Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the longest wait has been for a tribunal date to be set to appeal decisions made by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Waiting times are calculated from receipt of the appeal to the final disposal decision. The final outcome of any appeal is not necessarily achieved at its first listed hearing so we are unable to extract data about waiting times for tribunal hearing dates.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average wait is for a tribunal date to be set to appeal decisions made by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Waiting times are calculated from receipt of the appeal to the final disposal decision. The final outcome of any appeal is not necessarily achieved at its first listed hearing so we are unable to extract data about waiting times for tribunal hearing dates.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the average length of time it takes for a court case to be processed and concluded in (a) Basildon, (b) Essex, and (c) England.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the time taken ‘at court’ in the magistrates’ courts and Crown Court for Essex in the ‘Magistrates’ courts timeliness tool’ and the ‘End-to-end timeliness tool’ (Crown Court).
Magistrates ‘at court’ time refers to the number of days from first listing to completion at the magistrates’ court and for the Crown Court it refers to the time from first listing at the magistrates’ court to completion at the Crown Court.
Data for the Essex Local Criminal Justice Board (LCJB) can be found using the ‘geographic area’ filter - Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK
LCJB is the lowest geographic level of our published Accredited Official Statistics for timeliness. Our published timeliness metrics are produced at a sufficiently 'high' level to reduce the volatility and fluctuations associated with low volumes of cases i.e. using court level data. As a result, we are unable to provide timeliness data for individual courts in Basildon.
The publication provides data for ‘England and Wales’ but does not contain a breakdown for England alone. When looking at data for England, the median time spent ‘at court’ across magistrates’ courts was 0 days for the year ending September 2025. This is due to the high proportion of Single Justice Procedure cases which commence and conclude on the same day. For the Crown Court, the median time spent ‘at court’ was 172 days for the same period.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what information his Department holds on the current number of court cases awaiting hearings in (a) Essex and (b) Basildon.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on the number of open criminal cases at the Crown Court for Essex in the ‘Crown Court receipts, disposals and open cases tool’ and for the magistrates’ courts in the ‘Magistrates’ courts receipts, disposals and open cases tool’. Essex can be selected under Local Criminal Justice Board (LCJB).
Data is published for Basildon Crown Court in the Crown Court tool under the Crown Court filter - Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK
Data is not published at court level for the magistrates’ courts. The open caseload for the Basildon magistrates’ court was 1,700 as of the end of September 2025.
The open caseload reflects the workload in the courts at a given time. It will never be zero, as it reflects the volume of cases that are active in the courts at a particular point, including those recently received, those close to being disposed, those which are complex and take time to complete, and those that may be awaiting further hearings.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 92 of the Strategic Defence Review, published on 2 June 2025, how many (a) public engagements and (b) private meetings Ministers in their Department have undertaken related to the national conversation on defence and security.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Ministers have regular discussions with officials, external experts and ministerial colleagues on a range of issues, including national security, defence and resilience, and associated public communications.
As set out in the Strategic Defence Review, the national conversation will be a multi-year engagement designed to embed a whole-of-society approach, where Government, businesses, and the public all play a part in strengthening our resilience. This addresses the risks we face, including threats below and above the threshold of an armed attack.
The Ministry of Justice is actively supporting this work.
Asked by: Tristan Osborne (Labour - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many defendants elected trial by jury in either-way cases in each of the last a) three years and b) five years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice published data on those electing for jury trials in either-way cases covering periods from 2014 up to the first quarter of 2023. This information is published in the Criminal Courts Statistics release in Table_AC10: Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2023 - GOV.UK
At present, around 15% of either-way receipts into the Crown Court have an unknown reason for sending recorded in HMCTS reporting systems. Work is underway to reduce this rate of unknowns so that robust data can be published in future releases.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what offences will be eligible for trial without jury by the Crown Court Bench Division proposal in the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Courts and Tribunals Bill introduces judge-only trials for triable either-way offences where the courts assess that the likely custodial sentence, applying the relevant sentencing guidelines to the alleged facts and any appropriate representations, is three years imprisonment or less. Indictable-only offences are excluded and will not be eligible for this mode of trial, described as the Crown Court Bench Division.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what offences will have the right to elect restricted by the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Bill removes a defendants’ right to elect Crown Court trial for all triable either-way offences. The venue will be determined by the magistrates’ courts, which will send cases they consider outside of their jurisdiction to the Crown Court.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Written Statement of 22 January 2026 on Response to Legal Aid Agency cyber attack, HCWS1265, how much funding will be allocated to the transformation programme for Legal Aid Agency digital services.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The amount of funding which will be allocated to the transformation programme for Legal Aid Agency digital services is subject to final budget allocation decisions, which are currently ongoing.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what offences will be reclassified by the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Courts and Tribunals Bill does not reclassify offences - it changes allocation and mode of trial arrangements within the existing classification framework.