Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the provision of funding to increase the number of Crown Court sitting days.

Operational capacity in the criminal courts does not refer solely to judicial sitting days. Consideration of court capacity necessarily includes consideration of capacity in terms of numbers of advocates, defence and prosecution, legal advisors and other court staff of which there is a finite supply. To fund additional sitting days, the Lord Chancellor needed to be confident that the extra days were both deliverable and affordable.

The Crown Court is currently sitting the most sitting days since records began. The previous Lord Chancellor had already funded a significant increase over previous years’ allocations for this year. Having assessed regional delivery performance and confidence across criminal justice partners required for delivery, and considered the Department’s broader financial position, the Lord Chancellor chose to fund a further 1,250 Crown Court sitting days, taking the total to a record 111,250 this financial year.

The additional sitting days will be distributed to areas of the country able to support higher sitting levels and will enable the courts to sit at record levels this year, meaning more trials will be able to be heard. New courts and prison projections which include the assumed 111,250 days will be published in December.

Whilst the Crown Court sitting days allocation is at a record level, it is not even higher due to capacity constraints and the Department’s wider financial position. This means while we are prioritising Crown Court funding we also have to consider the capacity not just of HMCTS, but the capacity and cost of the judges, lawyers, prosecutors, legal aid and defence barristers that underpin the rest of the system. We do not hold data for the number of cases not heard each month as a result of the cap on sitting days. We consider capacity across the year and have adjusted sitting day levels accordingly, as detailed below.

The Lord Chancellor and his officials engage regularly with the Treasury on court resourcing and funding. This increase in sitting days reflects the Government’s commitment to ensuring the Crown Court has the resources it needs to deliver timely justice. This year we have secured record investment in the courts system – up to £450 million by the end of the Spending Review period.

While extra sitting days will help to tackle delays in our courts, only major reform will address the crisis in our courts. That is why the previous Lord Chancellor commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to lead an Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, to propose bold and ambitious reforms to improve timeliness in the courts and deliver swifter justice for victims.