Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing retired judges back into employment to tackle the backlog of court cases that has accumulated since the beginning of the covid-19 outbreak.

The statutory retirement age for most judges is 70. The Lord Chief Justice (or in some instances the Senior President of Tribunals) may, with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor, extend the appointment of judges below the High Court following their compulsory retirement date for a period of one year and for further one-year periods up to the point at which the judge turns 75 where it is in the public interest to do so.

The work that the judiciary are doing to prioritise the most urgent cases alongside court and tribunal staff, is keeping our justice system running in the most challenging of circumstances. The full resumption of cases will depend a great deal on the wider approach to social distancing to keep our judiciary, staff and court users safe and we continue to explore options to help with this.