Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time was for a Crown court case to be heard from offence to completion in (a) the North West, (b) Merseyside and (c) Wirral in each of the last 10 years.

Please find attached tables (annex A) providing:

Mean offence to completion (days) and median offence to completion (days) for Crown Court cases in (a) the North West and (b) Merseyside for the years 2010-2018 (data for 2010 does not include Q1 as this information is not available)

Please note: Merseyside includes only Liverpool Crown Court. As such, no further breakdown for part (c) Wirral is available.

Offence to completion covers the period of time between a criminal offence being committed, through victim reporting, police investigation, entry into the Magistrates' Courts, sending to, and then completion at Crown Court.

The majority of time between offence to completion for Crown Court Cases is spent prior to entering the court system (between offence committed and first listing at the Magistrates Court) and this can be impacted by the reporting of historical offences and an increasingly complex caseload.