A Conversation With Attorney General Victoria Prentis

The Right Honourable Victoria Prentis KC MP was trained as a barrister and worked for many years in the Government Legal Service.  She was elected to Parliament as the conservative MP for Banbury in 2015 and has held various ministerial offices since 2021. She was appointed His Majesty’s Attorney General for England and Wales in November last year. Oscar Wilton caught up with her in April 2023 to interview her about what her office involves and how she sees the role.

Pictured: Victoria Prentis (Credit: His Majesty’s Government)

The office of attorney-general goes back to the 13th century. What is it like to be the latest in such a long line of holders of this office?

Well you’re very aware of the history behind the post! As you say, it’s a very long history, I think it started in 1243, the post of attorney general. So it’s one of the oldest posts in government. Some people have absolutely hated it. There are records of Attorney Generals saying that it’s living hell and that it’s a dreadful post, but I think it's great.

You became the attorney general in 2022 – what were you doing before that and how did you come to be attorney general?

I was elected in 2015. I was a PPS (Parliamentary Private Secretary) in various departments and then I was asked to be the Agriculture and Fisheries Minister by Boris Johnson, which was a post I held for two and a half years. I had a very happy time in DEFRA and then very briefly, while Liz Truss was Prime Minister, I was the Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions. For seven weeks.

What are the main duties of an attorney-general nowadays? 

The primary function is definitely to provide legal advice to the government and that is what I spend most of my time doing. I have a team of excellent lawyers to help me and we provide advice both when we’re asked for it and sometimes when we think it’s a good idea to give it. I have other functions as well. I’ve been slightly surprised that I have spent so much of my time concentrating on accountability for the war in Ukraine.

That has been part of the role of attorney general before – certainly after the Second World War the British Attorney General played a large part in the Nuremberg Trials and in other forms of accountability after that war, and we are playing a full part in accountability for this war.

The international cooperation element and indeed support for the Ukrainian Prosecutor General has been a large part of the role. He has become a good friend. His name is Andriy Kostin, and we’re working on various things together; he is currently prosecuting over 72,500 open case files for people who have committed war crimes. There are other aspects to accountability too, including reparations. Most of the prosecutions will be taking place in Ukraine but there is definitely a general consensus that we will want to have an international element for accountability, and we are just trying to work out how we do that best.

And what is your relation to the Solicitor General Michael Tomlinson?

Very good. We work very closely together. We try to give advice together where possible – certainly if it’s controversial – we think it’s stronger to do that together. We also work very closely with the Advocate General for Scotland, Keith Stewart, who is the third law officer. It’s a bit like a barristers chambers – we have a corridor with our offices leading off it and the doors are always open and we're popping in and out.

Until the 1957 Homicide Act it was part of your role to prosecute all poisoning cases – do you regret the loss of that role?

How exciting! I did do criminal law right at the beginning of my career but I’m not a criminal law specialist. I feel very lucky actually in the role of attorney general in that most of the law that I’m asked to give a view on is what I’ve been trained in for my whole career, which is public law with an element of international law. Before I was elected I was a government lawyer for 17 years, so I feel very fortunate that I’m able to give advice on something I have genuinely specialised in. The criminal law aspects of the job are still important; we give advice on ‘unduly lenient sentences’. Michael Tomlinson does most of the heavy lifting there but I also join in when necessary. The Advocate General for Scotland has also done a great deal of criminal work and is really helpful in that regard too.

As the attorney general you’re sworn to uphold the rule of law and you’re in charge of giving legal advice to government, but at the same time you are a political figure, a conservative MP attending cabinet. How do you reconcile the two roles and isn’t there a danger of a conflict of interest?

I think all lawyers know that upholding the rule of law is the most important element of their working lives. It definitely always has been for me, both before and after I was elected. I’m still subject to all the same professional obligations that I had in my previous role. I actually think that government lawyers have extra duties, for example the duty of candour, which is very important. For me the rule of law is and always will be the most important driver if you like. However, it doesn’t hurt to have some political understanding of the pressures put on ministers and the government as a whole from political events. Giving advice from an informed position politically has got to be a key part of the role.

At the time of the Iraq War Attorney General Peter Goldsmith famously provided what proved to be controversial advice on the lawfulness of going to war, advice which was insisted upon by members of the Defence Establishment and was minutely analysed by lawyers and in the media. How would you approach such a momentous question if similar circumstances were to arise again?

