Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, to provide a list of organisations and individuals that are provided court lists containing home addresses and dates of birth of individuals, by HM Courts & Tribunals Service, either centrally or via individual courts.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Home addresses and dates of birth of individuals are not included in Crown Court, County Court, Family Court, High Court, lists of hearings, nor in lists of hearings in the Tribunals.
Standard lists of hearings produced by the Magistrates Court do contain the home addresses and dates of birth of individuals due to appear in court. These lists are only available to approved accredited members of the media, criminal justice partners and other government departments with legitimate reasons for requiring such information.
The names of individuals and organisations provided with court lists, containing home addresses and dates of birth of individuals is not collated or stored centrally.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to maintain the CourtsDesk database of court records.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Courtsdesk does not have a database of, or access to, court records. Criminal court case records are held in a variety of places including at individual courts, at The National Archives and by the Ministry of Justice. Neither the Ministry of Justice nor HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) are deleting any court records. They have always been, and will remain, available through formal requests to the relevant court.
Courtsdesk has developed a historic database using courts listing data. There has been no deletion on this database.
The Ministry of Justice is doing three things: first, we have launched a market engagement exercise for new providers to reuse our data under a new licensing regime (which would be open to Courtsdesk to apply for); second, in the interim, we have contacted Courtsdesk, and I have met with its CEO, with a view to potentially reestablishing their service provided they can demonstrate they will comply with our 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 and the public to access and search court-related information. By the end of March, CaTH will include Magistrates’ and Crown Court lists alongside the Civil, Family and Tribunal hearing lists already published.
Court records have always been, and will remain, available through formal request to the relevant court.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure timely and accurate access to magistrates court listings and registers for the public and media following the deletion of the Courtsdesk archive.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The starting point is there has been no deletion of the Courtsdesk “archive”.
Magistrates’ court listing and registers data continues to be available online, by email, in courts, and over the phone.
Work is underway to improve the way in which Magistrates and Crown court lists are available. First, we have launched a market engagement exercise for new providers to reuse our data under a new licensing regime (which would be open to Courtsdesk to apply for); second, in the interim, we have contacted Courtsdesk, and I have met with its CEO, with a view to potentially reestablishing their service provided they can demonstrate they will comply with our 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 and the public to access and search court-related information. By the end of March, CaTH will include Magistrates’ and Crown Court lists alongside the Civil, Family and Tribunal hearing lists already published.
Court records have always been, and will remain, available through formal requests to the relevant court.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve co-ordination between court staff, prison staff and policing staff.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government recognises the importance of different Departments working collaboratively. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice chairs the Criminal Justice Board to facilitate collaboration between all criminal justice system partners, including the police, HM Courts & Tribunals Service and HM Prison & Probation Service.
The Ministry of Justice also provides guidance to and opportunities for engagement between Local Criminal Justice Boards.
In tandem, the Government is considering the recommendations in Part II of Sir Brian Leveson’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts relating to the co-ordination between CJS partners and will respond to them in the coming months.
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 plans his department has to address the potential misuse of legal proceedings for purposes associated with Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Friday 13 February to Question 111038.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will set out the specific data protection concerns cited by HM Courts & Tribunals Service in its November 2025 cessation notice to Courtsdesk; and what assessment he has made of the reasons that data protection concerns could not be resolved without requiring deletion of the archive.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The concerns which led to the cessation of data sharing with Courtsdesk were based on the unauthorised sharing of HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) data with another party outside of the terms of the arrangement. Courtsdesk agreed under the terms of its pilot arrangement with HMCTS not to provide data to another company without notification to or authorisation by HMCTS. It acted outside the terms of that agreement by sharing data with a third-party AI company. The data provided to the other party without authorisation included sensitive, personally identifiable information of individuals involved in criminal cases, such as their full name, address and date of birth.
HMCTS takes seriously its responsibility to handle data safely to protect those people whose data it holds, and this left termination of the arrangement as the most appropriate course of action.
There has been no deletion of the archive
The Ministry of Justice is doing three things: first, we have launched a market engagement exercise for new providers to reuse our data under a new licensing regime (which would be open to Courtsdesk to apply for); second, in the interim, we have contacted Courtsdesk, and I have recently met with its CEO, with a view to potentially reestablishing their service provided they can demonstrate they will comply with our 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 and the public to access and search court-related information. By the end of March, CaTH will include Magistrates’ and Crown Court lists alongside the Civil, Family and Tribunal hearing lists already published.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, to publish how many times court lists containing home addresses and dates of birth of individuals have been provided to organisations and individuals, by HM Courts & Tribunals Service, either centrally or via individual courts broken down by day for every day of the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Home addresses and dates of birth of individuals are not included in Crown Court, County Court, Family Court, High Court, lists of hearings, nor in lists of hearings in the Tribunals.
Standard lists produced by the Magistrates’ Courts do contain the home addresses and dates of birth of individuals. Standard lists are only available to approved accredited members of the media, criminal justice partners and other government departments with legitimate reasons for requiring such information.
The management systems in Magistrates’ Courts do not collate the number of times courts lists containing home addresses and dates of birth of individuals are provided to organisations. This data is not held centrally.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Answers of 2 February 2026 to Question 109197, 109198, 109199 and 109200, if he will publish the number of people who were (a) convicted of and (b) did not receive an immediate custodial sentence for a (i) robbery, (ii) burglary, (iii) theft and (iv) sexual offence by year of conviction and individual number of previous conviction for that offence up to a maximum of six convictions, rather than grouping previous convictions.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The breakdown requested for PQ 109197, PQ 109198 and PQ 109199 was provided in PQ response 111800. The data for PQ 109200 is provided in the attached excel table. The table includes data covering the period 2020 – 2024 on:
The number of offenders who were convicted of a specified offence but did not receive an immediate custodial sentence, by the number of previous convictions for that specified offence up to a maximum of 6.
As set out in previous responses, this data is not regularly published or held in an easily accessible format. The information supplied has been sourced from a bespoke retrieval from the Police National Computer database.
Previous convictions are already a statutory aggravating factor, with Sentencing Guidelines being clear that sentencers must consider the nature and relevance of previous convictions, and the time elapsed since the previous convictions.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many directors with responsibility for human resources are employed across their department and its executive agencies; and how many of those directors hold professional HR qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development or equivalent professional bodies.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
As the number of individuals is five or fewer, the Ministry of Justice is unable to disclose the figure. This is to protect against the risk that individuals could be identified, in line with our obligations under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for a breakdown of what prison education courses, according to annual delivery plan data, were provided in January (a) 2025, and (b) 2026, by prison, level of qualification and duration.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
We are committed to ensuring that prisoners can access high-quality education and skills provision that supports rehabilitation and reduces re-offending.
The curriculum delivered through core education contracts is decided at local level, as is the number of education staff employed. It would not be possible to obtain this information from each prison without incurring disproportionate cost. It should be noted that the majority of teaching staff are employed by external providers.
In the interests of transparency, we intend to publish figures for changes to core education delivery volumes at individual prison level in the coming weeks.