Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment has been made of the potential merits of expanding magistrate court provision in (a) Surrey and (b) Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has already invested heavily in the criminal justice system – in record sitting days, court buildings and technology, and in legal professionals. We have secured record investment (up to £450 million per year for the courts system over the Spending Review period), and we are investing almost £150 million to modernise the court estate, including magistrates’ courts across the South East. Discussions about the allocation for 2025-26 between the Deputy Prime Minister and Lady Chief Justice continue and we will provide more detail in due course. Nevertheless, the Deputy Prime Minister has been clear that sitting days in the Crown Court and magistrates’ courts must continue to rise.
We are also accelerating our programme to recruit more new and diverse magistrates over the coming years and we continue to recruit high levels of legal advisers to ensure courts remain resilient.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many migrants who arrived illegally have been given legal aid funded from the public purse in the last five years; and what the cost is of that legal aid.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information is not centrally held. Where proceedings are before a court or tribunal in England or Wales, legal aid is available to individuals who qualify for services irrespective of their immigration status or method of entry into England and Wales. Method of entry to England or Wales is not relevant to eligibility for legal aid under the current rules.
Generally, applications for legal aid will be subject to an assessment of the merits of the case and the financial circumstances of the applicant.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of increased trials without juries on the number of judicial review applications.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Following reforms to the criminal courts, judicial review of criminal court decisions will be available in the same circumstances as it is currently.
We might expect to see an increase in the number of applications, given we expect to see more cases retained in the magistrates’ courts; however, the permission stage of a judicial review will mean that only those with proper grounds for a judicial review will progress.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that available Crown Court courtrooms are utilised on every sitting day.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HMCTS’s priority is to ensure all funded sitting days are fully utilised each financial year through active courtroom management. Last year we sat 107,771 Crown court sitting days, representing over 99% of our allocation, and we remain on track to deliver all allocated days this year. While I acknowledge existing challenges in relation to the maintenance of the court estate, this Government is increasing investment to address this - £148.5 million was allocated to court and tribunal maintenance and project funding this financial year, £28.5 million more than the previous government funded last financial year.
Estate capacity is not the limiting factor when it comes to making full use of the available sitting days. Whether we can make full use of the physical space available depends on “system capacity” i.e. the sufficiency of judges, magistrates, legal advisors, advocates and wider system partners available to support them.
In the Crown Court for this financial year, we have allocated 111,250 sitting days - the highest number of sitting days on record and over 5,000 more than the previous government funded for the last financial year. That is on top of an additional investment of up to £92 million per year for criminal legal aid solicitor fees and up to £34 million per year for criminal legal aid advocates. We have also secured record investment of up to £450 million per year for the courts system over the Spending Review period, alongside investing almost £150 million to modernise the court estate.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Lady Chief Justice continue discussions on allocation for 2025-26, aiming to give an unprecedented three-year certainty to the system. The Deputy Prime Minister has been clear that sitting days in the Crown and magistrates’ courts must continue to rise, and his ambition is to continue breaking records by the end of this Parliament.
The Crown Court operates from 84 buildings across England and Wales, with a core estate of over 500 courtrooms. Most are jury-enabled and suitable for trials, with the remainder supporting other judicial work, such as interlocutory hearings. The wider HMCTS estate—including magistrates’, civil, family, and tribunal rooms —can also be used for Crown Court business when required. As a result, the precise number of rooms available for Crown Court use at any given time is variable.
Temporary unavailability may arise due to maintenance, but also due to overspill from other trials, alternative judicial activities (such as, box work, civil, family and tribunals hearings, or coroner’s court work), or other legitimate uses (including meetings and video-link sessions). However, these factors do not prevent the Crown Courts from sitting at their funded allocation.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Crown Court courtrooms are not sitting on average in each month, and what steps he is taking to address the issue of Crown Courts not sitting.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HMCTS’s priority is to ensure all funded sitting days are fully utilised each financial year through active courtroom management. Last year we sat 107,771 Crown court sitting days, representing over 99% of our allocation, and we remain on track to deliver all allocated days this year. While I acknowledge existing challenges in relation to the maintenance of the court estate, this Government is increasing investment to address this - £148.5 million was allocated to court and tribunal maintenance and project funding this financial year, £28.5 million more than the previous government funded last financial year.
Estate capacity is not the limiting factor when it comes to making full use of the available sitting days. Whether we can make full use of the physical space available depends on “system capacity” i.e. the sufficiency of judges, magistrates, legal advisors, advocates and wider system partners available to support them.
