Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Crown Courts in England and Wales have operated below (a) 50 per cent or (b) 25 per cent of their operational capacity within the last 12 months.

In the ten months September 2020 to June 2021 (in line with published statistics) one court recorded an average utilisation rate of below 50%, recording 48%, and no courts were below 25%. This court is the Central Criminal Court and utilisation was affected by a number of factors including maintenance works in two courtrooms and the reconfiguration of eight smaller courtrooms into jury deliberation rooms in support of social distancing. Only court sittings are recorded in utilisation calculations. This is management information and reflects the data held at the date of extraction, which is subject to change.