Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate the Department has made of how many drink and drug driving cases have been thrown out on technicalities, and whether the Department is reviewing this.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions and related outcomes for a variety of offences, including drink and drug driving, in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, which can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal justice statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.

Figures relating to where prosecutions were discontinued or discharged are included in published tools but further details about why a case was discontinued and whether it was “thrown out on technicalities” are not held centrally. This information may be held in court records but to examine individual court records would incur disproportionate costs.