Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many court days were lost in 2025 due to the unavailability of courtrooms as a result of building failures by a) crown court, b) magistrates court and c) family court.

The number of court days lost due to building failures in the last full financial year (2024/25) is as follows:

Crown Court – 258 days

Magistrates’ Court – 36 days

Family Court – 2 days

To put this into context, over the same period we sat over 107,000 days in the Crown Court.

A lost court day is defined as a planned sitting day consisting of two sessions (one morning, one afternoon session) that is cancelled, adjourned or unable to proceed due to unforeseen circumstances, structural issues or scheduling conflicts. The figures above reflect court days lost due to building failures only. Workforce shortages are also a major cause of lost time: in 2024, over 1,000 trials were cancelled owing to a lack of counsel, which is why we are investing further in legal aid and match funding pupillages for criminal barristers.

Thanks to the efforts of court staff and the judiciary, where a building failure occurs, losing court days can often be averted through our ability to move cases to another courtroom or nearby court building, or by using remote hearing arrangements.

It is vital that court infrastructure does not prevent hearings from taking place, that is why we announced a boost in court capital maintenance and project funding from £120 million in 2024/25, to £148.5 million for 2025/26.