and serious sexual offence cases that reach court.

In 2019, we commissioned our end-to-end Rape Review to better understand the justice system’s response to adult rape. Published in 2021, our watershed report set stretching ambitions to return the volumes of adult rape cases being referred by the police, charged by the CPS, and reaching court back to 2016 levels by the end of this Parliament. In practice, this meant more than doubling the number of adult rape cases reaching court compared to when the Review was first commissioned, in 2019.

The latest data shows that we have exceeded each of these ambitions ahead of schedule. In July – September 2023, we recorded:

• 1,470 total police referrals, exceeding our 2016 ambition of 766 by 91% and now more than triple (+219%) the 2019 quarterly average.
• 668 CPS charges, exceeding our ambition of 538 by 24% and now more than double (+174%) the 2019 quarterly average.
• 665 Crown Court receipts, exceeding our ambition of 553 by 20% and now more than double (+188%) the 2019 quarterly average.

In addition, the number of people prosecuted for an adult rape offence went up by 54% in the last year (12 months to June), rising from 1,410 to 2,165. This is 32% higher than in 2010 (1,644).

But we are determined to build on these successes, and continue to make excellent progress in delivering our Rape Review Action Plan to support victims throughout the criminal justice system:

• For one, it is right that rapists, and those convicted of the most serious sexual offences, remain in prison for the whole of their custodial term and that they are subject to proper supervision in the community on their release with a suitable license period. We will legislate through our Sentencing Bill to make sure that this happens.
• Through Operation Soteria, we are ensuring that every police force and CPS area embeds new, transformative National Operating Models that will radically improve the way the police investigate and the CPS prosecute adult rape. The five forces who first adopted Soteria have all seen charges increase.
• Having recruited 20,000 extra police officers, bringing the total number to a record peak, by April 2024 2,000 officers will receive specialist training on rape and sexual offences, making sure the police have the skills and capability to investigate these crimes.
• We continue to offer our 24/7 support line for victims of rape and sexual violence, ensuring victims of these abhorrent crimes always have someone on hand to support them.
• We are quadrupling victims funding by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10, which will enable us to increase the number of Independent Sexual Violence and Domestic Abuse Advisors by 300 to over 1,000 – a 43% increase by 2024/5.

As far as possible, we have provided the requested data in Tables 1-3. Please note that each table contains data extracted from different administrative systems, and for different operational purposes. Whilst every effort has been made to answer the question and keep the data similar it is important to note that the data presented is complementary, rather than directly comparable. Below is a summary of each table and its contents, including a final Annex table (Table A1) which specifies how offences for rape and serious sexual assault have been captured.

Table 1 – Volume of defendants proceeded against for rape or ‘serious’ sexual assault offences, year ending June 2019 to year ending June 2023, England and Wales

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) publish the data set out in Table 1 in Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: June 2023, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (last updated 18 January 2024).

The MoJ tool contains data on the volume of convictions, but it is advised these are not used to calculate conviction rate (the number of convictions as a proportion of the number of prosecutions). This is due to the Court Proceedings Database counting two separate records at two separate stages (one for prosecution, one for conviction). An individual may appear at each court in separate years, or for a different principal offence at different stages. As a result, this rate is not an accurate measure of the proportion of prosecutions that result in a conviction and we recommend table 3 for that purpose.

Table 2 – Rape and ‘serious’ sexual offences (RASSO) recorded by the police that were not assigned a charge outcome, as a proportion of all RASSO cases closed each year, year ending June 2019 to year ending June 2023, England and Wales

The Home Office (HO) publish the data set out in Table 2 in the quarterly publication Open Data Tables, in the Outcomes Open Data files (last updated on 25 January 2024). It is important to note that the Home Office do not hold data on prosecutions, but publish data on recorded cases that do not receive a charge outcome, presented in Table 2.

