Question to the Ministry of Justice:
o ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many junior barristers have specialised in crime in each financial year since 2010-11.
Ministry of Justice (MOJ) does not routinely hold data on barristers’ specialisms. However as part of the Criminal Legal Aid Review, MOJ worked with the Bar Council and other stakeholders to combine key datasets which were summarised in a published Data compendium. This shows that the number of barristers in England and Wales who reported themselves as specialising in crime, and who carried out some publicly-funded criminal work, was 2,780 in 2018-19 and 2,690 in 2019-20 (Table 5.3). Comparable data is not available prior to 2018-19.
Table 5.13 shows that, in 2019-20, 87% of this group were junior barristers and 13% were QCs.