Attorney General written question – answered at on 24 July 2017.
Jon Trickett
Shadow Minister (Cabinet Office), Shadow Lord President of the Council
To ask the Attorney General, how many contracts put out to tender by the Law Officers' Departments have been (a) cancelled and (b) re-tendered in each year since 2010.
Jeremy Wright
The Attorney-General
The Government Legal Department (GLD), Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) do not specifically record information centrally on those contracts that have been cancelled and retendered, but the procurement team are not aware of any contracts that have been cancelled and re-tendered since 2010.
According to Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) records held centrally, there have been no contracts that have been cancelled and re-tendered since 2010. The CPS is a devolved organisation, however, and it is possible that contracts have been awarded locally and subsequently cancelled. To collate any such contracts would involve checking large numbers of records across a number of CPS offices and would incur disproportionate cost (Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, part 2, Clause 9).
The information requested is not collated centrally at the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and could only be obtained through a manual search of records, which would incur a disproportionate cost.
Yes1 person thinks so
No0 people think not
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The Attorney General, assisted by the Solicitor General, is the chief legal adviser to the Government. The Attorney General also has certain public interest functions, for example, in taking action to protect charities.
The Attorney General has overall responsibility for The Treasury Solicitor's Department, superintends the Director of Public Prosecutions as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland. The Law Officers answer for these Departments in Parliament.
The Attorney General and the Solicitor General also deal with questions of law arising on Government Bills and with issues of legal policy. They are concerned with all major international and domestic litigation involving the Government and questions of European Community and International Law as they may affect Her Majesty's Government.
see also, http://www.lslo.gov.uk/
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
