Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the enforcement of criminal court compensation orders; and whether he plans to introduce measures to improve the recovery of compensation awarded to victims of fraud.

The effectiveness of the enforcement of all financial penalties, including all criminal compensation orders is constantly under review.

HMCTS is taking action to improve the collection and enforcement of criminal compensation orders as part of the improvements to financial penalties more generally, and this includes compensation orders made to victims of fraud. For example, HMCTS is already investing over £14 million to replace an outdated IT system used to support the collection and enforcement of financial penalties. Although the functionality of the modernised system will initially be largely like for like, it will provide HMCTS with a stable foundation for more sophisticated technology features to be delivered in the future to provide further improvements to increase collections.

Court-imposed financial penalties are enforced as a whole, with payments distributed according to a statutory order of priority. This ensures the compensation is paid first to victims, followed by the victim surcharge, before any payments are applied to fines or other financial impositions.

HMCTS reports on compensation through the HMCTS Trust Statement, which is published annually on GOV.UK: HM Courts & Tribunals Service Trust Statement 2025 to 2026 - GOV.UK.