We still advise on the law of war, as I said earlier very much on international accountability for war,  and we advise whether actions that the government is proposing to take are lawful or not. This has always been very challenging and that’s partly what I mean about government lawyers having extra duties. It is even more important than usual that you are very transparent where possible, whether that’s possible in security terms, and that you uphold the rule of law generally.

Are there any advantages to having a foot in both camps – in both politics and the law?

Definitely, because it means you understand your clients and the government is your client. All lawyers will tell you that understanding what is driving the client is a key part of being able to give advice which is not only useful but is also listened to.

When giving legal advice is it part of your role to identify the political consequences of taking one course or another, or is that for the recipient to work out for him or herself?

It varies. Normally the government is pretty aware of the political consequences, but it is perfectly proper for us to highlight that in our advice as well, to say, ‘you could do this, or you could do that, but this might be more politically palatable’. That is a very normal way for law officers to behave and that’s very much why law officers are helpful and is why we have this special role.

What happens when the correct legal position is unclear – what do you do then?

I have spent my whole career as a litigator. I don't have any difficulty with giving advice that a course of action is perfectly properly arguable but is not yet clear law. I very much enjoy that as a government litigator you have both the resource and the ability to test novel points of law before the courts. I don’t see anything wrong with the government doing that where it is appropriate to do so. That’s another thing that is really good about being a government lawyer – what everybody should be!

Of course, the government has a huge need for advice, do you rely on others too? If so, to whom do you go for advice?

I have a very, very good team in the Attorney General’s Office of excellent lawyers. I also, of course, have the Government Legal Department which I used to be part of when I was an official. We use external counsel where we need to. The First Treasury Counsel (Sir James Eadie) is one of the lawyers I’ve worked with most closely for the last twenty-something years. That is a really useful relationship too.

As well as advising government the attorney general has many incidental functions.  One of the most important, as you mentioned previously, is appealing unduly lenient sentences – how do you decide what is ‘unduly lenient’?

What happens is that the case is prepared beautifully for us by lawyers in the office and the Michael Tomlinson and I then decide on the basis of the facts of the case and what was said at sentencing. We are helped in that regard by Old Bailey lawyers – there is a team of lawyers in the Old Bailey who prosecute – they are enormously helpful to us if we need extra advice.

Is that the panel of specialist counsel for government work?

Yes, that’s who they are – they sit in something that they call ‘the Room’. They are the Old Bailey Panel Counsel and they’re very nice, and very very good.

One of your other roles is to intervene to discontinue a private prosecution?

Yes, we haven’t had to do that too much.

But if you were to have to do it, when would you do that and how could that be justified? 

You just have to look at the facts. You really do; those are all very fact specific.

I see from your website that the Attorney General has recently visited Ukraine and is going to be involved in providing training for Ukrainian judges. Tell me about that.

We have trained over 100 Ukrainian judges. One of the best things we have done in the accountability side of the Ukraine War is to give the Prosecutor General in Ukraine, Andriy Kostin, Sir Howard Morrison who is our most senior International Criminal Court judge. We lent him lock, stock, and barrel to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General last May, and since then he has trained really intensively over 100 Ukrainian judges in how to run a war crimes tribunal. Nobody has more experience than Sir Howard so his training has been really top notch and invaluable. I met some of the judges he has trained when I was in Ukraine recently – it has really, really been effective and they are prosecuting as we speak. It’s extraordinary – it has never happened before, I don’t think, that we have prosecuted during the course of an armed conflict, and they have already convicted 29 offenders, some of whom have been detained and have been used in prisoner swaps.

You started life at the Bar – do you get the opportunity nowadays to act as an advocate in Court?  If so, when?

I could do. However, all barristers will tell you that advocacy is very time consuming. As I said, my specialism is very much in public law, so if I do some advocacy it will be in public law rather than criminal law. Michael Tomlinson has done some unduly lenient sentence appeals before the Court of Appeal which he has enjoyed very much. I think probably that isn’t the best use of my time. If there is a public law case that comes up where I wouldn’t up the political stakes too much by appearing I would love to, but if that doesn’t happen I suspect I will do some advocacy in international courts for Ukrainian war crimes. The Office are threatening to make me do at least some of that in French!

Lastly, I think you referred to Sir Patrick Hastings’ saying, that because of the huge workload, “to be a law officer is to be in hell”.  Do you agree? 

No, I love it because it is genuinely the sort of law that I have trained to do all my life. It’s the sort of law I am interested in – where politics and the law meet and sometimes collide. It is very difficult because you sometimes have to give cabinet colleagues advice that they don’t want.

Interviewed by Oscar Wilton