Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what cost-benefit analysis he has undertaken on defendants appearing by video link rather than being brought to court.

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the Criminal Justice System. We have been innovative and adapted our ways of working to ensure that the courts kept running during the pandemic, including significant increase in the use of digital. Not only have we worked to significantly increase the amount of cases heard via video and audio during this crisis, we have also worked to improve these digital hearings through a national rollout of Cloud Video Platform (CVP). This has enabled us to increase the number of hearings we were able to hear, and since the pandemic thousands of remand hearings have been heard via video, enabling hearings to continue to take place despite the limitations of social distancing.

As the CJS recovers from COVID-19, we want to continue improving how the courts use technology and are committed to monitoring and evaluating the impact of the use of video and audio.