Chris Elmore, MP for Ogmore, has demanded clarity following a series of contradictory remarks on the UK Government’s planned actions to tackle record-low rape convictions and prosecution rates brought about by a decade of Conservative incompetence and cuts.

After an apology from the Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, this week, the Government outlined its intention to “return the volumes of cases being referred by the police, charged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and going to court, to at least 2016 levels – when the decline in prosecutions began to appear.

However, following Labour’s calls for these targets to be met within a year, and for Robert Buckland to resign if they were not met, the Justice Secretary has now branded such targets “constitutionally illiterate”.

Chris Elmore, MP for Ogmore, said:

“Years of Tory incompetence have led to record-low rape prosecutions and convictions, yet instead of taking decisive action to fix this failure, the UK Government are dithering, shifting the blame and avoiding responsibility.

“We need urgent clarification from the UK Government about whether they intend to stick to the target of increasing the number of rapists who are charged. For the past eleven years we have seen a hollowing out of the criminal justice system with courts closed, prison officers being cut and local policing all but vanishing. The UK Tory Government are nothing but weak on crime.

“Last minute U-turns and transferring the responsibility is an insult to victims of rape in Ogmore who are seeking justice. The Justice Secretary must take action or resign.”