Crown Court Criminal Case Backlog

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a former chair of the Bar Council and recorder of the Crown Court. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, and welcome her to this House.

The context today was set for me by the survey just published showing that one in three criminal barristers is considering leaving criminal work because they say they work too hard for too little. That will only make things worse.

From 2009-10 to 2022-23, the last year we have, public funding for justice in England and Wales had declined by over 22% in real terms. It is worth noting that the Ministry of Justice budget is about 1% of the health budget. Obviously, some backlog in the Crown Court is inevitable. Cases waiting to be tried need time for proper preparation. The issue is not the backlog but the deficit—the failure—in the system to properly cope with it.

The backlog, we have heard, is caused by many different factors, but especially, I suggest, reduced court sitting days and too few criminal barristers and those with the right certification and approval to take serious criminal cases, such as rape cases and so on. I welcome the Government’s recent decision to raise the sitting-day cap to 110,000 in the next financial year, but there must be adequate funding to ensure that these new available sitting days are properly used.

The number of cases coming into the Crown Court routinely exceeds disposals. In the third quarter of 2024, over 31,000 cases were received into the Crown Court—a 12% increase on the previous year. This rising tide must be controlled and reversed. The number of cases in the backlog, as we have seen, has continued to rise over time.

What are we going to do to tackle that backlog? We have had a number of suggestions. One made by the Bar Council was that the CPS must give more consideration to the better use of cautions and conditional cautions for low-level offending by those of relatively good character who are not likely to receive prison sentences. The CPS should also consider whether a summary charge, with the consequences of summary trial, may be sufficient for many cases, particularly now that the jurisdiction of the magistrates’ courts has been increased.

I endorse the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, with his experience as Lord Chief Justice, that we should look very seriously at an intermediate court of a judge sitting with justices.

The court estate must be used to full capacity. The cap on sitting days for the Crown Court must be removed. Better fees must be paid to criminal and defence barristers to ensure that we have enough to meet the demand. Some 20 years ago, as chair of the Bar Council, I urged the then Department for Constitutional Affairs to pay properly for pretrial case management—nothing was done, and we have the current mess because of that.

There we are. Delay damages victims, witnesses and defendants, and it destroys this country’s reputation for justice. We must do better.