Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of defendants had their sentence increased after appealing the (a) sentence and (b) conviction they received from the magistrates’ court to the Crown Court in each of the last five years.

The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of appeals against magistrates’ decisions dealt with in the Crown Court: Criminal court statistics quarterly: April to June 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

However, data linking the Crown Court appeal case to the initial magistrates’ case is not held centrally. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.