Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

What steps he has taken to help tackle the backlog of criminal cases before the courts.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

What progress he has made on tackling the backlog of cases in HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

What steps he has taken to help tackle the backlog of criminal cases before the courts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

There are currently, as we speak, 49 Nightingale courtrooms open and available for work. There are five more opening this week, one of which is Croydon, the borough that I have the honour of representing in south London, and by the end of this month we will get up to a total of 60. Many of those courtrooms can be used for Crown court work, but even where they cannot—for example, because they do not have custodial facilities—they are very often able to do work that would otherwise be done in a Crown court centre that is then freed up for work where, for example, custody suites are required. This is making a real contribution and we intend to go further.

[Chi Onwurah [V]]

Justice delayed is justice denied. That is no cliché; it is the lived reality for the many, many victims who have not had their day in court during this pandemic. The Minister has said that he expects the number of cases to be brought back to acceptable levels before Easter 2023. Is this really acceptable, and what confidence can victims have that this late date will be met?

[Chris Philp]

I do agree that timely justice is essential. In the magistrates courts, the outstanding caseload has already come down by about 50,000 cases since last summer, which is very welcome progress. In Crown courts, we are now getting through about 2,000 cases a week, which is about the same as it was before the pandemic. But we do need to go faster: the hon. Lady is right. I think the judiciary eased off listing a little bit in January, February and the early part March owing to the more recent lockdown. Now we are moving out of those restrictions, in phases, our expectation is that listing levels will go up again. We have certainly created the capacity to do that, with 290 jury courtrooms available. As listing levels increase, using the capacity we have created I expect the outstanding caseloads to come down.