Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what was the (a) average length of a trial and (b) average time taken for a case to reach completion following receipt at the Crown Court, broken down by individual Crown Court centre, for each financial year from 2019–20 to 2024–25.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice regularly publishes data on the average amount of time a case spends being heard and the average time taken for a case to reach completion following receipt at the Crown Court, as part of the Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK

Data on the average amount of time a case spends being heard (in hours) is published in the “Crown Court average waiting and hearing time tool”, which can be filtered by trial type, including jury trial (01. Not guilty plea & 02. Trials total) and region.

Data on the average time taken for a case to reach completion (in days) following receipt at the Crown Court is published in the ‘End-to-end timeliness tool’ (Crown Court) which be filtered by Local Criminal Justice Board (LCJB).

LCJB and region are the lowest available geographic level of our published Accredited Official Statistics for timeliness and hearing time respectively. Our published metrics are produced at a sufficiently 'high' level of geography to reduce the volatility and fluctuations associated with low volumes of cases.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many court sitting days were sat in each individual Crown Court centre in England and Wales in each financial year from 2019–20 to 2024–25.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Information on the number of court sitting days sat in each individual Crown Court Centre in England and Wales for each financial year from 2019-2020 to 2024-25 is provided in the attached table.

This Government inherited a justice system in crisis. There are over 80,000 criminal cases waiting to be heard in the Crown Court and it is only by pulling every lever we have – investment, efficiency and reform – that we can we turn the tide on the backlog and begin to deliver faster and fairer justice.

That is why we are delivering record financial investment. We have uncapped Crown Court sitting days for 2026/27, which means there is no longer a financial limit on the amount of work the Crown Court can undertake; and we have announced additional funding of up to £34 million a year for criminal legal aid advocates and £92 million per year for criminal legal aid solicitor fee schemes. £287 million is being invested in both IT improvements and the court estate itself, to deliver vital repairs and digital upgrades to court buildings and wider IT Systems.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of Crown Court defendants entered an early guilty plea, broken down by individual Crown Court centre, for each financial year from 2019–20 to 2024–25.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Where appropriate, early guilty pleas (EGPs) can have benefits for both the administration of justice (by saving court time) and victims (by saving them from having to give potentially traumatic evidence).

Data on early guilty pleas (EGPs) is published as part of the Criminal Justice System Delivery Data Dashboard. This defines an EGP as a guilty plea entered by a defendant at any time prior to trial. The data can be broken down by Local Criminal Justice Board, in the section ‘Early guilty plea rate (%)’.

Charge to case completion at court - CJS Dashboard

In Part 2 of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, Sir Brian Leveson made a series of recommendations aimed at strengthening the incentives for defendants who intend to plead guilty to do so at the first reasonable opportunity. We are carefully considering these and the additional remaining recommendations from Sir Brian’s Review and will set out a full response in due course.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, why his Department's Crown Court Information data tool, which previously published receipts, disposals, guilty plea and trial effectiveness statistics broken down by individual Crown Court centre, has not been updated since December 2023, and whether he plans to update and make these statistics publicly available.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice retired use of the Crown Court Information data tool in 2024 because we rationalised outputs to avoid duplicating published measures, and moved towards other software solutions. Much of the data previously available in the tool and some additional metrics and breakdowns are published in detailed pivot tools and dashboards as set out below.

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data on the Crown Court caseload, plea, and trial effectiveness as part of the Accredited Official Statistics series Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly. This includes detailed data tools which provide breakdowns by available geography: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK

For a dashboard view of the data, the department has published the Criminal Justice System Data Delivery Dashboard. This includes a range of performance metrics, including data on trials that do not proceed in the ‘Victim engagement’ section of the dashboard: Home - CJS Dashboard.

Found: issues in Tunbridge Wells and a summary of findings of a business compensation survey, dated 23 March Katie Lam

Submit Evidence (by 16 Oct 2026)

The Transport Committee is examining how transport issues can act as a barrier to young people finding, taking up and remaining in employment or training.

Submit Evidence (by 25 Mar 2033)

The Transport Committee is looking at how effectively the Government is keeping women and girls safe as they travel, and what more could be done to ensure that they can make their journeys without fear of violence, intimidation or harassment.