Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time taken for a person charged with knife possession to have their first appearance before a magistrate is; and what that average length of time was in each of the last five years.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
We recognise the impact the pandemic has had on timeliness, and the Government is committed to continuing to work to reduce waiting times for victims, witnesses and other court users.
Over the next three financial years we are investing an extra £477 million for the Criminal Justice System to help improve waiting times for victims of crime.
We are investing £1 million in a programme of work to support the recruitment of new magistrates. Over the next three financial years we are aiming to recruit 4,000 new magistrates.
As a result of these measures, in the magistrates' court, the criminal caseload has fallen from 445,000 in July 2020 to 358,100 in April 2022.
The table below sets out timeliness of magistrates' courts cases for charge to first listing before a magistrate (known also as first hearing, or first appearance) for the offences of:
Calendar Year | Charge or laying of information to first listing (mean days) | Charge or laying of information to first listing (median days) |
2017 | 19 | 16 |
2018 | 21 | 17 |
2019 | 23 | 17 |
2020 | 32 | 21 |
2021 | 35 | 20 |
Notes
1) Data excludes a small number of cases with identified data quality issues and breaches.
2) Only one offence is counted for each defendant in the case. If there is more than one offence per defendant that complete on the same day, a set of validation rules applies to select one offence only and these relate to the longest duration, seriousness and the lowest sequence number of the offence.
3) Data includes cases completed in the magistrates' courts during the specified time period, where no further action is required by the magistrates' courts.
4) Data includes cases that are sent to the Crown Court.
5) Following a technical issue a small amount of data (less than 1% of case disposals) was not included for a single day in September.
Further information on Magistrates' Courts Timeliness can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-october-to-december-2021.