Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reclassification of certain offences to summary only on reducing the backlog in the Crown Courts.

Part 1 of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts considered the potential impact of reclassifying certain triable either way offences as summary only offences. Sir Brian Leveson’s analysis indicated that reclassification, together with restricting the right to elect for a Crown Court trial, would reduce demand on the Crown Court, but would not be sufficient to address the scale of the backlog.

Reclassification also raises significant operational concerns, including impacts on law enforcement powers. Sir Brian recognised that the Government may wish to go further to achieve the savings needed for our criminal courts to continue functioning and, as a result, the Government decided to proceed with reforms to remove the right to elect for a Crown Court trial for all triable either way offences, and to introduce a power to increase magistrates’ court sentencing powers.