Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to reduce waiting times for tribunal hearings.

We are working to reduce the outstanding caseload in the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal including the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal. Reducing outstanding caseloads is the key measure to bringing down the waiting times for tribunal hearings.

HMCTS continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology.

Data on Tribunals performance is published by the Ministry of Justice on a quarterly basis. Receipts, disposals and the outstanding caseload for individual Chambers in the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal, the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.