The comments made by Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, on Twitter on 15 June 2023.
We now know that he was telling lies. He knew he was lying but ploughed on. Rishi Sunak and others were too weak to stop him spewing the lies out. That’s the reality of this and the PM needs to take some responsibility now.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-10-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what weighting was given to the (a) disciplinary records of and (b) number of signatures of ongoing complaints against bidders in the procurement process for legal aid duty solicitor contracts.
Mr Shailesh Vara
13 temporary staff were employed through the Brook Street Agency and a Crown Commercial Services Recruitment framework and were selected by the Legal Aid Agency and interviewed by permanent members of staff to ensure their suitability. These individuals made up 19% of the overall assessment team. In addition contracts were entered into with legal practices to provide additional resource.
The key criteria for employment were analytical skills and the ability to conduct a qualitative assessment. A legal or procurement background was considered an advantage but not essential, given that they would be supervised by permanent staff from the Legal Aid Agency.
The procurement was undertaken in line with the Public Contract Regulations and applicant organisations were required to pass a number of stages of assessment in order to be considered suitable to hold a duty provider contract. The criteria against which organisations were assessed is set out in the Information For Applicants which govern this procurement process.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-12-15.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2015 to Question 17980, if his Department will consider publishing details of meetings with insurance industry representatives before the next return.
Harriett Baldwin
Treasury Ministers and officials meet with a wide range of companies and organisations to discuss relevant issues.
As was the case with previous Administrations, it is not the Treasury’s practice to provide details of all such discussions.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Attorney General, what proportion of all defendants charged with (a) rape, (b) sexual offences other than rape and (c) domestic violence were aged (i) 14 to 17, (ii) 18 to 24, (iii) 25 to 34, (iv) 35 to 44, (v) 45 to 54, (vi) 55 to 64 and (vii) over 65 in the last 12 months.
Jeremy Wright
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) maintains both a central record of defendants in cases flagged as rape or domestic abuse and, additionally, the number whose principal offence at finalisation was categorised as a sexual offence other than rape.
These data can be disaggregated with reference to a series of ‘age bands’ based on the defendant’s date of birth at the time their proceeding was registered onto the CPS’ digital case management system (CMS). It is not possible to separately report the individual ages within each band.
The attached tables show the latest published data available (2014-15) on the number and proportion of defendants prosecuted, by age band, for (a) rape, (b) sexual offences other than rape and (c) domestic abuse.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-04-19.
To ask the Attorney General, what proportion of cases in each year since 2010 is delayed as a result of CPS files not being handed over to the defence in time before the start of proceedings.
Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain centrally held data on the number of cases delayed as a result of CPS files not being handed over to the defence in time before the start of proceedings. Such information could only be obtained through a manual search of records which would incur disproportionate cost.
The CPS is however committed to reducing unnecessary delays in the magistrates’ court, together with other CJS partners, through the Transforming Summary Justice initiative (TSJ). One of the principles of TSJ is to implement a more effective disclosure process to ensure the streamlining of disclosure to defence practitioners for first hearings.
The Better Case Management process (BCM) and the CPS Crown Court Strategy, which interlink with TSJ, also ensure that in cases destined for the Crown Court there is greater focus on Crown Court file build at the very outset to provide sufficient evidential material for the first hearing.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-10-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many temporary agency staff were recruited by the Legal Aid Agency to work on the procurement process for crime duty provider contracts; and what proportion of staff assessing the bids for such contracts were external staff.
Mr Shailesh Vara
13 temporary staff were employed through the Brook Street Agency and a Crown Commercial Services Recruitment framework and were selected by the Legal Aid Agency and interviewed by permanent members of staff to ensure their suitability. These individuals made up 19% of the overall assessment team. In addition contracts were entered into with legal practices to provide additional resource.
The key criteria for employment were analytical skills and the ability to conduct a qualitative assessment. A legal or procurement background was considered an advantage but not essential, given that they would be supervised by permanent staff from the Legal Aid Agency.
The procurement was undertaken in line with the Public Contract Regulations and applicant organisations were required to pass a number of stages of assessment in order to be considered suitable to hold a duty provider contract. The criteria against which organisations were assessed is set out in the Information For Applicants which govern this procurement process.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-12-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2015 to Question 18028, with what representatives of claimants his Ministers or officials met when developing policy on the small claims limit.
Dominic Raab
The Government is very clear on what claimant representatives think about raising the small claims limit. The Coalition Government consulted on this issue between December 2012 and March 2013 with a wide range of stakeholders. Following that consultation, the Coalition Government announced in October 2013 that it was deferring the decision on whether to raise the small claims limit to focus instead on work that would lead to the establishment of the MedCo system in April 2015.
The present Government decided that the time was right to return to the issue of raising the small claims limit, announcing its intention to do so in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. The Ministry of Justice has continued to engage with representatives from all sectors since the Chancellor’s announcement and will be consulting on the detail of the new reform package in the New Year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Attorney General, how many tip-offs were made to the Serious Fraud Office tip-off line in each year since 2010.
Jeremy Wright
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched its dedicated reporting channel on 1 November 2011. The service was intended to encourage reports of serious or complex fraud by whistleblowers and accepted referrals by post, email and telephone. The SFO decided to close the telephone element of the service on 12 June 2012 because a disproportionate amount of staff time was being spent dealing with telephone calls that did not contribute to this aim.
The total number of calls, emails and other referrals through the channel in each year since it was established is shown in the table below. These figures may include multiple reports from single individuals, or multiple referrals about the same matter received from different individuals. Referrals made through the dedicated reporting channel in November and December 2011 were not counted separately from other referrals to the SFO in those months.
|
Year |
Total number of reports |
|
2012 |
2,731 |
|
2013 |
2,996 |
|
2014 |
3,001 |
|
2015 |
3,163 |
The SFO now offers guidance on its website as to how the public may best report any information it may have about fraud to the most appropriate law enforcement authority, including Action Fraud, which is the UK’s central reporting mechanism for fraud and cyber crime.
The SFO continues to receive and assess reports from the public sent directly to it via the online reporting tool, by email or post, or referred to it by other law enforcement and regulatory bodies.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-04-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were (a) prosecuted for, (b) convicted of, (c) cautioned for and (d) given a non-custodial sentence for rape in each year since 2010.
Mike Penning
The number of offenders cautioned, and defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty and sentenced at all courts, with sentence outcomes, for rape offences in England and Wales from 2010 to 2014 (latest available) can be viewed in the Outcomes by offence tables in the annual publication found at:-
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2014
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-10-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of staff assigned to work on the procurement process for crime duty provider contracts had no previous experience of working on public sector procurement.
Mr Shailesh Vara
13 temporary staff were employed through the Brook Street Agency and a Crown Commercial Services Recruitment framework and were selected by the Legal Aid Agency and interviewed by permanent members of staff to ensure their suitability. These individuals made up 19% of the overall assessment team. In addition contracts were entered into with legal practices to provide additional resource.
The key criteria for employment were analytical skills and the ability to conduct a qualitative assessment. A legal or procurement background was considered an advantage but not essential, given that they would be supervised by permanent staff from the Legal Aid Agency.
The procurement was undertaken in line with the Public Contract Regulations and applicant organisations were required to pass a number of stages of assessment in order to be considered suitable to hold a duty provider contract. The criteria against which organisations were assessed is set out in the Information For Applicants which govern this procurement process.