Table 2b – Number of reported incidents of rape (excluding offences recorded by the police) and cancelled rape offences, year ending March 2019 to year ending March 2023, England and Wales

Since April 2015, the police have been expected to record all allegations of rape that are reported to them as soon as they are received, unless they are immediately recorded as a confirmed crime. These are recorded under the reported incidents classification. Reported incidents of rape are then either confirmed as a crime and re-classified accordingly (as recorded offences) or are retained in the police data as an incident. Table 2b shows a total of reported incidents that do not go on to be recorded as a crime, and cancelled rape offences. An incident does not go on to be recorded as a crime if the victim or third party reporting the incident cannot confirm it or cannot be traced, if credible evidence to the contrary exists, or if it is transferred to another police force. These data are published here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/652eaab16b6fbf000db75843/prc-rape-incidents-2016-2023.ods). Rape allegations are ‘cancelled’ when there is additional information to confirm the offence did not take place or where the entry is made in error (such as a duplicate of an existing allegation). Home Office can be contacted directly for further comment on these data.

Table 3 – Conviction rate for suspects with a rape flagged offence, year ending June 2019 to year ending June 2023, England and Wales

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) publish the data set out in Table 3 in CPS quarterly data summaries (last updated on 18 January 2024). Prosecution crime type data tables were used to extract conviction rates for rape flagged cases. Due to the nature of CPS systems, the conviction rate based on rape flags will include cases where the eventual outcome is different to the flagged offence of rape.

Table A1: Definition of rape and 'serious' sexual assault by organisation (MoJ, Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service)

This table sets out how rape and ‘serious’ sexual assault offences have been selected for each of the tables. The most substantial difference is between CPS and MoJ/Home Office data, as the CPS rely on the use of flags and do not record offences by detailed offence code in the same way as the MoJ/Home Office (meaning detailed offences would need to be extracted manually, and are not published). Home Office and MoJ offences broadly correspond but, due to differences in recording practices and operational uses some of the offences follow different description conventions.

The Hillsborough stadium disaster occurred on 15 April 1989. Lord Justice Taylor published an interim report into the disaster in August 1989, and delivered his final report in January 1990. The Hillsborough Independent panel was instituted in 2009, and published its final report on 12 September 2012.

The independent inquiry into child exploitation was commissioned by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in October 2013. It covered the period between 1997 and 2013, and published its report in August 2014.

The Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash happened on 2 June 1994. The final inquiry into the crash published its findings in July 2011.

Operation Conifer, the police investigation into allegations made against the late Sir Edward Heath, began in August 2015, and published its findings in October 2017.

The Iraq Inquiry was announced in June 2009 to identify lessons that could be learned from the Iraq conflict. It considered the period between 2000 and July 2009, and published its report in July 2016.

The Home Office collects information on the time taken by the police in England and Wales to reach an investigative outcome for notifiable offences.

Below is a table showing the median number of days taken to assign a charge/summons outcome, from date recorded by the police, for rape and homicide offences, for each year from 2018/19 to year ending September 2023:

Notes:

1. Only includes data for forces who send offence-level data to the Home Office Data Hub

2. The number of median days for Year ending September 2022 and Year ending September 2023 includes 37 territorial police forces. Excludes Devon and Cornwall, Humberside, West Midlands and Greater Manchester Police. The data for these forces was identified to have quality issues or the data was not provided at record level to the Home Office Data Hub in for the reporting period.

3. 2018/19 excludes the 97 homicides which were assigned a charge/summons outcome in relation to the Hillsborough disaster by South Yorkshire Police Force. When these are included, the median number of days taken to assign a charge for homicide was 115 days in 2018/19.

4. Data are shown to the nearest whole day.

The United Kingdom Government believes that an impartial scientific and expert group is best-placed to lead the review into the origins of COVID-19. As the only independent, technical health organisation with the mandate of 194 Member States, it is right that the investigation sits within the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO’s Scientific Advisory Group on Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) is composed of experts acting in a personal capacity and therefore can provide independent technical and scientific advice on the origin and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK continues to support SAGO’s review, including through the provision of technical support via the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

In light of COVID-19, the UK has strengthened our pandemic preparedness approach to ensure we are prepared for all possible pathways of disease emergence, we have conducted a thorough assessment across the breadth of our pandemic capabilities, including surveillance, diagnostics, contact tracing, clinical countermeasures, non-pharmaceutical interventions, technology, and data, which will allow us to protect the health of the UK population from the spread of infectious diseases.

Responsibility for leading on animal diseases resides with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), an executive agency of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. APHA leads on identifying and controlling zoonotic diseases including surveillance, scientific research, and food safety. UKHSA works closely with APHA to understand and control the risk new infectious diseases pose to health and society when they emerge.

