Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department holds information on the median age of cases yet to elect mode of trial.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information about cases in the open caseload at both the magistrates’ courts and at the Crown Court. This includes breakdowns of volumes and durations as part of the Crown Court open caseload published as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly: Criminal court statistics quarterly.
The Ministry of Justice does not publish data relating to the progression of cases or defendant elections in the open caseload. As such we cannot provide volume or timeliness estimates regarding the decision of the defendant to elect mode of trial within the disproportionate costs limit.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of cases in the court backlog are pending the decision of the defendant to elect mode of trial.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information about cases in the open caseload at both the magistrates’ courts and at the Crown Court. This includes breakdowns of volumes and durations as part of the Crown Court open caseload published as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly: Criminal court statistics quarterly.
The Ministry of Justice does not publish data relating to the progression of cases or defendant elections in the open caseload. As such we cannot provide volume or timeliness estimates regarding the decision of the defendant to elect mode of trial within the disproportionate costs limit.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of either-way cases in the Crown Court backlog yet to elect mode of trial.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information about cases in the open caseload at both the magistrates’ courts and at the Crown Court. This includes breakdowns of volumes and durations as part of the Crown Court open caseload published as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly: Criminal court statistics quarterly.
The Ministry of Justice does not publish data relating to the progression of cases or defendant elections in the open caseload. As such we cannot provide volume or timeliness estimates regarding the decision of the defendant to elect mode of trial within the disproportionate costs limit.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of restricting access to trial by jury in England and Wales on public confidence in the judicial system.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Courts and Tribunals Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 25 February 2026. Alongside the Bill, an impact assessment of our proposed justice reforms was published: Courts and Tribunals Bill - GOV.UK. This includes an assessment of the proposed changes in the threshold for who can access a jury trial.
Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his department is taking to ensure that publicly available court information is not fragmented or incomplete, in the context of the deletion of the court desk archive.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There has been no deletion of the Courtsdesk archive of courts lists. Courtdesk does not hold courts records. We recognise that the ability for journalists to access and search courts lists in a single place is helpful. We are doing three things to improve the way in which magistrates’ and Crown court lists are made available. First, we have launched a market engagement exercise for new providers to apply to reuse our data under a new licensing regime (which would be open to Courtsdesk to apply for). Second, we have met Courtsdesk with a view to potentially re-establishing their service, provided they can demonstrate they will comply with data protection requirements. Third, by the end of March we will be expanding the Court and Tribunal Hearings (CaTH) service, an online portal which allows journalists, professional users and the public to access and search court-related information, to include magistrates’ and Crown court lists alongside the civil, family and tribunal hearing lists already published.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases exceeded the statutory time limit of six months for summary offences in each year since 2020, broken down by (a) offence, and (b) police force.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not hold data on the number of cases that exceeded the statutory time limit of six months for summary offences. We are unable to exclude cases from our timeliness data that are exempt from the time limit and cases that have been reopened.
Timeliness estimates from offence to charge for defendants dealt with in summary only cases at the magistrates’ courts are available in Table T3 of the published Criminal Courts Statistics release available at the following link: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many serving Magistrates there are in a) Newcastle-under-Lyme and b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Magistrates are appointed to a Local Justice Area (LJA). Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire both fall under the Staffordshire LJA, and we are unable to separate them as Magistrates are able to sit across all courts within this area. As of 01 April 2025, the number of serving magistrates in the Staffordshire Local Justice Area was 217.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will provide an estimate of the total cost of legal aid for foreign nationals in the last 5 years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department hold data on the number of foreign nationals who have received legal aid.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made with the Secretary of State for the Home Department of the cost to the public purse of prosecutions brought under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in relation to members and supporters of Palestine Action, broken down by the costs to (a) the Crown Prosecution Service, (b) the HM Courts and Tribunal Service including (i) the costs of sittings and (ii) ancillary costs including training additional magistrates to hear terrorism cases and (c) counter terrorism police to attend court; and how many court sessions have been held to hear these cases.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Between 5 July 2025 and 20 February 2026 a total of 629 defendants were received at magistrates’ courts in cases flagged as related to the Palestine Action Group. Of these, 562 have had a first hearing at a magistrates’ court, with those hearings taking place over 23 calendar days. It is not possible to identify the exact number of court sittings or to calculate the court sitting costs associated with these specific cases because multiple hearings for other offences and defendants may take place within the same court session or sitting day.
It is not possible to identify the ancillary costs to HM Courts and Tribunals Service that specifically relate to these cases. Information on costs incurred by the Crown Prosecution Service and by police forces is not held by the Ministry of Justice.