Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Equality Act 2010 on legal cases brought forward via the single justice procedure.

The Single Justice Procedure (SJP) was introduced under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. Prior to the introduction of the procedure, in accordance with the Equalities Act 2010, an equality impact assessment was undertaken in relation to SJP. This concluded that on the basis of the available evidence, the planned change in summary justice would not lead to any positive or negative impact on people with protected characteristics.

HMCTS committed to the Justice Select Committee to collect protected characteristic data in all reform services. This includes protected characteristic data for SJP, which has been monitored since 2023.

The decision to prosecute under SJP is a decision for the prosecutor and not the Government.