In the Crown Court for this financial year, we have allocated 111,250 sitting days - the highest number of sitting days on record and over 5,000 more than the previous government funded for the last financial year. That is on top of an additional investment of up to £92 million per year for criminal legal aid solicitor fees and up to £34 million per year for criminal legal aid advocates. We have also secured record investment of up to £450 million per year for the courts system over the Spending Review period, alongside investing almost £150 million to modernise the court estate.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Lady Chief Justice continue discussions on allocation for 2025-26, aiming to give an unprecedented three-year certainty to the system. The Deputy Prime Minister has been clear that sitting days in the Crown and magistrates’ courts must continue to rise, and his ambition is to continue breaking records by the end of this Parliament.
The Crown Court operates from 84 buildings across England and Wales, with a core estate of over 500 courtrooms. Most are jury-enabled and suitable for trials, with the remainder supporting other judicial work, such as interlocutory hearings. The wider HMCTS estate—including magistrates’, civil, family, and tribunal rooms —can also be used for Crown Court business when required. As a result, the precise number of rooms available for Crown Court use at any given time is variable.
Temporary unavailability may arise due to maintenance, but also due to overspill from other trials, alternative judicial activities (such as, box work, civil, family and tribunals hearings, or coroner’s court work), or other legitimate uses (including meetings and video-link sessions). However, these factors do not prevent the Crown Courts from sitting at their funded allocation.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the capacity of magistrates’ courts to handle additional triable-either-way cases.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The magistrates’ court is an effective and efficient jurisdiction – In the 12 months to September 2025 it disposed of 1,448,163 cases with an average timeliness (offence to case completion) for the most recent quarter of 191 days. The Government will ensure there are sufficient numbers of magistrates and will seek to ensure that there are sufficient magistrates’ court sitting days to meet additional demand placed on the system.
An impact assessment for the criminal court reforms will be published alongside legislation in the usual way. In 2024, triable either way offences in the magistrates’ courts completed more than four times faster than in the Crown Court.
The Government has already made significant additional investment in the criminal justice system – in record sitting days, court buildings and technology, and in legal professionals. We have secured record investment (up to £450 million per year for the courts system over the Spending Review period), and we are investing almost £150 million to modernise the court estate, including magistrates’ courts. Discussions about the allocation for 2025-26 between the Deputy Prime Minister and Lady Chief Justice continue and we will provide more detail in due course. Nevertheless, the Deputy Prime Minister has been clear that sitting days in the Crown Court and magistrates’ courts must continue to rise.
We are also accelerating our programme to recruit more new and diverse magistrates over the coming years and we continue to recruit high levels of legal advisers to ensure courts remain resilient.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to apply trial by a single judge sitting alone retrospectively to defendants who have already entered a plea and elected trial by jury.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Ministers will introduce detailed proposals to Parliament as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his department is taking steps to deliver the recommendation from the Independent Sentencing Review of increased funding for the voluntary sector to support the Probation Service.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
I recognise the valuable role of the thousands of Voluntary Sector organisations that work in partnership with Prisons and Probation to provide vital support to people serving their sentence in prison and returning to the community.
We welcome the Independent Sentencing Review’s recommendation to explore how we can better harness the value of the Third Sector and build even stronger partnerships to enable better targeting of probation resource and improve outcomes for offenders.
We are currently in the process of re-procuring our commissioned rehabilitative services (CRS) contracts. 76% of current CRS contracts are led by the Third Sector. Our new contracts will improve on our current offering with expanded and improved consistency of service available in both custody and community.
We will continue to work with the Voluntary Sector as implementation of the Independent Sentencing Review progresses.
Asked by: Lord Swire (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the average sentence was for those found guilty of female genital mutilation in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions and average custodial sentence lengths at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, including offences under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. They can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics
The table below provides the number of prosecutions over the past 5 years for offences under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. There have been no offenders sentenced to immediate custody during this period.
Offences under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 | Year ending 30 June 2023 | Year ending 30 June 2025 |
Proceeded against | 1 | 1 |
Asked by: Lord Swire (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prosecutions were brought for female genital mutilation in each of the past five years.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions and average custodial sentence lengths at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, including offences under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. They can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics
The table below provides the number of prosecutions over the past 5 years for offences under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. There have been no offenders sentenced to immediate custody during this period.
Offences under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 | Year ending 30 June 2023 | Year ending 30 June 2025 |
Proceeded against | 1 | 1 |