Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-07-18.

To ask the Attorney General, on how many occasions the Law Officers referred a criminal sentence to the Court for Appeal for review on the grounds that it was unduly harsh in the last 12 months.

Robert Buckland

Whilst the Attorney General’s Office can ask the Court of Appeal to review a sentence which is considered to be unduly lenient, the Law Officers have no power to intervene when a sentence is too harsh. Therefore there have been no referrals to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that a sentence was unduly harsh.