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Democracy and the Constitution, Victims of CrimeDivision Voting information
Debates during the 2024 Parliament
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
Sparring Partners
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Legislation Debates
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Lords initiatives
These initiatives were driven by Lord Garnier, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
Lord Garnier has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Lord Garnier has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
Latest 12 Written Questions
(View all written questions)HMCTS does not hold the information requested. Generally, the efficient use of the court estate is vital to the efficient administration of criminal justice. The overall cost and utilisation of court rooms is kept under regular review and the Government has increased capital investment in repair and maintenance of the courts and tribunals estate by some £28.5 million in this financial year to ensure more court rooms are kept in use.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
As at 1 April 2025 (the most recent month for which there are published statistics), there were 88 Deputy District Judges (Magistrates Court) where this was their primary appointment. Whilst we do collect data on Deputy District Judge sittings in the Magistrates’ Court, the data held centrally does not allow us robustly to identify how many of the 88 primary appointment Deputy District Judges sat each week or month.
Decisions as to when to list cases before Deputy District Judges rather than a panel of lay magistrates are made by the judiciary.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The table below sets out the data held per month for the number of Recorders who hold a live Crime ticket (weekly data is not available) over the 12 months to June 2025, which is the latest month for which the data is available. It also sets out the number of Recorders who sat for at least 1 day in the Crown Court during that same month.
It should be noted that many Recorders will hold multiple tickets, so the Recorders listed here who have not sat in the Crown Court may have been sitting in Family or Civil instead. In addition, Recorders may have other professional obligations which mean that they are not available to sit in a particular month.
The Deputy Prime Minister recently announced an additional 1,250 sitting days in the Crown Court this year, which means the Crown Court will be able to sit for 111,250 days this year, 5,000 more than the days initially allocated last year. This enables the Crown Court to sit more days this year than ever before.
YEAR/MONTH | RECORDERS WITH CRIME AUTHORISATIONS | DAYS RECORDERS SAT IN CROWN |
2024/07 | 889 | 299 |
2024/08 | 886 | 299 |
2024/09 | 884 | 301 |
2024/10 | 881 | 257 |
2024/11 | 878 | 251 |
2024/12 | 874 | 182 |
2025/01 | 874 | 183 |
2025/02 | 872 | 167 |
2025/03 | 871 | 167 |
2025/04 | 867 | 228 |
2025/05 | 864 | 216 |
2025/06 | 862 | 241 |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
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.
HMCTS’s priority is to ensure all funded sitting days are fully utilised each financial year through active courtroom management. Estate capacity is not a limiting factor: last year, we sat 107,771, representing over 99% of our allocation, and we remain on track to deliver all allocated days this year.
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.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
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.
HMCTS’s priority is to ensure all funded sitting days are fully utilised each financial year through active courtroom management. Estate capacity is not a limiting factor: last year, we sat 107,771, representing over 99% of our allocation, and we remain on track to deliver all allocated days this year.
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.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The average (mean) tariff for murderers (excluding whole life cases) sentenced in 2022 was 257 months and in 2023 it was 266 months.
Year of Sentence | Mean Tariff (months) |
2022 | 257 |
2023 | 266 |
Data sources and quality -
Note that the tariff length is the time between date of sentencing and tariff expiry date and does not take into account any time spent on remand. The figures do not include whole-life orders. The numbers are subject to revision as more data become available; any changes in the numbers since the last publication of this information is as a result of more sentencing data becoming available.
The data have come from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing and may be amended as part of data cleansing or updates.
The figures are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Information relating to the time spent on custodial remand is not centrally held by the Ministry of Justice. To obtain the data to answer this question would involve a manual interrogation of court records which would result in a disproportionate cost to the Department.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The mean time that unreleased prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence (that is, a life or an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence) spent over tariff was 121 months, as of 30 September 2024. These prisoners are spending time beyond tariff because the Parole Board did not deem them safe to release.
Table 1 shows a breakdown of unreleased prisoners serving IPP sentences that are 15 years over tariff, as of 30 September 2024.
Years over tariff | Number of unreleased IPP prisoners |
15 | 79 |
16 | 54 |
17 | 14 |
It is right that the IPP sentence was abolished, and this Government is determined that those serving the sentence get the support and opportunities they need to make further progress towards a safe and sustainable release.
We published the updated IPP Action Plan on 15 November, which puts a stronger emphasis on effective frontline delivery in our prisons. We are ensuring that prisoners serving IPP sentences have robust and effective sentence plans, which they are actively engaging with, and that they are in the correct prison to access the right interventions and rehabilitative services.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The mean time that unreleased prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence (that is, a life or an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence) spent over tariff was 121 months, as of 30 September 2024. These prisoners are spending time beyond tariff because the Parole Board did not deem them safe to release.
