Tom Blenkinsop: To ask the Attorney-General how many prosecutions the Crown Prosecution Service has made for offences relating to illegal money lending in each year since 2005.
The Solicitor-General: The primary enforcement of illegal money lending will be conducted by local authority trading standards officers and illegal money lending teams co-ordinated by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, not the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The data held by the CPS does not therefore represent the total number of prosecutions.
The records held by the CPS identify the number of offences in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in magistrates courts, rather than the number of defendants. Offences of illegal money lending can be charged under section 39(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, engaging in activities that require a licence when not a licensee. Since 2005 the number of these offences prosecuted by the CPS was as follows:
Consumer Credit Act 1974 section 39(1)
Number
No central records of the prosecution outcomes of offences are held by the CPS. To obtain the volume and rate of conviction would involve reviewing individual case files which would incur a disproportionate cost.
In addition to the above offences, illegal money lending activities may give rise to other charges such as threatening behaviour, assault, blackmail or fraud. No central record of the circumstances of offences is maintained. Such data could not reasonably be obtained locally or nationally other than by reviewing individual case files which would incur a disproportionate cost.