Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of criminal court cases in (a) Stoke-on-Trent and (b) Staffordshire.

Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford fall into the Staffordshire Local Criminal Justice Board. Whilst the outstanding caseload in both the magistrates’ court and the Crown Court is currently higher than in 2019, due to additional pressures faced by the courts during the pandemic and as a result of the Criminal Bar Association Strike, there have been improvements in the last quarter. In the magistrates’ court, the outstanding case load stood at 8,964 in Q1 2023 compared to 9,401 in Q4 2022. In the Crown Court, the outstanding caseload stood at 1,033 in Q1 2023 compared to 1084 in Q4 2022. We continue to work with colleagues and the judiciary locally to improve our service to local communities.

We remain committed to reducing the caseload and are working closely with the judiciary and other partners to improve the experience of court users. We have introduced a raft of measures to achieve that aim, including allowing the courts to sit at maximum capacity for the third year in a row. We have also extended the use of 24 Nightingale courtrooms this financial year, and are recruiting up to 1,000 judges across all jurisdictions to allow courts to work at full capacity.