Emily Thornberry: To ask the Attorney-General what conviction rates have been secured by the Crown Prosecution Service for fraud in each of the last five years.

The Solicitor-General: The records held by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) provide an analysis of the outcome of proceedings, divided into 12 principal offence categories indicating the most serious offence with which the defendant was charged at the time of finalisation. The following table shows, in each of the last five years, the conviction rates for defendants whose principal offence was fraud and forgery.

2007-08

89.7

2008-09

90.0

2009-10

87.9

2010-11

87.1

2011-12

86.2

As well as offences of fraud, the conviction rate figures include bankruptcy offences, forgery and counterfeiting, and fraud and forgery associated with vehicle or driver records. The figures represent all convictions for fraud and forgery handled by the 13 areas of the CPS and, from April 2010, cases prosecuted by the specialist Central Fraud Division established following the merger of the CPS’s Fraud Prosecution Division with the Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office.

Emily Thornberry: To ask the Attorney-General what conviction rates were secured by the Crown Prosecution Service for frauds worth (a) between £10,000 and £100,000, (b) between £100,000 and £500,000, (c) between £500,000 and £1 million and (d) more than £1 million in each of the last five years.

The Solicitor-General: The Crown Prosecution Service maintains no central record of the values of frauds prosecuted. Such data could not be reasonably obtained locally or nationally other than by undertaking a manual exercise of reviewing individual case files at a disproportionate cost.