Table 1 shows a breakdown of unreleased prisoners serving IPP sentences that are 15 years over tariff, as of 30 September 2024.
Years over tariff | Number of unreleased IPP prisoners |
15 | 79 |
16 | 54 |
17 | 14 |
It is right that the IPP sentence was abolished, and this Government is determined that those serving the sentence get the support and opportunities they need to make further progress towards a safe and sustainable release.
We published the updated IPP Action Plan on 15 November, which puts a stronger emphasis on effective frontline delivery in our prisons. We are ensuring that prisoners serving IPP sentences have robust and effective sentence plans, which they are actively engaging with, and that they are in the correct prison to access the right interventions and rehabilitative services.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Parole Board publishes performance data annually. The period of time it covers is a financial year, 1 April to 31 March. Therefore, data is provided for a) 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 and b) 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.
The release outcomes are for all releases, whether following paper review or oral hearing and regardless of the number of parole reviews/hearings the prisoner has had. The Parole Board do not currently hold data for the number of life sentenced prisoners released at their first Parole Board hearing.
Life sentenced prisoners following a parole review (Member Case Assessment & Oral Hearing) | |||
Year | Remain in custody | Recommendation for open | Release |
2021/22 | 684 | 314 | 489 |
2022/23 | 600 | 230 | 464 |
The release outcomes are for all releases, whether following paper review or oral hearing, and regardless of the number of parole reviews/hearings the prisoner has had. The Parole Board does not currently hold data for the number of IPP sentenced prisoners released at their first Parole Board hearing.
IPP sentenced prisoners (Member Case Assessment & Oral Hearing) | |||
Year | Remain in custody | Recommendation for open | Release |
2005/6 | No records | No records | No records |
2006/7 | 44 | 2 | 6 |
2007/8 | 192 | 21 | 17 |
2008/9 | 390 | 105 | 43 |
2009/10 | 1,197 | 320 | 68 |
2010/11 | 1,789 | 612 | 140 |
2011/12 | 1,552 | 650 | 424 |
2012/13 | 1,555 | 662 | 511 |
2013/14 | 1,361 | 763 | 595 |
2014/15 | 1,074 | 641 | 625 |
2015/16 | 703 | 504 | 746 |
2016/17 | 576 | 468 | 905 |
2017/18 | 504 | 463 | 936 |
2018/19 | 523 | 326 | 893 |
2019/20 | 848 | 350 | 824 |
2020/21 | 840 | 336 | 865 |
2021/22 | 732 | 252 | 788 |
2022/23 | 665 | 186 | 657 |
2023/24 | 786 | 157 | 777 |
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Parole Board publishes performance data annually. The period of time it covers is a financial year, 1 April to 31 March. Therefore, data is provided for a) 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 and b) 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.
The release outcomes are for all releases, whether following paper review or oral hearing and regardless of the number of parole reviews/hearings the prisoner has had. The Parole Board do not currently hold data for the number of life sentenced prisoners released at their first Parole Board hearing.
Life sentenced prisoners following a parole review (Member Case Assessment & Oral Hearing) | |||
Year | Remain in custody | Recommendation for open | Release |
2021/22 | 684 | 314 | 489 |
2022/23 | 600 | 230 | 464 |
The release outcomes are for all releases, whether following paper review or oral hearing, and regardless of the number of parole reviews/hearings the prisoner has had. The Parole Board does not currently hold data for the number of IPP sentenced prisoners released at their first Parole Board hearing.
IPP sentenced prisoners (Member Case Assessment & Oral Hearing) | |||
Year | Remain in custody | Recommendation for open | Release |
2005/6 | No records | No records | No records |
2006/7 | 44 | 2 | 6 |
2007/8 | 192 | 21 | 17 |
2008/9 | 390 | 105 | 43 |
2009/10 | 1,197 | 320 | 68 |
2010/11 | 1,789 | 612 | 140 |
2011/12 | 1,552 | 650 | 424 |
2012/13 | 1,555 | 662 | 511 |
2013/14 | 1,361 | 763 | 595 |
2014/15 | 1,074 | 641 | 625 |
2015/16 | 703 | 504 | 746 |
2016/17 | 576 | 468 | 905 |
2017/18 | 504 | 463 | 936 |
2018/19 | 523 | 326 | 893 |
2019/20 | 848 | 350 | 824 |
2020/21 | 840 | 336 | 865 |
2021/22 | 732 | 252 | 788 |
2022/23 | 665 | 186 | 657 |
2023/24 | 786 | 157 | 777 |
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)