Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had with HM Courts and Tribunals Service on addressing the backlog of criminal cases in Wiltshire.

The outstanding caseload in the criminal courts remains one of the biggest challenges facing the Criminal Justice System.  Ministers meet regularly with the judiciary and HMCTS to discuss shared priorities, including the criminal courts caseload.

For this financial year (25/26), this Government is funding a record allocation of Crown Court sitting days to deliver swifter justice for victims – 110,000 sitting days this year, 4,000 higher than the last Government funded. We also funded 108,500 sitting days in the Crown Court in the last financial year - the highest level in almost 10 years (since FY15/16).  We continue to build capacity in magistrates’ courts, with 14,636 magistrates in post as of April 2025 across England and Wales. This year alone, we are uplifting our programme to bring in 2,000 new and diverse magistrates over the next 12 months and will continue to recruit at high levels in future years – ensuring our benches reflect the communities they serve. We also continue to recruit high levels of legal advisers, securing resilience for years to come.

However, the scale of the challenge is beyond what increasing sitting days can achieve.

This is why the Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to chair an Independent Review of Criminal Courts, to propose once-in-a-generation reform that will improve timeliness in the courts and deliver swifter justice for victims. The first part of the Review now been published. We will carefully consider Sir Brian’s proposals before setting out the Government’s full response in the autumn.