§ Mr. PickthallTo ask the Attorney-General, pursuant to the answer of 28 April 1998,Official Report, columns 65–67, on legal aid, if he will list for the named banisters the amount of public funds they gained from prosecution costs over the same period. [42265]
The Attorney-General[holding answer 19 May 1998]: The number of prosecuting authorities in England and Wales makes it impracticable for my officials to make inquiries of each in order to aggregate payments made to each counsel. Such inquiries have therefore been confined to the four main prosecuting authorities only, namely the Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office, the Department of Trade and Industry and HM Customs and Excise. Figures are for gross fees inclusive of VAT. Because of the system operated for the payment of prosecution fees, the figures represent sums actually paid to counsel during the period in question, which is a different basis to that reflected in the answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department on 28 April 1998, Official Report, columns 65–67, which were calculated on a last payment basis.
The sums paid by way of prosecution fees to the banisters named during the financial year 1996–97 by the authorities mentioned above is as follows:
£ R. Alun Jones QC 0 Malcolm Swift QC 4,230 Peter Rook QC 99,421 Edmund Lawson QC 17,918 Stephen Batten QC 11,876 Anthony Arlidge QC 0 Michael Hill QC 15,319 Ronald Thwaites QC 0 Andrew Trollope QC 0 Stuart Stevens 91 Oliver Blunt QC 52 Stephen Leslie QC 0 Winston Roddick QC 27,048 Peter Feinberg QC 0 Timothy Raggatt QC 81,120 Anthony Berry QC 258 Clare Montgomery QC 50,231 Peter Doyle 940 Patrick Harrington QC 65,909 P. James Richardson 0