Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate his Department has made of the number of courts in England and Wales that were inaccessible to people with disabilities in each day of 2019.

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

We can provide an indication of the number of inaccessible courts during 2019 based on sites which have long-term access limitations due to a range of factors such as the building’s age, internal configuration or listed status. Our estimate is that of around 335 operational court and tribunal buildings, 26 were inaccessible to members of the general public with disabilities. We consider buildings to be inaccessible if they do not provide disabled users with both physical access to the court and the ability to access appropriate services in the building, for example disabled toilet facilities.

HMCTS has a reasonable adjustments policy in place to accommodate those with particular access requirements. The modernisation and investment taking place across the justice system should mean that fewer people will need to attend court, as we make use of technology such as video-conferencing and online services. These provisions will reduce the need for people to attend a physical court building.