Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the impact of video-conferencing linking defendants to the court on (a) remand decisions, (b) sentencing decisions and (c) the take-up of legal representation.

It is for judges to decide whether it is in the interest of justice to enable a live link to be used having considered representations from parties in the case. We will continue to conduct research and testing to ensure that the current technology is reliable, user-friendly and accessible and meets the requirements of justice.

The MoJ is conducting an evaluation of the HMCTS reform programme to ensure that the effects of reform can be identified and assessed. This evaluation will help identify if the reform programme has met its aims and what effects it had, for whom and why, including the impacts on vulnerable users. Our evaluation framework for HMCTS Reform was published in May 2021. An interim evaluation report is planned for publication in 2022, and a final evaluation report will be published following the end of the reform programme.

We are keen to evaluate impacts as part of any future research however plans for this are still to be confirmed.