The UK also seeks to ensure the highest possible controls over laboratory biosafety and security to mitigate any threat of research-related incidents in the UK. Biosafety inspection and enforcement is the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive in Great Britain and the Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland. The UK approach to biosafety is underpinned by a risk-based regulatory framework designed to facilitate the effective and proportionate management of the risks that exist at facilities where work is undertaken with dangerous pathogens.

We will also continue to use the UK’s international influence to encourage other countries to have appropriate laboratory biosafety. UKHSA staff attend the European Biosafety Association (EBSA) and the American Biosafety Association (ABSA) meetings, and are also members of the Biosafety Level 4 Zoonotic Laboratory Network (BSL4ZNET) and Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) Lab Network. UKHSA staff regularly monitor developments to ensure UKHSA adopts the highest standards of biosafety and biosecurity.

Investigations into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic are ongoing. The United Kingdom notes the latest reports from the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee but is also aware of other studies that have reached different conclusions, for example that the likely source of COVID-19 was a natural spill over event from animals to humans. The global scientific community does not yet have sufficient data to determine conclusively where the virus originated. The UK is keeping the evidence under review and closely tracking the work of the independent investigations led by the Scientific Advisory Group on Origins of Novel Pathogens into the origins and spread of COVID-19.

Regardless of the origins of this pandemic, it is imperative that the UK seeks to ensure the highest possible controls over laboratory biosafety and security in order to mitigate any threat of research-related incidents in the UK. Biosafety inspection and enforcement is the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive in Great Britain and the Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland. The UK approach to biosafety is underpinned by a risk-based regulatory framework designed to facilitate the effective and proportionate management of the risks that exist at facilities where work is undertaken with dangerous pathogens.

We will also continue to use the UK’s international influence to encourage other countries to have appropriate laboratory biosafety. UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) staff attend the European Biosafety Association (EBSA) and the American Biosafety Association (ABSA) meetings, and are also members of the Biosafety Level 4 Zoonotic Laboratory Network (BSL4ZNET) and Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) Lab Network. UKHSA staff regularly monitor developments to ensure UKHSA adopts the highest standards of biosafety and biosecurity.

The total cost to date of the COVID-19 vaccination programme is approximately £7.3 billion.

The Government records deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the following ways: deaths that have COVID-19 recorded on their death certificate/registration; and any death that occurs 28 days after a positive COVID-19 test.

As of 24 March, 223,396 deaths in the United Kingdom have had COVID-19 recorded on death certificates/registrations.

As of 17 April, 213,637 deaths have been recorded in the UK 28 days after a positive COVID-19 test.

These two measures serve different purposes. Death registrations are a reference for overall death toll from COVID-19 (along with excess mortality estimates) and the 28-day death measure is most useful as a rapid indicator of death following COVID-19 infection, with peak utility when a new variant emerges, or during a new wave which requires timely monitoring of severity for public health purposes.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the UK economy. Between 2019 Q4 and 2020 Q2, according to the Office for National Statistics the economy contracted by 23% - the steepest recession on record.

The success of the UK’s vaccination campaign lead to a strong recovery in GDP, with annual growth of 7.5% in 2021 and 4.1% in 2022. In both these years, GDP growth in the UK was the fastest in the G7.

The Government acted quickly to prevent catastrophic increases in unemployment during the pandemic. The Government provided up to £400 billion of direct support for the economy which helped to safeguard jobs, businesses and public services in every region and nation of the UK.

The Treasury is engaging constructively with the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which plans to examine the Government’s responses to the pandemic.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentlemen Parliamentary Question of 22.03 is attached.

The Rt Hon. the Lord Dobbs

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

30 March 2023

Dear Lord Dobbs,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking for the number of rape allegations made to the police in England and Wales for the last five years and how many of those resulted in (a) prosecution, and (b) conviction (HL6736). The two main sources of crime statistics are police recorded crime and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). The CSEW only provides estimates of the prevalence of crime and different crime types as experienced by victims, which may not always be reported to the police.

The most up to date figures we have published on rape offences recorded by the police can be found in Appendix table A4 [1], published as part of the Crime in England and Wales; year ending September 2022 [2] . This table provides police recorded rape offences back to 2002. Table 1 shows a subset of table A4 providing the number of rape offences back to the year ending March 2017.

