Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the number of county court judgements in (a) Newport West constituency, (b) Wales and (c) England; and if he will make a statement.

The government publishes quarterly statistics including data on the volumes of judgments: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2022

Judgment data is categorised by the HMCTS site that the work is processed at and not by the addresses of the Defendant. The vast majority (over 80%) of judgments are processed at National Business Centres and are therefore not included in the Newport or Wales statistics which instead details the significantly smaller volume of judgments arising from a hearing.

Across England and Wales, the number of judgments made in the last six months has remained stable when compared to the previous six months. In Wales, the volumes of judgments made in the last six months is 25% higher than the previous six months with judgments in Newport County Court also showing an increase. This is comparable with the number of hearings increasing during the same time period which has the effect of improving the time taken for an outcome to be reached at Newport for those cases that require a hearing.