Lord Stoddart of Swindon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2014-06-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will publish a full list of the criminal offences introduced between 1997 and 2013 in a form easily understood by the general public.

Lord Faulks

The Government wants to avoid bringing in new criminal offences where they are not needed and will continue to scrap unnecessary and out of date laws, but where there is a genuine need to create a new criminal offence we will continue to do so.

To publish an accessible list of criminal offences introduced between1997 to 2008 would incur a disproportionate cost to the public purse.

During this parliament, however, the Government committed to publishing the number of offences it created each year. My department is responsible for doing so and publishes an annual statistical bulletin on the number of new criminal offences added to the statute book. The bulletins cover primary and secondary legislation containing criminal offences enforceable in England and Wales. The latest bulletin covering the period 2009 to 31 May 2013 is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revised-new-criminal-offences-statistics-in-england-and-wales-june-2009-may-2013. The next bulletin should be available in December and will cover the period from 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014.

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