Our most recent Sexual offences in England and Wales overview: year ending March 2022 [3] publication provides data on the number of rape incidents recorded by the police. These data are provided in Table 12 for the year ending March 2021 and Table 13 for the year ending March 2022 in the associated Sexual offences prevalence and victim characteristics [4] tables.

Unfortunately, we do not hold data on how these offences are treated by the criminal justice system. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) are primarily responsible for court statistics so will hold information on prosecutions and convictions. They publish statistics [5] each quarter which might be of help to you. You can contact MoJ via email at ESD@justice.gov.uk. It may also be beneficial to contact the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as they collate information on prosecution by crime type. You can contact them via Enquiries@cps.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

Table 1: Police recorded rape offences, year ending March 2017 to year ending September 2022 England and Wales

Source: Police recorded crime from the Home Office

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables

[2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingseptember2022

[3] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/sexualoffencesinenglandandwalesoverview/march2022

[4] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/sexualoffencesprevalenceandvictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly

Our target remains to install 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028 and we are putting in place an ambitious package of policies to achieve this.

From 2008 up to the end of February 2023, the Microgeneration Certification Scheme Installations Database shows that 184,065 heat pump installations were registered. The number of heat pump installations in the 12 months to the end of February 2023 were 32,234. However, heat pumps installed without Government funding support and those in new buildings are not typically recorded in the database, with industry sources suggesting installations in new homes could make up a significant fraction of overall heat pump deployment.

In 2020, the Government published research that showed that around 30 per cent of the heat pumps installed domestically were manufactured in the UK. This research did not consider the proportion of those heat pumps that contain microchips manufactured in China.

However, industry data shows that there are a range of manufacturers from different countries that supply electronic circuit boards and semiconductors to the UK consumer appliance market, and the supply chain is not reliant on manufacturers from any one country.

The Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) was established in 2007 under the Prevent strand of HMG’s CONTEST strategy, to understand and counter terrorist and extremist ideologies to reduce the risk to the UK, its citizens, and its interests overseas.

RICU provides analysis on terrorist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet to inform the UK’s counter-terrorism system. To support this crucial objective RICU undertakes open-source monitoring to better understand the media, online and communications environment as it relates to terrorism and extremism. This open-source monitoring identifies a range of material that is shared and discussed within these spaces, including topics or media that terrorist and extremist groups are seeking to exploit.

All RICU data collection and analysis complies with relevant legislation. Ministers have authorised RICU’s work since it was established in 2007, and through subsequent updates to the CONTEST strategy (in 2011 and 2018) and regularly receive RICU outputs.

RICU activity is underpinned and directed by sensitive information pertaining to terrorism threats and the identification of at-risk audiences. The books and television shows referenced in these products were not identified as ‘far-right’ and ‘white-supremacist’. The inclusion of these items of media was an illustration of the types of mainstream content shared in online spaces that are known to be frequented by terrorist and extremist influencers and susceptible audiences. Publishing RICU analysis risks revealing insights into HMG capabilities and undermining the effectiveness of RICU’s monitoring and analysis.

The work of RICU has been crucial to the delivery of Prevent and has helped to position the UK at the forefront of the battle against terrorist propaganda, particularly online terrorist content.

Prevent remains a vital tool to divert people from dangerous and poisonous ideologies. We are now implementing all recommendations from the recent Independent Review of Prevent, paving the way for a more transparent, efficient and sustainable programme. This will include resetting thresholds to ensure proportionality across ideologies and ensuring that analytical products more clearly state the purpose of the reporting and the nature of any links identified between mainstream media items and terrorism.

The Senior Deputy Speaker has asked me, as Chair of the Services Committee, to respond on his behalf.

The gift shop does not trade directly with any suppliers from China. However, the shop sells 14 product lines originating from China. In other instances it may not be possible to certify the source. All suppliers carry trading accreditations related to labour rights, health and safety, the environment and business ethics. There are currently no plans to change these suppliers, although the gift shop regularly reviews its choice of suppliers.

The United Kingdom has been clear on the need for a robust, transparent and science-led review into the origins of COVID-19 and continues to support the World Health Organization’s expert studies into the origins of COVID-19. We recognise that there are questions that need to be answered about the origin and spread of COVID-19, not least so we can ensure we are better prepared for future pandemics.