Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the (a) number of people who have been found guilty in their absence in civil debt cases and (b) number and proportion of those cases in which the defendant was absent as a result of not having been aware of the summons due to the court holding an incorrect home address in the latest period for which data is available.

The Ministry of Justice publication “Civil Justice Statistics Quarterly” contains statistics about the number of default judgments made in the county court in England and Wales each year. A default judgment means judgment without a court hearing, where a defendant has failed to acknowledge a claim has been made against them; or has failed to file a defence. A court hearing would only be listed if the defendant had responded to the claim and stated that they wanted to defend it.

In response to part a) of the question, the number of default judgments made in the latest period for which statistics are available is set out in the figures for 2021 below. It is not possible to say how many of these judgments relate to money claims. However, the majority of claims made to the county court are money claims.

For the reasons stated above, the figures in the table do not and cannot show the number of cases in which a money judgment is made by a court, in a case where the defendant did not appear for the hearing.

In answer to part b) it is not possible to determine what number and proportion of default judgments are as a result of the defendant not being aware of a money claim being made against them where it was sent to the wrong address. A default judgment can also arise when a defendant chooses not to respond to the money claim.

It is not possible for the courts to investigate the reasons behind why a defendant has not responded to the money claim.