Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to reduce the backlog in court cases.

We are committed to reducing the outstanding caseloads across jurisdictions and bringing down waiting times to ensure cases move through our system without delay.

Criminal courts

Over 90% of criminal cases are dealt with at the magistrates’ courts where the outstanding caseload remains well below its peak during the pandemic. We continue to invest in the recruitment of more magistrates, aiming to recruit 2,000 new and diverse magistrates this year and similar numbers of each in the coming years.

The Crown Court outstanding caseload remains one of the biggest challenges facing the Criminal Justice System. The outstanding caseload has increased in recent years as more cases come before our criminal courts. To address this, we plan to sit at least 105,000 working days at the Crown Court this financial year, alongside considering further measures to speed up justice.

Family courts

In March this year the Family Justice Board agreed clear and measurable priorities for the family justice system, with a clear focus on closing the longest running cases and increasing the proportion of public law cases concluding within the 26-week statutory timeline.

To deliver this, we plan to sit 102,500 days in the family court this financial year and are investing £10m to develop, test and evaluate new initiatives to address the longest delays in public law cases.

We are also working to reduce the number of private law cases coming to court by supporting earlier resolution of family disputes. As of August 2024, over 32,000 separating parents have accessed the Family Mediation Voucher scheme, which provides £500 towards the cost of mediation, sparing many families from lengthy courtroom battles.

The outstanding caseload for public and private family law was 11,162 and 42,255 respectively (HMCTS MI published 8 August 2024). This is a reduction when compared to the same period last year, where there were 11,297 outstanding public law cases and 45,938 private law cases. (HMCTS MI published 11 July 2024).

Civil courts and tribunals

The civil courts have been under significant pressure in recent years. This has come from increased volumes and judicial capacity being both limited and often shared with the family jurisdiction.

It is important to note, though, that timeliness is not the sole indicator of performance in the civil justice system, and speedy resolution is not necessarily the best or most feasible justice outcome for every kind of case; some claims simply take time to resolve.

This Government is working to support people to resolve their civil disputes as swiftly and effectively as possible. We are doing this by promoting, where appropriate, simpler, less costly, more consensual methods of dispute resolution, including mediation. This has the potential to significantly reduce the burden on the court system and deliver better outcomes for parties to disputes and society.

As part of HMCTS Reform, 94% of civil court services are, or are becoming, available online.